scholarly journals A Study on the Potential of IAD as a Surrogate Index of Quality and Storability in cv. ‘Gala’ Apple Fruit

Agronomy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadja Sadar ◽  
Angelo Zanella
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Visible Spectrum ◽  
Apple Fruit ◽  
Portable Devices ◽  
Biological Variability ◽  
Fruit Storage ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Chlorophyll Contents ◽  
And Storage

The decline of relative chlorophyll contents during fruit ripening is considered to be an important indicator of fruit physiological condition. The recent availability of low-cost portable visible spectrum (VIS) spectrometers has spurred research interest towards optical sensing of chlorophyll changes in intact fruit, with many scientists attempting to link the shifts in optical signals, attributed to chlorophyll changes, to different maturity and quality parameters. One of the widely available portable devices for non-destructive estimation of relative chlorophyll contents is the DA meter, which provides a maturity index that is calculated as a difference between absorption at 670 nm (near the chlorophyll-a absorption peak) and 720 nm (background of the spectrum), abbreviated as IAD. In the present study, the evolution of IAD and its relation to starch pattern index (SPI) and fruit flesh firmness (FFF) was monitored in fruit of two cv. ‘Gala’ clones during maturation and storage, aiming to identify a potential existence of a usable IAD range for the assessment and prediction of the optimal harvest window and storage potential. In both clones, canopy positions, fruit sides, and seasons IAD, SPI, and FFF generally changed in a linear fashion over time, but with partially very different slopes, i.e., they were changing at different rates. What all of these parameters had in common was the presence of a very high biological variability, which is typical of apple fruit. Significantly powerful estimations of SPI (r2 > 0.7, p < 0.005) and pre- and post-storage FFF (r2 > 0.6, p < 0.005) were achieved. However, the very large biological variability could not be neutralized, which means that the predictions always included large confidence intervals of up to 0.46–0.59 units for SPI and 0.82–1.1 kgF FFF, which ultimately makes them unusable for practical applications. Experiments done under real-life conditions in a commercial fruit storage facility on several different fruit batches confirmed that IAD measured at harvest cannot be used indiscriminately for predicting post-storage FFF of cv. ‘Gala’ originating from different orchards. Nevertheless, mean IAD values that were obtained at optimal maturity from samples of the same orchards remained stable over seasons (0.8–1.2), which strongly suggests that, provided that the calibrations and validations are not only cultivar, but also orchard-specific, IAD has a potential for estimating maturity and storability of apple fruit. In this case, IAD could replace standard maturity indices, otherwise it would be suited for use as a supplementary index for determining fruits physiological maturity status.

scholarly journals Pre-Drawn Syringes of Comirnaty for an Efficient COVID-19 Mass Vaccination: Demonstration of Stability

Pharmaceutics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1029
Author(s):  
Francesca Selmin ◽  
Umberto M. Musazzi ◽  
Silvia Franzè ◽  
Edoardo Scarpa ◽  
Loris Rizzello ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Stress ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Storage Conditions ◽  
Lipid Nanoparticles ◽  
Mass Vaccination ◽  
Hydrodynamic Diameter ◽  
The Us ◽  
Real Mass ◽  
The Stability ◽  
And Storage

Moving towards a real mass vaccination in the context of COVID-19, healthcare professionals are required to face some criticisms due to limited data on the stability of a mRNA-based vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine in the US or Comirnaty in EU) as a dose in a 1 mL-syringe. The stability of the lipid nanoparticles and the encapsulated mRNA was evaluated in a “real-life” scenario. Specifically, we investigated the effects of different storing materials (e.g., syringes vs. glass vials), as well as of temperature and mechanical stress on nucleic acid integrity, number, and particle size distribution of lipid nanoparticles. After 5 h in the syringe, lipid nanoparticles maintained the regular round shape, and the hydrodynamic diameter ranged between 80 and 100 nm with a relatively narrow polydispersity (<0.2). Samples were stable independently of syringe materials and storage conditions. Only strong mechanical stress (e.g., shaking) caused massive aggregation of lipid nanoparticles and mRNA degradation. These proof-of-concept experiments support the hypothesis that vaccine doses can be safely prepared in a dedicated area using an aseptic technique and transferred without affecting their stability.

