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Food description processing methods and apparatuses

  • US 10,559,223 B2
  • Filed: 09/08/2014
  • Issued: 02/11/2020
  • Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2014
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A system comprising:

  • a preexisting database of crowd-sourced food records, the crowd-sourced food records including descriptions of associated food items previously entered by a plurality of first users;

    one or more processors; and

    a food data pre-processing engine, which, when operated by the one or more processors, limits the number of crowd-sourced food records in the database by causing the system to;

    receive a description of a food item entered by a second user;

    compare the user entered description to the preexisting database, the comparison comprising;

    division of the user entered description into a plurality of component words;

    elimination of unnecessary ones of the plurality of component words;

    standardization of remaining ones of the plurality of component words of the user entered description via removal of special characters or features therefrom; and

    determination of a single distance between the standardized remaining ones of the plurality of component words and respective component words of a description field for each of the food items associated with the food records in the preexisting database;

    when the distance indicates that the user entered description comprises a distinct food item having a description that is outside a threshold of similarity to an existing food record, store the standardized description of the food item in the preexisting database, wherein storage of the standardized description includes addition of the standardized description as a new food record to a cluster associated with the existing food record, and wherein the addition of the standardized description as a new food record to the cluster comprises (i) determination of a score associated with the standardized description, wherein the score is calculated based at least in part on a number of times the food record has been logged or a number of times the food record appeared in recent searches of the database, (ii) storage of the standardized description as a new food record of the cluster, and (iii) designation of the new food record as a new candidate record representative of the cluster based on a result of the determination of the score; and

    when the distance indicates that the user entered description of the food item is within a threshold of similarity to an existing food record in the preexisting database, merge the standardized description with the existing food record.

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