Microbial quality assessment methods for fresh-cut fruits and vegetables

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lihua Fan and Jun Song
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Assessment Methods ◽  
Microbial Quality ◽  
Fresh Cut

scholarly journals Quality Assessment of Fruits and Vegetables using Bio-impedance based Expert System

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 965-970
Keyword(s):  
Expert System ◽  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Daily Intake ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Assessment Methods ◽  
World Health ◽  
Micronutrient Deficiencies ◽  
Health Organization

World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a daily intake of at least 400 grams of fruits and vegetables, to prevent diet related chronic diseases and micronutrient deficiencies. It is essential to ensure the quality of foods consumed by the population on a daily basis. Quality of fruits and vegetables is governed by nutritional level, appearance, flavor and climate. Quality assessment methods should be environment friendly and should also benefit both consumers and farmers by enhancing taste and increasing yield, respectively. Conventionally employed quality assessment methods like bio-chemical analysis, imaging etc. are destructive, inefficient and time consuming. Bio-tissues are made up of cells with selectively permeable cell membranes and this makes them equivalent to resistive-capacitive network. Such a network impedes an alternating current (AC) excitation signal applied to it. This bio-impedance (BI) is measured through LCR meters, impedance analysers and off-the shelf chip based boards. In this work we have developed an accurate, smart and non destructive bio-impedance based quality evaluation technique. BI is measured as magnitude and phase for 7 days for each variety of fruit and vegetable followed by exhaustive frequency (5 kHz-200 kHz), ripening and rot analysis. BI magnitude increases as number of days advance i.e. with ripening and the phase undergoes considerable decrease with rotting. The system is made smart by incorporating an expert system. 178 samples of bio-impedance data are used to train the expert system and supervised classification is done through Random Forest classifier. Any fruit or vegetable can be classified as ’Good’ or ’Bad’ immediately and accurately with a maximum accuracy of 98.57%

Effect of Vacuum-Steam-Vacuum Treatment on Microbial Quality of Whole and Fresh-Cut Cantaloupe†

2006 ◽  
Vol 69 (7) ◽  
pp. 1623-1629 ◽  
Author(s):  
DIKE O. UKUKU ◽  
XUETONG FAN ◽  
MICHAEL F. KOZEMPEL
Keyword(s):  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Vacuum Treatment ◽  
Microbial Quality ◽  
Pseudomonas Spp ◽  
Mesophilic Bacteria ◽  
Log Reduction ◽  
Fresh Cut ◽  
Yeasts And Molds ◽  
Spoilage Microflora

Minimally processed fruits and vegetables have a limited shelf life because of deterioration caused by spoilage microflora and physiological processes. Cutting may increase microbial spoilage of fruits through transfer of microflora on the outer surfaces to the interior tissue. The objectives of this study were to use the vacuum-steam-vacuum (VSV) process to reduce indigenous spoilage microflora on the surface of cantaloupes and to investigate the effects of such treatments on transfer of spoilage microflora from the cantaloupe surface to the fresh-cut melon during rind removal and cutting. Whole cantaloupes were treated in the VSV processor, and fresh-cut pieces prepared from treated and control samples were stored at 5 and 10°C for up to 9 days. Presence and growth of mesophilic bacteria, yeasts and molds, and Pseudomonas spp. were determined in fresh-cut samples during storage. Texture and color (CIE L*, a*, and b*) also were measured during storage. VSV treatment resulted in a 1.0-log reduction of aerobic mesophilic bacteria, a 2.0-log reduction of yeasts and molds, and a 1.5-log reduction of Pseudomonas spp. on cantaloupe surfaces. VSV treatment significantly reduced transfer of yeasts and molds and Pseudomonas spp. from whole cantaloupe surface to fresh-cut pieces during preparation (P < 0.05). Texture and color of the fresh-cut pieces prepared from the VSV-treated whole melons were similar to those of the controls. The results of this study indicate that the use of the VSV process to reduce the surface populations of yeasts and molds and Pseudomonas spp. on whole cantaloupes will reduce subsequent transfer of these microbes to fresh-cut pieces and enhance the microbial quality of the fresh-cut product.

