Cross-Section Resistivity Detection of Tree (Swietenia Magahoni and Gmelina) Using ERT Method

The existence of trees is very beneficial for humans’ life. There are utilizations of tree such as urban planning and reforestation. However, the tree can be dangerous when the tree is aged and decay because of several factors that might be cause fallen tree. Furthermore, the monitoring activity is needed to know the condition of the tree. One of the methods that can be used to detect hollow in living tree is Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT). The ERT is an efficient and nondestructive method that can be potential to estimate resistivity cross section. The measurement of ERT conducted on Swietenia mahagoni and Gmelina with unhealthy and healthy condition visually. The data processed using Res2Dinv and reconstructed for obtaining 2D resistivity cross section. The results shows that the unhealthy Swietenia mahagoni has logarithmic resistivity value range between 0.1-1 Ωm and the healthy Swietenia mahagoni has 1-4 Ωm. Meanwhile, the unhealthy and healthy Gmelina has logarithmic resistivity value range between 0.5-4.5 Ωm and 0.5-3 Ωm, respectively. It is shows that the tree indicated health visually from biological view does not mean the tree is decay. It might be influenced by phenology factor and/or the species of the tree.

A Quasi-Nondestructive Evaluation Method for Physical-Mechanical Properties of Fragile Archaeological Wood with TMA: A Case Study of an 800-Year-Old Shipwreck

Archaeological wood is a kind of ‘new material’ that has deteriorated due to long-term degradation. The existing wood science theory and evaluation methods are not fully applicable to archaeological wood. Moreover, current physical-mechanical evaluation methods are inadequate for fragile archaeological wood due to their insufficient accuracy and the large sample amount required, causing difficulties in many necessary physical-mechanical repeatability tests. In light of these limitations, the representative samples on Nanhai No. 1, a merchant shipwreck in the Song Dynasty, were selected as the research objects in this paper. The shipwreck is a typical waterlogged wooden artifact. A quasi-nondestructive physical-mechanical evaluation technique for archaeological wood was developed with the thermomechanical analyzer (TMA). This study used TMA to evaluate the bending strength of representative waterlogged archaeological samples of Nanhai No. 1 shipwreck and sound wood with the same species. Besides, the thermal linear expansion coefficients in the ambient temperature range were obtained. The sizes of the samples used in the tests were only 2 mm × 8 mm × 0.3 mm and 1 cm × 1 cm × 1 cm, respectively. Bending strength results of archaeological wood by the TMA method conformed to the tendency that the bending strength decreases with the increase of decay degree. In addition, the longitudinal linear expansion coefficients of archaeological wood reached 80%–115% of those in the transverse grain direction, which were about 10 times higher than those of the sound wood. The linear expansion coefficients of archaeological wood in three directions were similar. Based on the results of Fourier transform infrared analysis (FT-IR), the significant differences in the physical-mechanical properties of the archaeological wood and the sound wood were induced to be mainly ascribed to the decomposition and the loss of hemicellulose in the archaeological wood. The cell wall substrate could not stabilize the cellulose skeleton, which led to the instability of the tracheid structure of the archaeological wood. This study provided a proven quasi-nondestructive method for the preservation state evaluation of waterlogged archaeological wood (WAW) from the Nanhai I shipwreck and other similar waterlogged wooden relics.

Application of non-destructive neutron resonance capture analysis for investigation of women’s Old Believer cross dating back to the second half of the 17th century

Neutron Resonance Capture Analysis (NRCA) is presently being developed at the Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics (FLNP) to determine the elemental composition of samples. The NRCA is a nondestructive method that allows measuring objects’ bulk composition. The procedure is based on detecting neutron resonances in radiative capture and the measurement of the yield of reaction products in these resonances. The experiments are carried out at the Intense REsonance Neutron source (IREN). In this study, we applied the NRCA to investigate an archaeological object provided by the Museum and Exhibition Complex (MVK) "Volokolamsk Kremlin". The object was a women’s Old Believer cross (second half of the 17th century) found in the Moscow region, Volokolamsk district, the village of Chubarovo.

Comparison of Machine Learning Classification Methods for Determining the Geographical Origin of Raw Milk Using Vibrational Spectroscopy

One of the significant challenges in the food industry is the determination of the geographical origin, since products from different regions can lead to great variance in raw milk. Therefore, monitoring the origin of raw milk has become very relevant for producers and consumers worldwide. In this exploratory study, midinfrared spectroscopy combined with machine learning classification methods was investigated as a rapid and nondestructive method for the classification of milk according to its geographical origin. The curse of dimensionality makes some classification methods struggle to train efficient models. Thus, principal component analysis (PCA) has been applied to create a smaller set of features. The application of machine learning methods such as PLS-DA, PCA-LDA, SVM, and PCA-SVM demonstrates that the best results are obtained using PLS-DA, PCA-LDA, and PCA-SVM methods which show a correct classification rate (CCR) of 100% for PLS-DA and PCA-LDA and 94.95% for PCA-SVM, whereas the application of SVM without feature extraction gives a low CCR of 66.67%. These findings demonstrate that FT-MIR spectroscopy, combined with machine learning methods, is an efficient and suitable approach to classify the geographical origins of raw milk.

