Effective sampling strategy to detect food and feed contamination: Herbs and spices case

Sampling plans for food safety hazards are aimed to be used to determine whether a lot of food is contaminated (with microbiological or chemical hazards) or not. One of the components of sampling plans is the sampling strategy. The aim of this study was to compare the performance of three different sampling strategies, being simple random sampling (SRS), stratified random sampling (STRS), and systematic sampling (SS), with each other for their probability of detecting a heterogeneously distributed contamination in a lot of herbs or spices (i.e., a dry food product). To this end, a simulation model was developed, and applied to different scenarios for contamination level and numbers of samples collected. In addition, as a case study, the sampling plan of a company processing herbs and spices was evaluated using the simulation model. Results showed that the effectiveness of the sampling plan is influenced by the sampling strategy. With expected low contamination levels the SS strategy performs better than the two other strategies. At higher expected contaminated levels, the STRS strategy is preferred.     

Evaluation of particle recovery from microalgae

Coccoliths are micro-structured biomineral particles found in cell protective covering layers of coccolithophore species. They are mainly composed of CaCO₃ and their individual crystal entities are arranged in such a way that they construct complex and unique structures. This complexity is found down to the individual particle level and appears to have promising properties to offer. This study focuses on the essential step prior to any kind of implementation, which is the recovery of the material. It summarizes cleaning protocols found in literature, compares them for the first time for the same freshly cultivated material and addresses challenges that still need to be overcome. Further, it highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the best cleaning protocols, suggests optimizations with promising results and uses size distribution measurements to analyse the recovery efficiency. To that end, further characterization techniques, new for coccoliths, are introduced and used to improve our current knowledge of the particles behaviour.     

Application of the sampling moiré method to shallow open-channel flows with circular roughness elements

This research presents an application of the sampling moiré method, a novel technique originally developed for measuring slight deformation of a static object such as a plate, to fluctuating free water surface in rough open channel flows. The method was used to capture the two-dimensional water surface deformation at a high sampling rate by dyeing the color of water white. The target flow was a very shallow subcritical flow with a depth of 1.5 times the height of the roughness. As a result, a series of instantaneous water surface profiles with non-uniform rough planes were successfully measured at a sampling rate of 100 Hz.It has become clear that the effect of dispersive gravity waves traveling on the water surface is greater than that of non-dispersive waves driven by the turbulence, and that this feature becomes more pronounced as the Froude number increases in such shallow flow conditions. Furthermore, it was experimentally and theoretically verified that the intensity of water surface fluctuation increases with the square of the Froude number. The decomposition of surface fluctuations due to gravity waves and subsurface turbulence using the wavenumber frequency spectrum revealed that the effects of subsurface turbulence are about 20%. This is much less than the contribution from gravity waves in very shallow flows as in this experiment.     

Movement and distribution of Sitophilus zeamais adults and relationship between their density and trapping frequency in wheat bulks under different grain temperatures and moisture contents

Movement and distribution of Sitophilus zeamais adults and relationship between their trapping frequency and insect density were determined in one tonne wheat with 11.5 ± 0.2, 12.5 ± 0.1 and 13.5 ± 0.2% moisture contents (wet basis) inside cylindrical bins at 20, 25 and 30 °C. The introduced adult densities were 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 adults/kg wheat (A/kg). Inside each bin, 15 probe traps were vertically installed in three layers. In each layer, five traps were installed at the center and half radii of the bin individually. The trapped adults were counted daily up to 7 d, and then 15 kg wheat was sampled at each trap location. The insect number in each sample was counted.The recovered adults in the top layer were less than that in the middle layer, while no significant difference between at middle and bottom layers. In each layer, adults preferred the center location at 0.5 A/kg, while this trend was unidentified at other densities. There was an autocorrelation of insect densities at adjacent locations at ≥ 1.0 A/kg, while no autocorrelation in the vertical direction. The adults had an aggregation distribution at any temperature, moisture content and adult density. The normal and Poisson model could not be used to describe the distribution of the count frequency of the adults in the samples, while the negative binomial model could describe this distribution in 18 out of 27 sampling sets at ≤ 1.0 A/kg. The trapping frequency was strongly influenced by the trapping period and increased with the increase of insect densities. The relationship between adult densities and trapping frequencies at the sampling locations had a significant difference at different grain temperatures, while no difference at different moisture contents, grain depths, and locations.     

