Nutri-expert, an educational software in nutrition
Nutri-Expert is an educational software which helps patients to improve their nutritional habits, by analyzing in detail their food intakes, and by suggesting changes that result in well-balanced meals.
Abstract
Nutri-Expert is an educational software which helps patients to improve their nutritional habits, by analyzing in detail their food intakes, and by suggesting changes that result in Ž well-balanced meals. The inherent imprecision of the data food composition, weight of . foods is represented by means of fuzzy intervals, according to the possibility theory. Fuzzy arithmetic is used to perform calculations, and fuzzy pattern matching to compare results with acceptable standards, yielding an assessment of the degree to which a meal is well balanced. Such degrees are translated into sentences by a simple but effective procedure. A tree search algorithm is then used to find out minimal sets of pertinent actions to perform on a meal in order to correct it. The search is guided by an evaluation function based on fuzzy pattern matching indices. In this real case, the possibility theory improves markedly the quality of the results and their resilience, for the price of a reasonable increase of calculation cost. Q 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.