Overview on Image Quality Assessment Methods

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 (1) ◽  
pp. 219-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gang-yi Jiang ◽  
Da-jiang Huang ◽  
Xu Wang ◽  
Mei Yu
Keyword(s):  
Image Quality ◽  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Image Quality Assessment ◽  
Assessment Methods

scholarly journals Study on browning mechanism of fresh-cut eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) based on metabolomics, enzymatic assays and gene expression

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaohui Liu ◽  
Aidong Zhang ◽  
Jing Shang ◽  
Zongwen Zhu ◽  
Ye Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Solanum Melongena ◽  
Downward Trend ◽  
Glutathione Metabolism ◽  
Phenylpropanoid Metabolism ◽  
Kegg Pathways ◽  
Maximum Value ◽  
Cut Time ◽  
Fresh Cut

AbstractEnzymatic browning is one of the crucial problems compromising the flavor and texture of fresh-cut fruit and vegetables. In this study, an untargeted metabolomics approach based on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC–MS) was used to explore the browning mechanism in fresh-cut eggplant. Metabolomics studies showed that with the increase of fresh-cut time, the contents of 946 metabolites changed dynamically. The metabolites having the same trend share common metabolic pathways. As an important browning substrate, the content of chlorogenic acid increased significantly, suggesting that may be more important to fresh-cut eggplant browning; all 119 common differential metabolites in 5 min/CK and 3 min/CK contrastive groups were mapped onto 31 KEGG pathways including phenylpropanol metabolism, glutathione metabolism pathway, et al. In physiological experiments, results showed that the Phenylpropanoid-Metabolism-Related enzymes (PAL, C4H, 4CL) were changed after fresh-cut treatment, the activities of three enzymes increased first and then decreased, and reached the maximum value at 5 min, indicating the accumulation of phenolic substances. At the same time, ROS were accumulated when plant tissue damaged by cutting, the activities of related antioxidant enzymes (SOD, APX and CAT) changed dynamically after oxidative damage. SOD and APX content increased significantly and reached the maximum value at 10 min after cutting, and then showed a downward trend. However, CAT activity increased sharply and reached the maximum value within 3 min after cutting, then maintained the same activity, and showed a downward trend after 30 min. These data fully demonstrated that the activities of browning related enzymes and gene expression increased with the prolonging of fresh cutting time. We explained the browning mechanism of fresh-cut eggplant by combining metabolomics and physiology, which may lay the foundation for better understanding the mechanism of browning during the fruits and vegetables during processing.

Cold plasma processing of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables

2020 ◽  
pp. 339-356
Author(s):  
Cherakkathodi Sudheesh ◽  
Kappat Valiyapeediyekkal Sunooj
Keyword(s):  
Cold Plasma ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Plasma Processing ◽  
Fresh Cut

Quality Assessment of Medical Research and Education

1992 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-489
Author(s):  
Håkan Eriksson
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Assessment Methods ◽  
Potential Problems ◽  
Research And Education

AbstractDifferent aspects of the process of evaluating research and education are discussed, using the discipline of medicine as a model. The focus is primarily on potential problems in the design of an evaluation. The most important aspects of an assessment are: to create confidence in the evaluation among scientists and/or teachers who are being assessed before beginning; to find experts for whom the scientists and/or teachers have professional respect; to choose assessment methods in relation to the focus, level, and objectives of the evaluation; and to make the report of the evaluation's findings short and explicit.

scholarly journals No-reference Automatic Quality Assessment for Colorfulness-Adjusted, Contrast-Adjusted, and Sharpness-Adjusted Images Using High-Dynamic-Range-Derived Features

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 1688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinseong Jang ◽  
Hanbyol Jang ◽  
Taejoon Eo ◽  
Kihun Bang ◽  
Dosik Hwang
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Dynamic Range ◽  
High Dynamic Range ◽  
Assessment Methods ◽  
Reference Image ◽  
Range Images ◽  
Automatic Assessment ◽  
Visual Preference ◽  
Subjective Evaluations ◽  
High Dynamic

Image adjustment methods are one of the most widely used post-processing techniques for enhancing image quality and improving the visual preference of the human visual system (HVS). However, the assessment of the adjusted images has been mainly dependent on subjective evaluations. Also, most recently developed automatic assessment methods have mainly focused on evaluating distorted images degraded by compression or noise. The effects of the colorfulness, contrast, and sharpness adjustments on images have been overlooked. In this study, we propose a fully automatic assessment method that evaluates colorfulness-adjusted, contrast-adjusted, and sharpness-adjusted images while considering HVS preferences. The proposed method does not require a reference image and automatically calculates quantitative scores, visual preference, and quality assessment with respect to the level of colorfulness, contrast, and sharpness adjustment. The proposed method evaluates adjusted images based on the features extracted from high dynamic range images, which have higher colorfulness, contrast, and sharpness than that of low dynamic range images. Through experimentation, we demonstrate that our proposed method achieves a higher correlation with subjective evaluations than that of conventional assessment methods.

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