Computing point-of-view : modeling and simulating judgments of taste

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-163).People have rich points-of-view that afford them the ability to judge the aesthetics of people, things, and everyday happenstance; yet viewpoint has an ineffable quality that is hard to articulate in words, let alone capture in computer models. Inspired by cultural theories of taste and identity, this thesis explores end-to-end computational modeling of people's tastes-from model acquisition, to generalization, to application- under various realms. Five aesthetical realms are considered-cultural taste, attitudes, ways of perceiving, taste for food, and sense-of-humor. A person's model is acquired by reading her personal texts, such as a weblog diary, a social network profile, or emails. To generalize a person model, methods such as spreading activation, analogy, and imprimer supplementation are applied to semantic resources and search spaces mined from cultural corpora. Once a generalized model is achieved, a person's tastes are brought to life through perspective-based applications, which afford the exploration of someone else's perspective through interactivity and play. The thesis describes model acquisition systems implemented for each of the five aesthetical realms.(cont.) The techniques of 'reading for affective themes' (RATE), and 'culture mining' are described, along with their enabling technologies, which are commonsense reasoning and textual affect analysis. Finally, six perspective-based applications were implemented to illuminate a range of real-world beneficiaries to person modeling-virtual mentoring, self-reflection, and deep customization.by Xinyu Hugo Liu.Ph.D

Innovative food recommendation systems: a machine learning approach

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonRecommendation systems employ users history data records to predict their preference, and have been widely used in diverse fields including biology, e-commerce, and healthcare. Traditional recommendation techniques include content-based, collaborative-based and hybrid methods but not all real-world problems can be best addressed by these classical recommendation techniques. Food recommendation is one such challenging problem where there is an urgent need to use novel recommendation systems in assisting people to select healthy, balanced and personalized food plans. In this thesis, we make several advances in food recommendation systems using innovative machine learning methods. First, a novel recommendation approach is proposed by transforming an original recommendation problem into a many-objective optimisation one that contains several different objectives resulting in more balanced recommendations. Second, a unified approach to designing sequence-based personalised food recommendation systems is investigated to accommodate dynamic user behaviours. Third, a new food recommendation approach is developed with a temporal dependent graph neural network and data augmentation techniques leading to more accurate and robust recommendations. The experimental results show that these proposed approaches have not only provided a more balanced and accurate way of recommending food than the traditional methods but also led to promising areas for future research

Got Breadfruit? Marshallese Foodways and Culture in Springdale, Arkansas

Understanding human food choices is essential in the examination of cultural knowledge and decision-making among members of any ethnic group. Ethnographic and cognitive anthropology methods, including a novel calculation of cognitive salience, were used in this study to explore the domain of traditional Marshallese foods in Springdale, Arkansas. Springdale is home to the highest population of Marshallese people outside of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI); the population is expected to rise as people continue to migrate from the RMI because of global climate change and other factors such as family ties. Studies of traditional foodways are increasingly crucial in social science because they offer a relevant lens for examining beliefs, behaviors, and other biocultural elements binding people together. This study is the first to examine traditional Marshallese foods in the diasporic context. It is also significant from health and nutritional perspectives because Marshallese people are at high risk for diet related diseases, such as type II diabetes. Breadfruit, long a standard starchy staple of Marshallese cuisine, was discovered to be the most important and socially shared traditional Marshallese food. Although breadfruit is gaining popularity in Western markets as a healthy superfood on par with kale and açaí, it is not yet readily available for purchase in Springdale. The practice of substituting higher-Glycemic Index (GI) white rice for lower-GI breadfruit began in the RMI during the 1930s and has carried over to the Springdale community today, where 46.5% of Marshallese adults have type II diabetes (a disease associated with higher dietary GI). The fact that breadfruit has such high cultural value and salience, despite infrequent consumption, represents Marshallese concepts of dietary change and constancy. Ultimately, the results of this work serve to illustrate how human diasporic groups adapt and respond to dramatic socio-ecological changes and challenges through culturally-constructed food beliefs, preferences, and consumption patterns

Eat This in Remembrance: The Zooarchaeology of Secular and Religious Sites in 17th-Century New Mexico

This thesis examines the faunal remains from LA 20,000, a 17th-century Spanish estancia near Santa Fe, New Mexico that was inhabited by a family of Spanish colonists and indigenous laborers. The data collected from these specimens are examined to better understand the diet of the site’s inhabitants, especially in conjunction with existing data on the plant portion of the diet at this site. Creating a more complete picture of the diet, the analysis covers Number of Identified Specimens (NISP), Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI), potential meat weight represented by the various species, bone modifications, and ageing and kill-off patterns. These all allow for a deeper understanding of the diet and negotiation of identity through foodways. For more context, the results of the analysis of LA 20,000’s collection are compared to data from Awatovi mission, which was inhabited contemporaneously. The comparison of these two collections reveals differing strategies between the secular and religious households that are affected by identity, politics, food availability, and social structure. This work is one of the first in-depth zooarchaeological analyses of the 17th-century New Mexican diet and it can be used to help understand the various strategies of power that Spanish colonists utilized