傅里叶变换拉曼光谱在食品行业的应用

人们对于食品行业历来有着很高的关注度,食品检测、食品安全等各方面都成为了企业和社会关注的焦点问题。随着检测技术的不断发展,傅里叶变换拉曼(Fourier transform Raman, FT-Raman)光谱技术作为一种能够快速、无损、准确的光谱分析方法,已经在农业、医学、考古学等领域证明了其价值,在食品行业也得到了越来越多的应用。各种研究报告表明,除了仅通过光谱的视觉差异信息进行物质判别之外,FT-Raman光谱结合化学计量工具或与其他光谱手段进行联合分析,提供了更多可以应用在食品行业的高效检测、判别手段。本文简述了有关FT-Raman光谱技术的一些基本原理,综述了近10年(2010～2019)中FT-Raman光谱在食品行业中的应用,并对其未来的发展趋势进行了展望。     

基于多项式变换的参数估计方法

本文给出一种采用DPT估计SNCK信号时宽—带宽积的方法,并通过仿真该估计方法的性能与其它估计方法进行比较.首先给出SNCK信号参数估计的一般过程.为了便于计算和理论推导,根据估计出的中心频率将接收到的SNCK信号搬移到零频,从而进一步估计其它参数,如采用DPT估计SNCK信号时宽带宽积.本文将重点研究采用DPT算法估计SNCK信号值的方法.     

Performance evaluation of noise reduction method during on-line monitoring of MV switchgear for PD measurements by non-intrusive sensors

Partial Discharge (PD) measurement is a globally accepted method for insulation diagnosis of electrical assets. The consequences of insulation breakdown are well known. The trend is to move from conventional offline testing to online monitoring for insulation life prediction, which results in the inclusion of high frequency noise in the captured signals. Therefore de-noising is of paramount importance in online monitoring to obtain useful information from the signal.In this research, a 20 kV switchgear panel has been subjected to PD faults in the laboratory and measurements have been carried out by using different non-intrusive sensors including a novel sensor, the D-dot sensor and recorded by a high frequency oscilloscope. The measured results show the effective applicability of sensors for switchgear. The Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) has been used to de-noise PD signals in this paper. Time domain and frequency domain comparison of original and de-noised PD signals reveals the significance of this technique for online monitoring of Medium Voltage (MV) switchgear. Finally, an adaptive online de-noising concept, based on automatic de-noising is also proposed in this paper.     

Application and validation of a statistically derived risk-based sampling plan to improve efficiency of inspection and enforcement

The statistically derived risk-based sampling plan for surveillance sample assignments of chemical and biological hazards was designed using binomial probability distribution. The binomial statistics was applied to the past 3-year data to estimate a confidence interval and a sample size aiming to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the agency's sampling and inspectional activities. The accuracy of the statistical models and computed estimates were validated in the following years. The ranges of confidence interval and sample size appeared to be significantly influenced by a level of the violation rate of feed product samples, an acceptable error, a number of the analyzed samples, and a statistical significance level. The violation rates of feed products for target analytes (aflatoxins, fumonisins, Salmonella, and dioxin) in the validation data were lower than those of the average 3-year data in most feed products. Besides, the actual violation rates of the validation samples did not exactly fall within the anticipated range of the confidence interval estimates. Such a discrepancy is considered introduced by several factors such as sample size adequacy, skewed distribution of a target analyte in feed products, and unique analyte/product combination. The overall study results indicate that the risk-based plan of work would provide a more effective and efficient risk management tool to help improve the oversight of the feed industry and the compliance to feed safety standards.     

Adaptive sampling rate control for networked systems based on statistical characteristics of packet disordering

This paper investigates an adaptive sampling rate control scheme for networked control systems (NCSs) subject to packet disordering. The main objectives of the proposed scheme are (a) to avoid heavy packet disordering existing in communication networks and (b) to stabilize NCSs with packet disordering, transmission delay and packet loss. First, a novel sampling rate control algorithm based on statistical characteristics of disordering entropy is proposed; secondly, an augmented closed-loop NCS that consists of a plant, a sampler and a state-feedback controller is transformed into an uncertain and stochastic system, which facilitates the controller design. Then, a sufficient condition for stochastic stability in terms of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs) is given. Moreover, an adaptive tracking controller is designed such that the sampling period tracks a desired sampling period, which represents a significant contribution. Finally, experimental results are given to illustrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed scheme.