Evaluation of new approaches to the access of official monitoring results for live bivalves molluscs

Journal Article · 26 February 2019 · European Journal of Public Health

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckz018 · OSTI ID:1566906

da Costa, Manuel Beja ^[1]; Jurczuk, Magdalena ^[2]; Marques, Bernardo ^[3]; Silva, João Nuno  ^[1]

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1. INESC-ID Lisboa, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
2. Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
3. Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

Abstract Background Live bivalve molluscs, echinoderms, tunicates and marine gastropod are referred in EU food laws, and require member states to implement official controls in classified production areas, with the monitoring and classification of those areas. If, due to contaminant tests results, a production area is closed, any product from there is prohibited to be commercialized. Mobile applications optical character recognition (OCR) functionalities could ease the access to contaminant levels and production area classifications. This study verifies what information is available in live bivalves’ labels, describes an OCR algorithm for those labels and evaluates it. Methods 86 labels were selected from four sale points in Lisbon, and photographed using smartphones. Each label was evaluated by a human to determine what data was available (either required or not). An OCR algorithm was developed and applied on the collected labels and validated against the data extracted by the human analysis. Results The analysis shows that all the labels included the required information, and 63% of the labels included the identifier for the production zone. The label-reading algorithm performs with an accuracy of 79.85% for the individual values. Conclusion High accuracy of the developed label-reading algorithm shows potential for providing instant automatic access to the date and production area, but is affected by the variability on the label structure. Although not required by food laws, the majority of the sampled labels included complementary information (classified production area) that will allow access to more precise information about the existing biotoxin tests and analysis results.

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Supply Chain
• OSTI ID: 1566906
• Journal Information: European Journal of Public Health, Journal Name: European Journal of Public Health Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 29; ISSN 1101-1262
• Publisher: Oxford University PressCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: Country unknown/Code not available
• Language: English