4 research outputs found
Lamb meat quality assessment by support vector machines
The correct assessment of meat quality (i.e., to fulfill the consumer's needs) is crucial element within the meat industry. Although there are several factors that affect the perception of taste,
tenderness is considered the most important characteristic. In this paper, a Feature Selection procedure, based on a Sensitivity Analysis, is combined with a Support Vector Machine, in order to predict lamb meat tenderness. This real-world problem is defined in terms of two difficult regression tasks, by modeling objective (e.g. Warner-Bratzler Shear force) and subjective (e.g. human taste panel) measurements. In both cases, the proposed solution is competitive when compared with other neural (e.g. Multilayer Perceptron) and Multiple Regression approaches
Using data mining for wine quality assessment
Certification and quality assessment are crucial issues within
the wine industry. Currently, wine quality is mostly assessed by physico-
chemical (e.g alcohol levels) and sensory (e.g. human expert evaluation)
tests. In this paper, we propose a data mining approach to predict wine
preferences that is based on easily available analytical tests at the certifi-
cation step. A large dataset is considered with white vinho verde samples
from the Minho region of Portugal. Wine quality is modeled under a re-
gression approach, which preserves the order of the grades. Explanatory
knowledge is given in terms of a sensitivity analysis, which measures the
response changes when a given input variable is varied through its do-
main. Three regression techniques were applied, under a computationally
efficient procedure that performs simultaneous variable and model selec-
tion and that is guided by the sensitivity analysis. The support vector
machine achieved promising results, outperforming the multiple regres-
sion and neural network methods. Such model is useful for understand-
ing how physicochemical tests affect the sensory preferences. Moreover,
it can support the wine expert evaluations and ultimately improve the
production