scholarly journals Effects of 1-MCP on External Postharvest Qualities and Shelf Life of ‘Maha Chanok’ Mango Fruit

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
B. Chutichudet ◽  
Prasit Chutichudet ◽  
Usana Trainoak
Keyword(s):  
Chlorophyll Content ◽  
Fruit Weight ◽  
Storage Life ◽  
Fruit Firmness ◽  
Mango Fruit ◽  
Chlorophyll Contents ◽  
Randomized Design ◽  
Fruit Decay ◽  
Completely Randomized Design ◽  
And Storage

<p>‘Maha Chanok’<strong> </strong>mango is an economic fruit crop widely cultivated commercially throughout Thailand. By nature, mango fruit has a rather limited storage life after harvest. 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) has been accepted as a commercial substance to improve several fruit qualities. The objective of this research was to study the effects of 1-MCP on the external postharvest qualities and storage life on the ‘Maha Chanok’ mango fruit. The experiment was laid out in a Completely Randomized Design with three replicates, ten fruits per replicate. Mango fruit was fumigated with 1-MCP at three concentrations (1000, 1250, or 1500 nl l<sup>-1</sup>) and three fumigation periods (12, 18, or 24 h), compared with the control fruit. After treating, all treatments were stored under ambient temperature (27 °C, 80%R.H.). The following determinations were made every two days for assessment of fruit weight loss, firmness, chlorophyll content, decay incidence, and storage life. The results showed that fruit treated with 1500 nl l<sup>-1</sup><strong> </strong>1-MCP for 24 h had the maximal fruit firmness. For chlorophyll content, the results showed that fruit-treated with 1500 nl l<sup>-1</sup><strong> </strong>1-MCP for 12 h could effectively retain the highest chlorophyll contents. Furthermore, both the lowest fruit decay and the longest storage life of 12 days were achieved from the fruit treated with 1000 nl l<sup>-1</sup><strong> </strong>1-MCP for 12 h.</p>

scholarly journals Internet of medical things – integrated, ultrasound-based respiration monitoring system for incubators

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Tareq Abdulqader
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Respiration Rate ◽  
Surface Measurement ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Portable Devices ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
The Us ◽  
Respiratory Signal ◽  
Central Apnoea ◽  
Respiration Signal

The study's aim was to develop a non-contact, ultrasound (US) based respiration rate and respiratory signal monitor suitable for babies in incubators. Respiration rate indicates average number of breaths per minute and is higher in young children than adults. It is an important indicator of health deterioration in critically ill patients. The current incubators do not have an integrated respiration monitor due to complexities in its adaptation. Monitoring respiratory signal assists in diagnosing respiration rated problems such as central Apnoea that can affect infants. US sensors are suitable for integration into incubators as US is a harmless and cost-effective technology. US beam is focused on the chest or abdomen. Chest or abdomen movements, caused by respiration process, result in variations in their distance to the US transceiver located at a distance of about 0.5 m. These variations are recorded by measuring the time of flight from transmitting the signal and its reflection from the monitored surface. Measurement of this delay over a time interval enables a respiration signal to be produced from which respiration rate and pauses in breathing are determined. To assess the accuracy of the developed device, a platform with a moving surface was devised. The magnitude and frequency of its surface movement were accurately controlled by its signal generator. The US sensor was mounted above this surface at a distance of 0.5 m. This US signal was wirelessly transmitted to a microprocessor board to digitise. The recorded signal that simulated a respiratory signal was subsequently stored and displayed on a computer or an LCD screen. The results showed that US could be used to measure respiration rate accurately. To cater for possible movement of the infant in the incubator, four US sensors were adapted. These monitored the movements from different angles. An algorithm to interpret the output from the four US sensors was devised and evaluated. The algorithm interpreted which US sensor best detected the chest movements. An IoMT system was devised that incorporated NodeMcu to capture signals from the US sensor. The detected data were transmitted to the ThingSpeak channel and processed in real-time by ThingSpeak’s add-on Matlab© feature. The data were processed on the cloud and then the results were displayed in real-time on a computer screen. The respiration rate and respiration signal could be observed remotely on portable devices e.g. mobile phones and tablets. These features allow caretakers to have access to the data at any time and be alerted to respiratory complications. A method to interpret the recorded US signals to determine respiration patterns, e.g. intermittent pauses, were implemented by utilising Matlab© and ThingSpeak Server. The method successfully detected respiratory pauses by identifying lack of chest movements. The approach can be useful in diagnosing central apnoea. In central apnoea, respiratory pauses are accompanied by cessation of chest or abdominal movements. The devised system will require clinical trials and integration into an incubator by conforming to the medical devices directives. The study demonstrated the integration of IoMT-US for measuring respiration rate and respiratory signal. The US produced respiration rate readings compared well with the actual signal generator's settings of the platform that simulated chest movements.

