Monitoring Food
Consumption
Food study at the UC Davis automates balance
data acquisition using WinWedge.
The McDonald Lab in the Department of Nutrition at the University
of California, Davis devotes its studies to the characteristics
of senescence (aging) in humans and animals. Dr. McDonald,
a Professor in the Department of Nutrition, recently embarked
on a study to evaluate the relationship among aging, food
consumption, and rapid senescence.
Dr. McDonald already knows that, in general, rats and humans
tend to eat less as they age. Moreover, Dr. McDonald has discovered
that older rats experience an increase in the rate of weight
loss and a decrease in food intake near the end of the life
span. The results of Dr. McDonald’s investigations in rats
will be used to evaluate possible mechanisms associated with
the "failure to thrive" syndrome observed in senescent humans.
The Model
To model the study, Dr. McDonald is focusing on the eating
habits in older rats. The study will take place over a several
year time period and a statistically significant number of
rats will be monitored.
The model involves tracking the eating habits of older rats.
The eating habits are monitored by weighing both the rat’s
food container and the rat itself. Scientists in the lab weigh
the food container on a Denver XL 6100 balance, and weigh
the rat (including the cage) using a Pennsylvania Scale Model
7300. The project scientists emphasized that since constant
monitoring of weights is a difficult task, the process had
to be automated.
To automate the process, the weight readings
are transmitted through the serial ports of the scales to
a personal computer
running WinWedge. The rat’s weight and the food container
weight are transmitted through com port 3 and com port 4,
respectively, into the PC. WinWedge captures the data readings
on serial ports com 3 and com 4 and directs the data via
dynamic
data exchange (DDE) to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for
analysis and graphing. Excel is able to easily handle the
charting
and statistical analysis of the data.
The system also utilizes several macros that
trigger WinWedge to read only those weights within certain
specified parameters.
It is important to record a reading only when the rat’s weight
decreases by 5 or more grams. Other readings are to be ignored.
In addition, it is necessary to record the food container
weight when it is descending in value as this indicates
that
the rat has eaten. Increases in the weight of the food container
are not recorded as they may indicate that the rat is leaning
on the container. With the help of TAL’s technical support
staff, Dr. McDonald’s requirements were met with a series
of Excel macros that ignore unwanted readings and date
and
time stamp the acceptable readings. Dr. McDonald expects
that the results of these investigations will offer insight
into
mechanisms that reflect altered food intake in the elderly.
WinWedge Collects Data around the Clock
Cynthia Blanton, a graduate student in Dr. McDonald’s laboratory,
noted that this project would not have been feasible had it
not been for the automation of data collection offered by
WinWedge. The weight readings would have been impossible to
track using a manual data entry method. With the use of WinWedge,
the entire process is automated and runs completely independently.
Therefore, the data collection takes place 24 hours a day,
7 days a week with 100% accuracy.
Benefits
- Continuous data collection, 24 hours per day
- Only desired weight readings recorded; others ignored
- Complete background data collection allowing simultaneous
use of PC
Questions on the study can be directed to:
Dr. Roger B. McDonald, Ph.D.
Department of Nutrition
University of California, Davis
(916)752-4814 Office
(916)752-2628 Lab
(916)752-8966 Fax
rbmcdonald@ucdavis.edu
TAL Technologies, Inc.
2101 Brandywine Street,
Suite 102,
Philadelphia, PA 19130, USA
Tel: 800-722-6004
Tel: 215-496-0222
Fax: 215-496-0322
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