Nondestructive quality evaluation and monitoring of Braeburn apples by Spatially Resolved Spectroscopy.

Contact Spatially Resolved Spectroscopy (SRS) measurements by means of a fiber-optics probe were employed for nondestructive assessment and monitoring of Braeburn apples during shelflife storage. SRS measurements and estimation of optical properties were calibrated and validated by means of liquid optical phantoms with known optical properties and a metamodeling method. The acquired optical properties (absorption and reduced scattering coefficients) for the apples during shelf-life storage were found to provide useful information for nondestructive evaluation of apple quality attributes (firmness and SSC) and for monitoring the changes in their microstructure and chemical composition. On-line SRS measurement was achieved by mounting the SRS probe over a conveyor syste

TextANIMAR: Text-based 3D Animal Fine-Grained Retrieval

3D object retrieval is an important yet challenging task, which has drawn more and more attention in recent years. While existing approaches have made strides in addressing this issue, they are often limited to restricted settings such as image and sketch queries, which are often unfriendly interactions for common users. In order to overcome these limitations, this paper presents a novel SHREC challenge track focusing on text-based fine-grained retrieval of 3D animal models. Unlike previous SHREC challenge tracks, the proposed task is considerably more challenging, requiring participants to develop innovative approaches to tackle the problem of text-based retrieval. Despite the increased difficulty, we believe that this task has the potential to drive useful applications in practice and facilitate more intuitive interactions with 3D objects. Five groups participated in our competition, submitting a total of 114 runs. While the results obtained in our competition are satisfactory, we note that the challenges presented by this task are far from being fully solved. As such, we provide insights into potential areas for future research and improvements. We believe that we can help push the boundaries of 3D object retrieval and facilitate more user-friendly interactions via vision-language technologies.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2304.0573

Determinants of Vietnam's potential for agricultural export trade to Asia-Pacific economic cooperation (APEC) members

This study examines determinants of Vietnamese agricultural exports to the APEC and whether there was an export gap between Vietnam and each APEC trading partner in the period 1998–2018, using the stochastic frontier gravity model. The empirical results affirm the consistency of the gravity model for Vietnamese agricultural exports. The new findings imply that the government should concentrate on designing a policy framework to encourage export enterprises to invest more in the technology factor, especially for large and high-demand markets such as the USA, Japan, and Korea. In practice, export enterprises should focus on several key action points. First, find partners to expand the distribution network of agricultural products within the four largest markets. Second, pay attention to updating information on the technical requirements of China, the largest import market. Third, conduct research to build up competitively strategic products that can be exported to potential new markets, such as Russia, Australia, and Malaysia

Cross-polarized VNIR hyperspectral reflectance imaging for non-destructive quality evaluation of dried banana slices, drying process monitoring and control

Banana and its dried products are one of the most common foods consumed all over the world. Quality attributes of dried banana slices are typically evaluated using time-consuming and labor intensive methods which do not allow to evaluate each individual slice. Replacement of the current destructive methods for quality evaluation of dried banana slices by fast, non-destructive methods would provide large added value to the food industry. Therefore, the aim of this study was to monitor the moisture content, texture and color of banana slices during the drying process in a fast and non-destructive way. VNIR hyperspectral reflectance imaging in the 400–1000 nm range was selected for this purpose. Thanks to a cross-polarized configuration the effects of glare or specular reflection on the banana slice surfaces in the hyperspectral diffuse reflectance images was largely reduced. Reference quality attributes for all the slices (moisture content, texture and color (L*, a*, b* values) obtained using conventional destructive methods and colorimeter were predicted from their corresponding average reflectance spectra extracted from the hyperspectral images by means of partial least squares regression (PLSR). The PLSR calibration models were validated on samples which had not been used for model calibration. The results were very good for water content (R2P = 0.97, RMSEP = 0.05 kg water/kg DM), quite good for and b* value (R2P = 0.83, RMSEP = 1.95), and reasonable for texture (R2P = 0.66, RMSEP = 11.8 N), a* value (R2P = 0.53, RMSEP = 1.32) and L* value (R2P = 0.61, RMSEP = 5.92). Subsequently, these calibration models were used to predict those quality attributes at pixel level for the validation slices to visualize the spatial distribution of these quality parameters at different stages during the drying process. The obtained results clearly indicate the potential of cross-polarized hyperspectral reflectance imaging for non-destructive monitoring of the quality attributes of banana slices during drying.status: publishe

A mini review of current studies on metal-organic frameworks-incorporated composite solid polymer electrolytes in all-solid-state lithium batteries

