Ontological how and why: action and objective of planned processes in the food domain

Abstract

The computational modeling of food processing, aimed at various applications including industrial automation, robotics, food safety, preservation, energy conservation, and recipe nutrition estimation, has been ongoing for decades within food science research labs, industry, and regulatory agencies. The datasets from this prior work have the potential to advance the field of data-driven modeling if they can be harmonized, but this requires a standardized language as a starting point. Our primary goal is to explore two interdependent aspects of this language: the granularity of process modeling sub-parts and parameter details and the substitution of compatible inputs and processes. A delicate semantic distinction—categorizing planned processes based on the objectives they seek to fulfill vs. categorizing them by the actions or mechanisms they utilize—helps organize and facilitate this endeavor. To bring an ontological lens to process modeling, we employ the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology Foundry ontological framework to organize two main classes of the FoodOn upper-level material processing hierarchy according to objective and mechanism, respectively. We include examples of material processing by mechanism, ranging from abstract ones such as “application of energy” down to specific classes such as “heating by microwave.” Similarly, material processing by objective—often a transformation to bring about materials with certain qualities or composition—can, for example, range from “material processing by heating threshold” to “steaming rice”.