Feature Subspace Estimation for Resolving Dimensionality Mismatch in Practical Color-Based Face Recognition Systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (04) ◽  
pp. 1656004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jae Young Choi
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Color Image ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Feature Subspace ◽  
New Feature ◽  
Different Color ◽  
Input Level

Recently, considerable research efforts have been devoted to effective utilization of facial color information for improved recognition performance. Of all color-based face recognition (FR) methods, the most widely used approach is a color FR method using input-level fusion. In this method, augmented input vectors of the color images are first generated by concatenating different color components (including both luminance and chrominance information) by column order at the input level and feature subspace is then trained with a set of augmented input vectors. However, in practical applications, a testing image could be captured as a grayscale image, rather than as a color image, mainly caused by different, heterogeneous image acquisition environment. A grayscale testing image causes so-called dimensionality mismatch between the trained feature subspace and testing input vector. Disparity in dimensionality negatively impacts the reliable FR performance and even imposes a significant restriction on carrying out FR operations in practical color FR systems. To resolve the dimensionality mismatch, we propose a novel approach to estimate new feature subspace, suitable for recognizing a grayscale testing image. In particular, new feature subspace is estimated from a given feature subspace created using color training images. The effectiveness of proposed solution has been successfully tested on four public face databases (DBs) such as CMU, FERET, XM2VTSDB, and ORL DBs. Extensive and comparative experiments showed that the proposed solution works well for resolving dimensionality mismatch of importance in real-life color FR systems.

A Lightweight Detection Model for SAR Aircraft in a Complex Environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 5020
Author(s):  
Mingwu Li ◽  
Gongjian Wen ◽  
Xiaohong Huang ◽  
Kunhong Li ◽  
Sizhe Lin
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Information ◽  
Scattering Mechanism ◽  
Complex Environment ◽  
Average Precision ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Detection Model ◽  
The Neural Network ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Aircraft Detection

Recently, deep learning has been widely used in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) aircraft detection. However, the complex environment of the airport—consider the boarding bridges, for instance—greatly interferes with aircraft detection. Besides, the detection speed is also an important indicator in practical applications. To alleviate these problems, we propose a lightweight detection model (LDM), mainly including a reuse block (RB) and an information correction block (ICB) based on the Yolov3 framework. The RB module helps the neural network extract rich aircraft features by aggregating multi-layer information. While the RB module brings more effective information, there is also redundant and useless information aggregated by the reuse block, which is harmful to detection precision. Therefore, to accurately extract more aircraft features, we propose an ICB module combining scattering mechanism characteristics by extracting the gray features and enhancing spatial information, which helps suppress interference in a complex environment and redundant information. Finally, we conducted a series of experiments on the SAR aircraft detection dataset (SAR-ADD). The average precision was 0.6954, which is superior to the precision values achieved by other methods. In addition, the average detection time of LDM was only 6.38 ms, making it much faster than other methods.