The Swedish ethnic food industry

The objective of this study is to identify, investigate, and explore ethnic entrepreneurs and mainstream retailers drivers, and problems behind the growing market for ethnic food in Sweden. In particular, the study will explore how these drivers and problems can be tackled and integrated to fit the new food experience among consumers that are demanding higher quality. In order for this study to be carried out as planned, a partial understanding of the ethnic food supply chain the ethnic entrepreneurs and mainstream retailers’ perspective will be discussed so as to shed more light and highlight the internetworking conditions among participants in this industry The research method is a qualitative one with the use of in depth interview to dig deep and explore the subject of study. An inductive approach is used to analyse the empiric s that showed some interesting findings. This was further discussed and expatiated on using a follow of narrative thoughts and concepts from the author’s perspective, and well renowned ideas, practices and academics work of selected researchers in the field. The drivers for entering into the ethnic food business were identified among ethnic entrepreneurs and mainstream retailers in Sweden. For the ethnic entrepreneurs these include the need to respond to the “want” of the consumers as well as create jobs and also integrating into the society. The findings showed that the mainstream retailers on the other hand, are driven into the market majorly as a result of their observation of the trends developing among ethnic consumer and the locals. The trend showed the popularity in ethnic food consumption and increased adaptation of global trend within the ethnic food market being adopted among mainstream retailers and ethnic entrepreneurs. Some of the problems identified where common to both retailers and the ethnic entrepreneurs while some were not. In a nut shell some of these problems were related to labelling, package presentation, product display, inadequate knowledge about the ethnic food products and some food concept, ethnic food sourcing, and institutional problem relating to the host country (i.e. Swedish in this case) system, unification of standardization and certification within the ethnic food certifiers and approval board. The writer further discussed interesting ideas on how to tackle these problems

Developing authentic foodservices to support the development of tourist attractions in Ghana.

Foodservice outlets have the potential to enhance the experience of visitors to a wide range of visitor attractions. As such introducing authentic foodservice outlets could potentially play significant role in the development of cultural-heritage and natural attractions in Ghana. Consuming local traditional foods leave nostalgic, memorable feelings, which create 'golden locations' and in turn encourage repeat visits and increase visitor traffic at these locations. The foodservice sector has however, been supported in Ghana generally and has been largely ignored at visitor attractions. In situations where foodservice outlets are limited, visitors can potentially find themselves unable to purchase any refreshments at the attractions. This detracts from their experience and discourages repeat visits. The main aim of this thesis is critically to evaluate the integration of foodservice at Ghanaian visitor attractions and to identify a suitable approach for developing authentic foodservice outlets at the sites. This thesis derived data from both secondary and primary research. With the lack of available data and records on Ghanaian visitor attractions and foodservice operations, the primary data collection exercise used a mixed-method approach in a two-Phase study over a one-year period. An exploratory survey of visitor attractions and foodservice operations in the research area, which also involved focus groups (n=56) and individual (n=6) interviews, within the academia and with stakeholders of tourism and foodservice sectors. Based on the findings of the Phasel study, the Phase2 study, involved a visitor survey (n=528) at six selected visitor attractions. A follow-up interview was conducted with attractions and foodservice personnel (n=24) at the attractions where the survey was conducted. The findings of the research have confirmed that the Ghanaian tourism industry has overlooked foodservice sector in the development of tourism and particularly at visitor attractions. It also established the importance of foodservice as part of the overall experiences at visitor attractions. It proposes independent! multi-owned/ franchises as the best alternative approaches for developing and integrating authentic foodservice outlets with Ghanaian visitor attractions. Therefore, the study proposes introducing formally trained staff to the informal traditional foodservice outlets to develop authentic foodservice outlets at visitor attractions as a positive way to support the tourism industry in Ghana. It also suggests that the proposals made to address the current situation in Ghana may be applicable to other countries in Africa seeking to develop sectors of their economies and be of interest to the relevant and the international bodies such as UNWTO, UNDP, and UNEP who seek to promote the development of sustainable tourism practices

Perspectives on Regional Food Tourism Development: The Case of Food Producers and Tourists in East Coast Malaysia (ECM)

This study explores the development of food tourism in East Coast Malaysia (ECM), focusing on the dual aspects of food production and food consumption. The role of locally produced food is directly connected to tourism because it can enhance the tourist experience and create additional economic activity in and around the destination (Boesen, Sundbo and Sundbo, 2017). This thesis focuses on the case of East Coast Malaysia (ECM), which as a tourist destination has not grasped the potential for food tourism to contribute to regional development within the local food and tourism networks. The literature linking producer and tourist inter-relationships to create tourism development is still sparse. This study adds the understanding of the broader aspect of food tourism studies focusing more on food production and consumption insights in influencing food tourism development. This integration is important to ensure local food is available to tourists and capable of creating exchange values for tourists as well as local producers. Additionally, the importance of food production and consumption linkages is an integral part of the food tourism sector, resultant from food as the main attraction that becomes an important tourist product. This thesis adopts a mixed-method approach based on a survey (N=204) of international tourists and semi-structured interviews (N=13) of food producers in the ECM states of Pahang and Terengganu. The results identified that ECM food producers need to be more engaged with tourist experiences in order to boost visitor numbers and it has a direct impact to re-shape local food production. Furthermore, the food tourism production process is an important influence on the development of ECM food tourism. The findings show that food production results in several key outcomes for economic development: product diversification and innovation, insource vs. outsource production, marketing techniques and tools, niche vs. mass market, supply chain and food network and Internationalization. Additionally, tourist food consumption (TFC) is highly influenced by the food experience factor that links tourists' country of origin, the frequency of visit, type of accommodation and estimated expenditure on food. Chi-square test based on tourist level of interest in Malaysian food, showed that 62.7% of tourists had a moderate or casual interest in local food, but they have a better knowledge of Malaysian food in contrast to other food tourist groups. Cluster analysis identifies three different types of tourists; active, dynamic and opportunist enthusiasts, based on tourists’ perception of local food, and variations of food tourists’ characteristics. Therefore, this study suggests that food tourism production-consumption integration is important to support ECM food tourism development, and co-creating an ‘added-value’ to the regional tourism industry