Implementation of relevant fourth industrial revolution innovations across the supply chain of fruits and vegetables: a short update on Traceability 4.0

Food Traceability 4.0 refers to the application of fourth industrial revolution (or Industry 4.0) technologies to ensure food authenticity, safety, and high food quality. Growing interest in food traceability has led to the development of a wide range of chemical, biomolecular, isotopic, chromatographic, and spectroscopic methods with varied performance and success rates. This review will give an update on the application of Traceability 4.0 in the fruits and vegetables sector, focusing on relevant Industry 4.0 enablers, especially Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, blockchain, and Big Data. The results show that the Traceability 4.0 has significant potential to improve quality and safety of many fruits and vegetables, enhance transparency, reduce the costs of food recalls, and decrease waste and loss. However, due to their high implementation costs and lack of adaptability to industrial environments, most of these advanced technologies have not yet gone beyond the laboratory scale. Therefore, further research is anticipated to overcome current limitations for large-scale applications

Modelling of hot-air and vacuum drying of persimmon fruit (Diospyros kaki) using computational intelligence methods

The study evaluated the feasibility of applying computational intelligence methods as a non-destructive technique in describing the drying behaviour of persimmon fruit using vacuum drying (VD) and hot-air-drying (HAD) methods and to compare the results with thin layer mathematical models. Drying temperatures were 50, 60 and 70 °C. Kinetic models were developed using semi-theoretical thin layer models and computational intelligence methods: multi-layer feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector regression (SVR). The statistical indicators of coefficient of determination (R2 ) and root mean square error (RMSE) were used to assess the suitability of the models. The thin-layer mathematical models namely page and logarithmic accurately described the drying kinetics of persimmon slices with the highest R2 of 0.9999 and lowest RMSE of 0.0031. ANN showed R2 and RMSE values of 1.0000 and 0.0003, while SVR showed R2 of 0.9999 and RMSE of 0.0004. The validation results indicated good agreement between the predicted values obtained from the computational intelligence methods and the experimental moisture ratio data. Based on the study results, computational intelligence methods can reliably be used to describe the drying process of persimmon fruit

Advances in Postharvest Process Systems

This Special Issue presents a range of recent technologies and innovations to help the agricultural and food industry to manage and minimize postharvest losses, enhance reliability and sustainability, and generate high-quality products that are both healthy and appealing to consumers. It focuses on three main topics of food storage and preservation technologies, food processing technologies, and the applications of advanced mathematical modelling and computer simulations. This presentation of the latest research and information is particularly useful for people who are working in or associated with the fields of agriculture, the agri-food chain and technology development and promotion

Recent advances in solar drying system: A review

Research on solar dryer technology proliferates since it reduces the drying period while keeping nutritional values in the agricultural products. This paper presented a review of recent advances in the solar drying system. This review is composed of working principles and classifications of solar dryers. They were classified into two main elements: airflow modes, either passive or active, and the way heat is transferred: direct, indirect, mixed-mode, and hybrid. The hybrid system used several types of elements to supply additional heat in the drying system, as elaborated in this paper, such as the electrical heater, biomass, and photovoltaic system. The advantages and disadvantages of the solar dryer also being discussed in this pape

Natural Additives in Food

In the search for a healthier diet and facing the uncertainties about the consumption of artificial additives, the scientific community has explored in the last years the potential of natural compounds, such as polyphenols, carotenoids, chlorophylls, essential oils, tocopherols, vitamins, polysaccharides, among others, obtained from the most diverse sources, such as plants and fungi, for the replacement of the artificial additives in food, which has made these compounds recognized as “natural additives”. In addition to being considered less harmful to health, and giving a certain functional property to a foodstuff, natural additives can also provide a beneficial synergistic effect in the food matrix. For the consumers, diverse studies have been showed that regular ingestion of bioactive compounds, that can be applied as natural additives, can be helpful for the prevention/treatment of several chronic and aging illnesses, such as cardiovascular diseases and neurological disorders. However, there is much to be researched on the viable use of bioactive compounds and to overcome their chemical limitations so that it can actually be used as natural additives in foods. This book addresses, through 18 scientific articles, some natural compounds with potential for use as preservatives, nutritional additives, coloring agents, flavorings, and various agents

Advances in postharvest process systems

This books presents a range of recent technologies and innovations to help the agricultural and food industry to manage and minimize postharvest losses, enhance reliability and sustainability, and generate high-quality products that are both healthy and appealing to consumers. It focuses on three main topics of food storage and preservation technologies, food processing technologies, and the applications of advanced mathematical modelling and computer simulations. This latest research and information is particularly useful for people who are working in or are associated with the fields of agriculture, agri-food chain and technology development and promotion

The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Applied Sciences

This book is focused on the works presented at the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Applied Sciences, organized by Applied Sciences from 15 to 31 October 2021 on the MDPI Sciforum platform. Two decades have passed since the start of the 21st century. The development of sciences and technologies is growing ever faster today than in the previous century. The field of science is expanding, and the structure of science is becoming ever richer. Because of this expansion and fine structure growth, researchers may lose themselves in the deep forest of the ever-increasing frontiers and sub-fields being created. This international conference on the Applied Sciences was started to help scientists conduct their own research into the growth of these frontiers by breaking down barriers and connecting the many sub-fields to cut through this vast forest. These functions will allow researchers to see these frontiers and their surrounding (or quite distant) fields and sub-fields, and give them the opportunity to incubate and develop their knowledge even further with the aid of this multi-dimensional network