NutriSyn: Knowledge Based Synonym Retrieval Service for Food and Dishes on the Web

ABSTRACT

Studies based on food analysis or food databases use the national standard food database. Although Internet information services are increasing gradually, users are only able to get definitive and profitable information using standard food terms. Until now, it has been uncommon to find food retrieval services that include users' regional or historical characteristics. Thus, this study introduces a prototype for Food and Dish Synonym Retrieval (NutriSyn) that includes synonyms and related words. The environments which NutriSyn was implemented were Linux for the server operating system, the Microsoft Windows series for the users' operating system and Apache for a web server. The development languages used are PHP, JavaScript and HTLM with a MySQL database. Users can access NutriSyn using Internet browsers. The main menu items are (1) Food Synonym DB, (2) Dish Synonym DB, (3) Food Information DB, (4) Dish Information DB, and (5) Food and Menu Synonym Retrieval. This system is expected to be a useful tool for food experts and inter- disciplinary research.