A Review on Post-Harvesting Losses and Opportunities in Cold Chain

The food supply chain is one of the most complex systems. The system begins with production and then continues with food handling techniques for preservation. In practice, the surplus food distributed seems to have been passing through various stages before it actually reaches out to consumers. However, the question arises if all the food produced is totally consumed. In this paper, we shall be studying the distinct stages involved in the food supply chain; how and where the food loss takes place; and the tremendous impacts it caused socially and economically. This paper will further help in quantifying the food waste and shall be obliged in identifying the required actions to overcome food loss and waste globally. This paper outlines different strategies and approaches adopted for post-harvest food loss assessments in order to achieve sustainable food services; move towards zero waste economy to implement poverty extermination and food security around the world.

Generalized Regression Neural Network (GRNN) for the Prediction of CRDI Engine Responses Fuelled with Pongamia Biodiesel

The application of General Regression Neural Network (GRNN) for the prediction of performance and emission responses of Common Rail Direct Injection (CRDI) engine using B5, B10 and B20 blend of pongamia biodiesel is presented in this paper. Data required for the prediction is obtained through experimentation on CRDI engine by varying parameters like injection pressure, injection timing and fuel preheating temperature. The experiments were conducted based on L9 Taguchi Orthogonal Array (OA). The experimental values for performance parameters like brake thermal efficiency, specific fuel consumption and emission parameters like CO, Nox and HC were recorded and used for GRNN. GRNN model is trained with 70% of samples and is validated with testing dataset of 30% by selecting optimum spread parameter (σ). The proposed model was found to be reliable and provides a cost effective way for determining performance parameters of engine. The results presented in this study substantially promote the use of GRNN model for the prediction of parameters in CRDI engine.

Direct and Indirect Evaporative Cooling Strategies: An Analysis

Evaporative cooling can be understood as natural response of human body to effective climate control. It is the similar to the cooling principle that human body practices when moisture/ sweat vaporizes and cools off the skin. Needing less energy input, evaporative cooling is perfectly fit for uses in which decreasing high temperatures as well as energy consumption is the requisite. Evaporative cooling is an energy competent resolution for trades, where hot inside environments lead to low output, productivity and discontented employed workers. This could also upsurge the amount of faults and mishaps in the production lines. There are many technologies in place used in poultry, horticulture, swine and dairy industries such as in-duct direct evaporative cooling, exhaust air evaporative cooling, in-direct evaporative cooling and direct air evaporative cooling. In this paper, different evaporative cooling technologies have been discussed.

Optimization and Efficiency Studies of Heat Engines: A Review

This review aims to study the various theoretical and numerical investigations in the optimization of heat engines. The main focus is to discuss the procedures to derive the efficiency of heat engines under different operating regimes (or optimization criteria) for different models of heat engines such as endreversible models, stochastic models, low-dissipation models, quantum models etc. Both maximum power and maximum efficiency operational regimes are desirable but not economical, so to meet the thermo-ecological considerations, some other compromise-based criteria have been proposed such as Ω criterion (ecological criterion) and efficient power criterion. Thus, heat engines can be optimized to work at an efficiency which may not be the maximum (Carnot) efficiency. The optimization efficiency obtained under each criterion shows a striking universal behaviour in the near-equilibrium regime. We also discussed a multi-parameter combined objective function of heat engines. The optimization efficiency derived from the multi-parameter combined objective function includes a variety of optimization efficiencies, such as the efficiency at the maximum power, efficiency at the maximum efficiency-power state, efficiency at the maximum criterion, and Carnot efficiency. Thus, a comparison of optimization of heat engines under different criteria enables to choose the suitable one for the best performance of heat engine under different conditions.