Description
Book SynopsisThis book is based on papers presented at a symposium held in 2005 in South Africa. It brings together the most recent academic writings on modelling concepts, problems and applications of models and looks at the development, usefulness and limitations of models in pigs and poultry. Contents includes; description of growth and feed intake, modelling social systems and disease effects, nutrient flow models, energy transactions and energy feed systems, optimisation of broiler nutrition and modelling egg production in layering hens.
Table of Contents1: An introduction to modelling in the animal sciences, 2: Scientific progress and mathematical modelling: Different approaches to modelling animal systems, 3: Basic concepts describing animal growth and feed intake, 4: The effects of social stressors on the performance of growing pigs, 5: Modelling populations for purposes of optimisation, 6: Advancements in empirical models for prediction and prescription, 7: The problem of predicting the partitioning of scarce resources during sickness and health in pigs, 8: Nutrient flow models, energy transactions and energy feed systems, 9: Evaluating animal genotypes through model inversion, 10: Considerations for representing micro-environmental conditions in simulation models for broiler chickens, 11: Using physiological models to define environmental control strategies, 12: Modelling egg production in laying hens, 13: Comparison of pig growth models – the genetic point of view, 14: Mechanistic modelling at the metabolic level: A model of metabolism in the sow as an example, 15: The place of models in the new technologies of production systems,
