Drying behavior of organic apples and carrots by using k-means unsupervised learning

Drying prevents food spoilage and decay through moisture removal due to simultaneous heat and mass transfer from food, which may be stored for long period with minimal deterioration occurring. However, drying technology is not always paired with good/excellent organoleptic, nutritional and/or functional properties of food. In fact, during drying the heat-sensitive substances are often destroyed and degradation processes may be exacerbated due to various and concurrent reaction mechanisms. Based on authors’ best knowledge, drying degradation kinetics of biological materials are usually pseudo first-order or first order reactions (i.e. carotenoids degradation in carrots) and may be affected by the initial quality of the product itself. Therefore, the main objective of the proposed study was to investigate the feasibility of k-means unsupervised learning to proactively monitor quality change in organic apples and carrots during hot-air drying. Based on authors’ best knowledge, fruit and vegetables drying has been widely addressed in literature; nevertheless, little insight is available on smart drying, while knowledge of its potential use in the organic sector is totally lacking

Chapter Coastal erosion in the Gulf of Follonica and Baratti and coastal defense methods

From 1988 to the present the Institute of Marine Biology and Ecology of Piombino has studied the marine environmental situation of the Gulf of Follonica (Italy), in collaboration with the Universities of Siena, Pisa, Urbino, Sassari, Corte (FR) and the CNR of Pisa. In recent years erosion has drastically changed the sandy beaches mainly as a consequence of the constant retreat of the P. oceanica meadows whose possible causes have been studied. Also in the Gulf of Baratti the methods adopted for the defense of the beach have been inadequate

The risk of musculoskeletal disorders due to repetitive movements of upper limbs for workers employed in hazelnut sorting

In the agro-industrial sector there are many activities whose urgent rhythms can cause a considerable exposure to bio-mechanical risk factors. In the hazelnut sorting, the workers are subject to several biomechanical risks, with repetitive movements, and operations that require a remarkable degree of strength. A thorough study of the workers' exposure to repetitive manual movements has been carried out, with the aim of setting up the necessary measures to reduce the risk factors. The aim of the research is to assess the risk of work-related musculo-skeletal disorders (WMSDs) due to repetitive work, for workers employed to hazelnut shells sorting. The research was carried out in an agricultural cooperative in the Viterbo's area. For risk assessment authors used a method (Occupational Repetitive Actions "OCRA" index according to ISO 11228- 3:2009, Ergonomics - Manual handling - Part 3: Handling of low loads at high frequency) which keeps into consideration several risk factors (such as repetitiveness, prehension force, posture). The risk was assessed for 16 female workers (in eight workplaces and in two different shifts) through this classification: workers with experience less than 1 year, from 1 to 10 years and more than 10 years. This classification is very important for knowing if the professional experience could be considered a "prevention measure" for the risk reduction. The results show a high risk level for the right and left limb. The factors which more have contributed to reach such risk level are the great number of movements and the lack of recovering time

The Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy region on 4qter and the homologous locus on 10qter evolved independently under different evolutionary pressure

BACKGROUND: The homologous 4q and 10q subtelomeric regions include two distinctive polymorphic arrays of 3.3 kb repeats, named D4Z4. An additional BlnI restriction site on the 10q-type sequence allows to distinguish the chromosomal origin of the repeats. Reduction in the number of D4Z4 repeats below a threshold of 10 at the 4q locus is tightly linked to Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD), while similar contractions at 10q locus, are not pathogenic. Sequence variations due to the presence of BlnI-sensitive repeats (10q-type) on chromosome 4 or viceversa of BlnI-resistant repeats (4q-type) on chromosome 10 are observed in both alleles. RESULTS: We analysed DNA samples from 116 healthy subiects and 114 FSHD patients and determined the size distributions of polymorphic 4q and 10q alleles, the frequency and the D4Z4 repeat assortment of variant alleles, and finally the telomeric sequences both in standard and variant alleles. We observed the same frequency and types of variant alleles in FSHD patients and controls, but we found marked differences between the repeat arrays of the 4q and 10q chromosomes. In particular we detected 10q alleles completely replaced by the 4q subtelomeric region, consisting in the whole set of 4q-type repeats and the distal telomeric markers. However the reciprocal event, 10q-type subtelomeric region on chromosome 4, was never observed. At 4q locus we always identified hybrid alleles containing a mixture of 4q and 10q-type repeats. CONCLUSION: The different size distribution and different structure of 10q variant alleles as compared with 4q suggests that these loci evolved in a different manner, since the 4q locus is linked to FSHD, while no inheritable disease is associated with mutations in 10qter genomic region. Hybrid alleles on chromosome 4 always retain a minimum number of 4q type repeats, as they are probably essential for maintaining the structural and functional properties of this subtelomeric region. In addition we found: i) several instances of variant alleles that could be misinterpreted and interfere with a correct diagnosis of FSHD; ii) the presence of borderline alleles in the range of 30–40 kb that carried a qA type telomere and were not associated with the disease

Chapter Coastal erosion in the Gulf of Follonica and Baratti and coastal defense methods

