Design, development and validation of software for modelling dietary exposure to food chemicals and nutrients

Abstract

The Monte Carlo computational system for stochastic modelling of dietary exposure to food chemicals and nutrients is presented. This system was developed through a European Commission-funded research project. It is accessible as a Web-based application service. The system allows and supports very signijicant complexity in the data sets used as the model input, but provides a simple, general purpose, linear kernel for model evaluation. SpeciJic features of the system include the ability to enter (arbitrarily) complex mathematical or probabilistic expressions at each and every input data field, automatic bootstrapping on subjects and on subject food intake diaries, and custom kernels to apply brand information such as market share and loyalty to the calculation of food and chemical intake.

Keywords:

• software
• Monte Carlo
• simulation
• food chemical
• high-performance computing
• validation