Expert food analysis system
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2015
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Diet is a main factor which directly affects the health condition of a living being. Most of the times, unsuitable diet
practices are the main reasons for long term diseases in the human body. For examples, unsuitable diet practice is the
reason for occurring and increasing the diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart diseases, cancers, allergies, etc.
By choosing the correct diet can not only save the body from numerous diseases but also cure existing diseases.
Suitability or unsuitability of a diet depend on numerous factors like existing diseases of the body, age, gender, special
body events like pregnancy, season of the year etc. Apart from the human health it may be required to select a suitable
diet based on the religion and cultural facts of each person.
To identify a suitable diet (food products), it is required to analyze each and every food component which is used to
produce a complete food product. But, due to the complexity of the formation of the food products in the current market
and the less knowledge in the food analyzing domain makes it difficult to select the suitable food product base on the
above mentioned facts.
With the help of Information Technology and knowledge of Ayurvedic Medicine, it is possible to identify a path to reduce
the difficulty in analyzing food products (Alwis, R. 2012; Hemachandra, D. and Karunaratne, H. 2007). Ayurvedic
medicine is rich in knowledge to analyse a food product but it is difficult to use that knowledge by the general public due
to less understanding of the Ayurvedic food analyzing knowledge and less availability of the information from the food
producers regarding the food product (Nagodawithana, P. 2007).
With the help of the Information Technology, it is possible to identify a pathway to provide a solution for above mentioned
problems by creating an efficient and simple way for the proper flow of information among human experts in food
analyzing domain, food producers and customers.
By using this solution, it is possible to keep the people away from the diseases which could be occurred due to unsuitable
diet selections. It will improve the life quality of the human society. Additionally it will provide a high value to the
economy.
“Expert Food Analysis System” will help people by minimizing the complexity when they are going to select a suitable
diet based on their physical body and social status. Selection of a suitable diet will result a healthier society which is free
from most of highly spread diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart diseases etc.
“Expert Food Analysis System” creates new business opportunities in the market. It will create a competition among food
products in terms of their healthiness. That competition will keep the healthy food products in the market and will create
new opportunities for healthy new food products in the food market. And also will remove the food products which are
obvious reasons for diseases.
The final outcome of this solution or the final goal of this product is improving the quality of life in the society by
combining medicine and business with information technology.
Methodology
The whole project consists of three main parts as Expert System, Web Application and Mobile application. Expert System
is implemented with CLIPS (C Language Integrated Production System) and is integrated into Web application using
Mommosoft library (CLIPSNet; CLIPS). Web application is implemented with HTML, Javascript, CSS and C# in the
Visual Studio 2010 environment. Databases were created with Ms SQL (MSDN Library; Newest Questions). Considering
the whole system, Expert System can be considered as the back-end. Mobile application is the front-end and web
application acts as the intermediate component between mobile and expert applications. Web application is hosted in an
IIS testing server. Mobile application is developed with Java on Android platform in the Eclipse environment. Mobile
application and Web application is linked together with the internet.
Human food analysis experts should store their knowledge related to food analysis domain as raw data in the knowledge
base of the Expert System. Raw data about various food products including ingredients should be stored in a SQL
database. Web interfaces have been provided for ease of data insertion. System generates a QR code which is included
an identification number which can uniquely identifies each registered food product. Generated QR code should be
attached with the package of the food product or racks etc. Food consumers have to maintain a personal profile including
the information related to personal health and culture.
Food consumers can scan the QR code with the mobile application and validate the food product by comparing the
information already printed on the package of the food product and received information by the mobile application. When
a QR code is scanned, mobile application send an identification number to the web server and refer the SQL database for
food ingredients and personal profile. Then those data will be analysed and send the report to the consumer which
indicates how the particular food product personally will be effected.
SQL database also stores the consumer feedbacks and raw data which are statistically valuable. Data transferring between
the mobile application and remote server will be handled by http requests and responses.
Description
Keywords
Science and Technology, Food Science, Food Technology, Computer Science, System, Information Technology