ARIES: an expert system supporting legislative tasks. Identifying animal materials using the Linnaeus II software

Abstract

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, Mad cow disease) is generally considered to be caused by recycling animal by-products as ingredient in animal, especially ruminant, feed. Feed bans were enforced to minimize the risk on infections, and monitoring programs are effectuated for controlling the ban. The only official detection method is visual (microscopic) examination of the presence of primarily bone fragments, but muscle fibres, hairs, feather filaments, and fish bones are targeted as well. An expert system is developed called ARIES (Animal Remains Identification and Evaluation System) with identification tools for those fragments. ARIES provides information on procedures, legislation and background documentation, and descriptions of prohibited materials as well as of a range of confusing particles. The system allows documentation of the results of evaluations for future reference and is considered a good platform for training and education.