KENNESAW, Ga. | November 25, 2024
A easy “meals selfie” may maintain essential dietary knowledge, and a smartphone utility created by Kennesaw State College college students will be the key to delivering that data as actionable insights to folks monitoring their consuming habits.
KSU graduate scholar Afnan Ahmed Crystal has joined assistant professor of knowledge know-how Maria Valero and doctoral scholar El Arbi Belfarsi on The Nutrilyzer, an app able to extracting dietary knowledge from an image taken with a smartphone. Just like Valero’s revolutionary GlucoCheck machine, which is a non-invasive blood glucose monitoring system, the app would enable folks to higher monitor their day-to-day consuming habits by way of synthetic intelligence (AI).
“We are attempting to construct an app to enrich the GlucoCheck machine, permitting customers to enter related data, take a easy image with their smartphone, and procure an estimate of the dietary content material utilizing AI. This estimate will probably be used to research the influence on blood glucose in tandem with the GlucoCheck machine. We consider the app might empower folks to make higher choices about vitamin.” stated Crystal, who will graduate subsequent month along with her Grasp of Science in Laptop Science.
A key element of the appliance is its use of AI. That’s the place Belfarsi’s experience in giant language fashions (LLMs) comes into play. Initially employed as a knowledge analyst at a buying and selling agency, he developed an curiosity in LLMs and sought to use his experience to well being informatics programs. He noticed the potential for AI to assist folks make higher choices about vitamin.
“Giant language fashions are primarily designed for processing textual knowledge,” stated Belfarsi, who’s pursuing a Ph.D. in Laptop Science. “When coping with photos, they depend on further layers just like the Contrastive Language–Picture Pretraining (CLIP) mannequin, which is skilled to match photos with their textual descriptions. Subsequently, when prompting for dietary knowledge, we’re successfully leveraging exterior laptop imaginative and prescient fashions that complement the LLM’s capabilities.”
Valero credit the 2 college students with combining their experience and addressing potential pitfalls, equivalent to regional cuisines that might probably generate ethnic bias within the supply of correct data. The app has additionally been made to regulate suggestions in keeping with portion sizes. It’s all a part of the Web of Issues as a Service Analysis Group’s aim of serving to folks stay more healthy lives by way of utilized know-how.
“Subsequent, we’ll give the appliance to folks, ask them to make use of our steady glucose monitor, and accumulate knowledge,” Valero stated. “With that knowledge, we will do a mannequin for a person prediction of how your glucose goes to behave. Past that, the app can prescribe different habits like train to mitigate existence and different components.”
The venture doesn’t intend to exchange the function of a dietician or nutritionist, however
to reinforce the human component with a helpful app that anybody can use. Future variations
of the app may think about train habits chronicled by way of wearable know-how like
Fitbits or Apple Watches.
“The primary aim is to benchmark whether or not the LLMs can outperform a dietician’s analysis, or vice versa,” Crystal stated. “The second is to leverage AI for higher vitamin decision-making and enhance folks’s lives. We plan to combine different wearable units and push personalised knowledge from these wearables to AI to enhance its responses.”
The Nutrilyzer is in an early testing stage with a doable launch this spring.
Story by Dave Shelles
Photograph by Matt Yung
A pacesetter in modern instructing and studying, Kennesaw State College provides undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels to its greater than 47,000 college students. Kennesaw State is a member of the College System of Georgia with 11 educational schools. The college’s vibrant campus tradition, various inhabitants, robust world ties and entrepreneurial spirit draw college students from all through the nation and the world. Kennesaw State is a Carnegie-designated doctoral analysis establishment (R2), inserting it amongst an elite group of solely 7 % of U.S. schools and universities with an R1 or R2 standing. For extra data, go to kennesaw.edu.