Big Data Analytics

2018 ◽  
pp. 124-138
Author(s):  
Sreenu G. ◽  
M.A. Saleem Durai
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Big Data Analytics ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Processing Techniques ◽  
And Storage ◽  
Big Data Computing ◽  
New Algorithms ◽  
Over Time

Advances in recent hardware technology have permitted to document transactions and other pieces of information of everyday life at an express pace. In addition of speed up and storage capacity, real-life perceptions tend to transform over time. However, there are so much prospective and highly functional values unseen in the vast volume of data. For this kind of applications conventional data mining is not suitable, so they should be tuned and changed or designed with new algorithms. Big data computing is inflowing to the category of most hopeful technologies that shows the way to new ways of thinking and decision making. This epoch of big data helps users to take benefit out of all available data to gain more precise systematic results or determine latent information, and then make best possible decisions. Depiction from a broad set of workloads, the author establishes a set of classifying measures based on the storage architecture, processing types, processing techniques and the tools and technologies used.

3D Printing Applications in STEM Education

2018 ◽  
pp. 2626-2640
Author(s):  
Norman Gwangwava ◽  
Catherine Hlahla
Keyword(s):  
3D Printing ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Printing Technology ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
3D Printing Technology ◽  
Lecture Room ◽  
Storage Products ◽  
Educational Toys ◽  
Learning Institutions

Using 3D printing technology in learning institutions brings an industrial experience to learners as well as an exposure to the same cutting-edge technologies encountered in real life careers. The chapter explores 3D printing technology at kindergarten (preschool), in the lecture room (BEng programme), and ready-to-use 3D printed products. In educational toy applications, the effect of poor product designs that do not meet the children's dimensional and safety requirements can lead to injuries, development of musculoskeletal disorders and health problems, some of which may be experienced by the children when they grow up. In order to address the problem of poor design, measurements of anthropometric dimensions from male and female children, aging from 6 to 7 years old were taken and concepts for educational toys were then generated. Other practical applications of the 3D printing technology explored in the chapter are lecture room demonstrations, prototyping of design projects and a web-based mass-customization of office mini-storage products.

Using Free Software for Elastic Web Hosting on a Private Cloud

2012 ◽  
pp. 733-748
Author(s):  
Roland Kübert ◽  
Gregory Katsaros
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Computing ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Free Software ◽  
Technical Solution ◽  
Use Case ◽  
Cloud Infrastructure ◽  
Private Cloud ◽  
Software Applications ◽  
Experimental Laboratory ◽  
And Storage

Even though public cloud providers already exist and offer computing and storage services, cloud computing is still a buzzword for scientists in various fields such as engineering, finance, social sciences, etc. These technologies are currently mature enough to leave the experimental laboratory in order to be used in real-life scenarios. To this end, the authors consider that the prime example use case of cloud computing is a web hosting service. This paper presents the architectural approach as well as the technical solution for applying elastic web hosting onto a private cloud infrastructure using only free software. Through several available software applications and tools, anyone can build their own private cloud on top of a local infrastructure and benefit from the dynamicity and scalability provided by the cloud approach.

Using Free Software for Elastic Web Hosting on a Private Cloud

2013 ◽  
pp. 97-111
Author(s):  
Roland Kübert ◽  
Gregory Katsaros
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Computing ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Free Software ◽  
Technical Solution ◽  
Use Case ◽  
Cloud Infrastructure ◽  
Private Cloud ◽  
Software Applications ◽  
Experimental Laboratory ◽  
And Storage

Even though public cloud providers already exist and offer computing and storage services, cloud computing is still a buzzword for scientists in various fields such as engineering, finance, social sciences, etc. These technologies are currently mature enough to leave the experimental laboratory in order to be used in real-life scenarios. To this end, the authors consider that the prime example use case of cloud computing is a web hosting service. This paper presents the architectural approach as well as the technical solution for applying elastic web hosting onto a private cloud infrastructure using only free software. Through several available software applications and tools, anyone can build their own private cloud on top of a local infrastructure and benefit from the dynamicity and scalability provided by the cloud approach.

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