The Pour-Through Procedure for Monitoring Container Substrate Chemical Properties: A Review

The pour-through procedure is a nondestructive method commonly used by horticultural crop producers and research scientists to measure chemical properties and nutrient availability in container substrates. It is a method that uses water as a displacement solution to push the substrate solution out of the bottom of the container so it can be analyzed for pH, electrical conductivity, and nutrient concentrations. The method was first introduced in the early 1980s. Since then, research has been conducted to determine factors that affect the results of the pour-through including volume, nature and timing of application of the displacement solution, container size, and substrate stratification. It has also been validated against other common methods for determining container substrate pH, EC, and nutrient concentration, most notably the saturated media extraction procedure. Over the past 40 years, the method has been proven to be simple, robust, and consistent in providing crop producers and researchers valuable information on substrate chemical properties from which management decisions and experimental inferences can be made.

Nondestructive evaluation of the biogenic amine in crayfish (Prokaryophyllus clarkii) by nearinfrared spectroscopy

Biogenic amines are a group of nitrogen substances and widely adopted to assess the food safety, especially for the aquatic products. In China, crayfish ( Prokaryophyllus clarkii) have become one of the most famous aquatic products and form a complete industrial value chain. To ensure the safety of the crayfish industrial chain, a rapid and nondestructive method for determining the biogenic amines of crayfish by nearinfrared spectroscopy coupled with chemometrics was proposed in this study. The quantitative models of histamine, tyramine, cadaverine, and putrescine were built by using the partial least squares (PLS) regression. The spectral preprocessing and the wavelength selection methods were adopted to optimize the models. For histamine, cadaverine, and putrescine in peeled or whole tails, reasonable quantitative results can be obtained by using the optimized models; the coefficient of determination (r2) are 0.88 and 0.90, 0.88 and 0.91, 0.89, and 0.84, respectively. As for tyramine in peeled or whole tails, the results are acceptable and the coefficient of determination (r2) is 0.83 and 0.74, respectively.

Distribution of sensitivity along the area of FPA pixel, limited by the diffraction limit of the scanning mask

Consideration is given to the distribution of sensitivity along the area of indium antimonide FPA pixel obtained with the aid of the nondestructive method of the scanning mask on the basis of the fast testing open probe installation.

Development and Validation of Near-Infrared Methods for the Quantitation of Caffeine, Epigallocatechin-3-gallate, and Moisture in Green Tea Production

The quality of tea leaves (e.g., their color, appearance, and taste) can be directly influenced by the tea production process, which is closely connected with the content of a number of chemical components formed during the production of the tea leaves. However, the production process is now controlled by people's experience, making its quality significantly different. NIRS is a time-saving, cost-saving, and nondestructive method. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce NIRS technology into the quality control of the tea production process. In this study, a quantitative analysis model of caffeine, epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), and moisture content was established by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) which was united simultaneously with partial least squares (PLSR) for online process monitoring of tea production. The model parameters show that the established model has fine robustness and outstanding measuring accuracy. Then, the feasibility of the established method is verified by the traditional method. Through the verification of the precision of the instrument and the stability of the sample, it is clarified that the model can be further utilized to monitor tea product quality online in a productive process.

A Nondestructive Method of Measuring Zebrafish Adipose Tissue Based on Micro-Computed Tomography (Micro-CT)

Due to problems such as unbalanced intake of nutrients or excessive intake of energy, cultured fish accumulate fat in places such as the abdominal cavity, liver, and muscle, resulting in fatty liver, reducing the quality of fish meat, and even causing many fish deaths, resulting in losses to aquaculture production. Therefore, research on lipid metabolism in fish is important and has attracted increasing attention. The detection of fish body fat distribution and content is a key to such research. The existing methods for detecting fat distribution and content in fish have limitations, such as cumbersome procedures and damage to fish tissues, and thus, is imperative to develop a simple, fast, nondestructive fat detection technology. Taking zebrafish as the research material, this study established an imaging technology for the rapid and nondestructive detection of the fat distribution and content of fish by micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), optimized the fat CT-scanning method, determined the steps of fat quantitation in the CTAn data processing software, and constructed a three-dimensional (3D) model of zebrafish adipose tissue. This technology reveals the distribution of fish adipose tissue in an all-round way, and thus, it will play an important role in the study of lipid metabolism in fish.