From 1988 to the present the Institute of Marine Biology and Ecology of Piombino has studied the marine environmental situation of the Gulf of Follonica (Italy), in collaboration with the Universities of Siena, Pisa, Urbino, Sassari, Corte (FR) and the CNR of Pisa. In recent years erosion has drastically changed the sandy beaches mainly as a consequence of the constant retreat of the P. oceanica meadows whose possible causes have been studied. Also in the Gulf of Baratti the methods adopted for the defense of the beach have been inadequate

Real-time monitoring of organic apple (var. Gala) during hot-air drying using Near-Infrared spectroscopy

Dried apple (Malus domestica B.) shows a growing trend to its worldwide consumption as raw material used to produce organic snacks, integral breakfast foods, chips, etc. Apple is often dried by conventional methods (e.g. hot-air drying, freeze-drying, etc.), which are usually uncontrolled and then prone to product quality deterioration. Thus, to allow the production of high-value end products, there is a need for developing new drying systems. In this study, it was investigated the feasibility of an implementation of NIR spectroscopy in smart drying systems to non-destructively detect and monitor physicochemical changes in organic apples wedges during 8-h hot-air drying at 60 °C. Moreover, the impact of microwave heating pre-treatment (at 850 W for 45 s) as enzyme inactivators on model performances was also evaluated. Partial least squares (PLS) regression models were successfully developed to monitor changes in water activity (R2 = 0.97–0.98), moisture content (R2 = 0.97–0.98), SSC (R2 = 0.96–0.97) and chroma (R2 = 0.77–0.86) during drying. Classification analysis was performed for the development of discriminant models able to recognise dehydration phases of apple wedges on the basis of their spectral profile. The classification models were computed using K-means and Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) algorithms in sequence. The performance of each PLS-DA model was defined based on its accuracy, sensitivity and specificity rates. All of the selected models provided a very-good (>0.90) or excellent (>0.95) sensitivity and specificity rates for the predefined drying phases. Feature selection procedures allowed to obtain both regression and classification models with performances very similar to models computed from the full spectrum. Results suggest that effect of microwave heating on both water loss and microstructure of apple tissue was pronounced, mainly affecting the features selection procedure in terms of number of features and selected wavelengths

Sustainable Land Management, Wildfire Risk and the Role of Grazing in Mediterranean Urban-Rural Interfaces: A Regional Approach from Greece

Mediterranean regions are likely to be the most vulnerable areas to wildfires in Europe. In this context, land-use change has promoted land abandonment and the consequent accumulation of biomass (fuel) in (progressively less managed) forests and (non-forest) natural land, causing higher fire density and severity, economic damage, and land degradation. The expansion of Wildland-Urban Interfaces (WUIs) further affects fire density by negatively impacting peri-urban farming and livestock density. Assuming the role of grazing in controlling fuel accumulation in forests and non-forest natural land as an indirect measure of wildfire containment around large Mediterranean cities, our work focuses on the role of nomadic livestock, i.e., sheep and goats—the most abundant and traditional farm species in the area. The present study (i) investigates the relationship between fire frequency/extent and livestock decline at the regional level in Greece, (ii) explores changes over time in regional wildfire regimes, comparing Attica, a particularly vulnerable peri-urban region which includes Athens (the Greek capital city), with the rest of the country, and (iii) quantifies trends over time in livestock characteristics (population structure and dynamics) over a sufficiently long time interval (1961–2017) at the same spatial scale, with the aim to document the progressive reduction of nomadic livestock in peri-urban districts. A comprehensive analysis of statistical data, corroborated with a literature review, outlined the relationship between livestock decline over time and changes in specific wildfire characteristics at the regional scale, evidencing peculiar environmental conditions in Attica. In this region, a rapid decline of nomadic livestock was observed compared to in the rest of Greece, leading to a higher wildfire risk. The results of this study suggest that nomadic livestock contributes to sustainable management of peri-urban land, stimulating grazing that may prevent fuel accumulation in fringe woodlands

Machine Vision Retrofit System for Mechanical Weed Control in Precision Agriculture Applications

This paper presents a machine vision retrofit system designed for upgrading used tractors to allow the control of the tillage implements and enable real-time field operation. The retrofit package comprises an acquisition system placed in the cabin, a front-mounted RGB camera sensor, and a rear-mounted Peiseler encoder wheel. The method combines shape analysis and colorimetric k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) clustering for in-field weed discrimination. This low-cost retrofit package can use interchangeable sensors, supplying flexibility of use with different farming implements. Field tests were conducted within lettuce and broccoli crops to develop the image analysis system for the autonomous control of an intra-row hoeing implement. The performance showed by the system in the trials was judged in terms of accuracy and speed. The system was capable of discriminating weed plants from crop with few errors, achieving a fairly high performance, given the severe degree of weed infestation encountered. The actuation time for image processing, currently implemented in MATLAB integrated with the retrofit kit, was about 7 s. The correct detection rate was higher for lettuce (from 69% to 96%) than for broccoli (from 65% to 79%), also considering the negative effect of shadows. To be implementable, the experimental code needs to be optimized to reduce acquisition and processing times. A software utility was developed in Java to reach a processing time of two images per second