All-solid-state lithium batteries (ASSLBs) using solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) are believed to be future next-generation batteries aiming to replace high-risk traditional batteries using liquid electrolytes, which have a wide application range in portable electronic devices, portable power supplies, and especially in electric vehicles. Moreover, the appearance of SPEs can overcome the electrolyte leakage and flammability problems in conventional lithium-ion batteries. Nevertheless, ASSLBs still face some limitations due to the low ionic conductivity of solid-state electrolytes (SSEs) at room temperature and the poor contact electrode/electrolyte interface, which can be solved by suitable strategies. Currently, the research strategies of metal-organic frameworks that can be incorporated into solid polymer electrolytes offer a remarkable method for producing uniform solid polymer electrolytes that have good electrode/electrolyte contact interfaces and high ionic conductivity. Herein, the updates of current studies about metal-organic framework-incorporated composite solid polymer electrolytes are discussed in this mini-review

Decomposition of absorption spectra of multi-layered biological materials by spatially-resolved spectroscopy and parallel factor analysis

AbstractVisible and near-infrared spectroscopy have been widely used for non-destructive and rapid monitoring of biological materials including agricultural produce and foods. Methods for decomposition of spectra of biological materials into that of each layer are demanded because the target of monitoring is in most cases limited to a single layer (e.g. sweetness of the flesh of a fruit, not the skin). Also, separation of light absorption and scattering properties is considered to lead more robust modeling of biological materials. Therefore, the potential of Parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) on spatially resolved spectroscopy (SRS) has been investigated in this study. Spatially resolved spectra of 120 ‘Braeburn’ apples with difference in skin color (green and red) and storage condition (before and after 14 days shelf-life storage) were measured in the 400-1100nm range using 7 detection fibers with different source-detector distance. PARAFAC on the whole data set could decompose the spatially resolved spectra into that of flesh and skin as factor 1 and 2 wavelength loadings, respectively. This result was validated by the facts that the factor 1 loading was almost identical to the ‘real’ spectra of flesh, which had been acquired by measuring peeled apples, and peaks observed in the factor 2 loading corresponded to absorption bands of pigments contained in apple skin. When PARAFAC was applied to individual sample data sets, difference in skin color and chlorophyll content as well as degradation of chlorophyll in skin during ripening and storage could be modelled as the change in factor 1 wavelength loading. These results support the potential of SRS combined with PARAFAC to decompose the spectra of multi-layered biological materials

Isopanduratin A Inhibits Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF)-α-Induced Nuclear Factor κB Signaling Pathway by Promoting Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase-Dependent Ectodomain Shedding of TNF Receptor 1 in Human Lung Adenocarcinoma A549 Cells

Tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) induces the nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) signaling pathway via TNF receptor 1 (TNF-R1). We recently reported that isopanduratin A inhibited the TNF-α-induced NF-κB signaling pathway in human lung adenocarcinoma A549 cells. In the present study, we found that isopanduratin A did not inhibit the interleukin-1α-induced NF-κB signaling pathway in A549 cells. Isopanduratin A down-regulated the expression of TNF-R1 in these cells. We also revealed that isopanduratin A down-regulated the cell surface expression of TNF-R1 by promoting the cleavage of TNF-R1 into its soluble forms. TAPI-2, an inhibitor of TNF-α-converting enzyme, suppressed the inhibitory activity of isopanduratin A against the TNF-α-induced activation of NF-κB. The mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) kinase inhibitor U0126, but not the p38 MAP kinase inhibitor SB203580, blocked the ectodomain shedding of TNF-R1 induced by isopanduratin A. Consistent with this result, isopanduratin A induced the rapid phosphorylation of ERK, but not p38 MAP kinase. Isopanduratin A also promoted the phosphorylation of eukaryotic initiation factor 2α (eIF2α). The present results indicate that isopanduratin A inhibits TNF-α-induced NF-κB signaling pathway by promoting ERK-dependent ectodomain shedding of cell surface TNF-R1, and also decreases cellular TNF-R1 levels through the phosphorylation of eIF2α in A549 cells

Size Determination of Polystyrene Sub-Microspheres Using Transmission Spectroscopy

Nano/micro polystyrene (PS) beads have found many applications in different fields spanning from drug delivery, bio-diagnostics, and hybrid plasmonics to advanced photonics. The sizes of the PS beads are an important parameter, especially in plasmonic and photonic experiments. In this work, we demonstrate a quick and straightforward method to estimate the diameters of sub-microspheres (0.2 μm to 0.8 μm) using the transmission spectra of a close-packed monolayer of polystyrene beads on glass or quartz substrates. Experimental transmission spectra of the PS monolayers were verified against finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation and showed good agreement. The effects of the substrates on the transmission spectra and, hence, the accuracy of the method were also studied by simulation, which showed that common transparent substrates only cause minor deviation of the PS bead sizes calculated by the proposed method