Deliverable D3.7 A DSS tool (software) integrating the models developed in Tasks 3.1 to 3.4

A number of mathematical models are available to predict, characterise an animal or a group of animals, or to improve our understanding of underlaying mechanisms of animal production. In general, these models are not easily accessible for end-users. Although described and published in scientific journals, these models typically are written in specific programming languages and the source code of the model is not always published with the publication. Consequently, most of the conceptual models cannot be evaluated and used by non-expert users. It is therefore essential that models adhere to the Open Science concept and that tools (and the source code) are made available to allow end-users to work with these models.

The objective of the work was to provide models predicting feed use mechanisms and animal variation and to integrate those Feed-a-Gene models into a software. The developed software is a support tool facilitating the understanding how the models developed in Feed-a-Gene work. The models are described in different project deliverables and in scientific publications. The software tool is composed of eight modules, which can be accessed using the buttons on the main screen:

• Parameter estimation of the growing pig model
• The fitted growing pig model
• Parameter estimation of the poultry model
• The fitted poultry model
• The fatty acid model
• Stochasticity of the fitted growing pig model
• Modeling Response to Perturbations
• Modeling digestibility

The software is provided with a number of sample datasets, but user can also import their own data for use with the models.