COLOR VISION SYSTEM FOR RIPENESS INSPECTION OF OIL PALM ELAEIS GUINEENSIS

In checking harvesting discipline and quality control for oil palm fruits, color has presumably been an important guide to whether the oil content has reached a maximum where the fruit bunch is ready for cutting. However, establishing a single and harmonious standard base on color is a very contentious issue in the oil palm industry because of the subjective nature of the human vision of color. This was further complicated due to the lack of information on fruit color upon which to base a definite ripeness criterion. We demonstrated in this paper that this problem can be solved using machine vision technology. Methods used were to treat color in HSI (Hue, Saturation and Intensity) color space and applied multivariate discriminant analysis. These have proven to be highly effective for color evaluation and image processing. The vision system was trained to classify oil palms into four quality grades according to PORIM (Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia) inspection standards. These are the unripe, the underripe, the optimally ripe and the overripe classes. Depending upon the quality feature evaluated, misclassification by the vision system varied from 5 to 12% but averaged at about 8%. Machine vision disagreement ranged from 2 to 19%.     

Translational aspects of the modern genetics in head and neck cancers

Oral Cancer (OC) is one of the most recurrent cancers in the head and neck squamous cancer (SCCHN) category. Recently, the genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have gained growing interest in the scientific community. GWAS have identified several pathways involved in the interactions among general risk factors and genomic variants affecting SCCHN. This systematic overview aims to critically evaluate the latest data reported within the scientific literature. The aim was to investigate the impact of genetic aspects on SCCHN onset and prognosis, involving other clinical and systemic co-factors. PubMed, Google Scholar, and Cancer Genetics Web databases have been systematically investigated for original articles published in the last two years, reporting studies on the main queries addressed in this work. This review also comparatively describes the impact of environmental and pathological co-factors in different types of cancers, clarifying and updating the role of genetic factors in SCCHN onset and development. The main outcomes reported may be helpful to drive clinicians towards their clinical evaluations for the most appropriate therapeutic approach in SCCHN.     

EFFECTS OF ALKALIZED COCOA POWDER AND SOY LECITHIN ON PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHOCOLATE BEVERAGE POWDERS

Chocolate beverage powders (CBPs) were produced from alkalized cocoa powder (ACP) at 10–30% and soy lecithin (SL) at 0–4%. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to determine the optimum level of ACP and SL on sedimentation, wettability, bulk density, despersibility, moisture content and flavor acceptability. SL was effective on wettability, and it also showed an optimum level for sedimentation and bulk density, while ACP was found to be significant for all physical properties. For sensory evaluation, flavor was acceptable at 20% ACP level soy taste was detected by panelists in CBPs with high SL and low ACP contents. It was found that as the ACP content was increased the soy taste of CBPs decreased. For overall physical characteristics, the optimum levels of 20% of ACP and 2–4% of SL were selected.     

Conductivity enhancement by controlled percolation of inorganic salt in multiphase hexanoyl chitosan/polystyrene polymer blends

Hexanoyl chitosan and polystyrene blends are immiscible by the elucidation of the glass transition temperature (T_g) as well as the viscometric and morphological analyses. Selective localization of the lithium salt in hexanoyl chitosan phase as the percolation pathway enhanced the conductivity in the blends as compared to the neat hexanoyl chitosan. The ionic conductivity of a polymer electrolyte is described by σ = enμ. Thus, estimation of charge carrier density (n) and mobility (μ) is important in order to assess the performance. In this work, these parameters are calculated using impedance spectroscopy and FTIR.     

Thermal characteristics and corrosion behaviour of Mg–xZn alloys for biomedical applications

The thermal parameters of Mg–xZn cast alloys with 0·5–9 wt% Zn were evaluated by using computer aided cooling curve thermal analysis (CA–CCTA), whereas the corrosion behaviour was investigated by potentiodynamic polarization and immersion tests. Thermal analysis results revealed that the dendrite coherency temperature (T _DCP ) decreased from 642·2 to 600 °C with the addition of Zn from 0·5 to 9 wt%. The liquid fraction at coherency point ( ${f}_{ L}^{ DCP}$ ) increased by 72% when Zn was increased up to 9 wt%. MgZn intermetallic phase was observed in samples with <3 wt% Zn. At higher percentages of Zn, the Mg ₅₁Zn ₂₀ intermetallic phase was also detected in addition to α-Mg and MgZn by first derivative cooling curves under non-equilibrium solidification. All these phases were observed along the grain boundary when Zn was rejected from the solid/liquid interface and enriched in the triple conjunction of grain boundary. The grain size decreased from 185·2 to 71·5 μm when Zn content was increased. The addition of Zn content had a significant effect on the corrosion rate and the corresponding mechanisms. The corrosion rate decreased from 2·1 to 1·81 mmpy as Zn content increased from 0·5 to 3 wt%; afterwards, however, this value increased with further increase of Zn. Mg–3Zn also had the lowest degradation rate and highest corrosion resistance which can be fully utilized for biodegradable orthopedic applications.