Mass modelling by dimension attributes for Mango (Mangifera indica cv. Zebdia) relevant to post-harvest and food plants engineering

Mass identification of mango fruits from their dimension attributes remains challenging.  This is because of the unregulated shapes of these fruits.  Therefore, this research aims at creating mathematical models that can demonstrate the relationship between the fruit’s mass and dimension attributes.  Hence, these models can be used in post-harvest engineering systems.  The researchers used 100 mango fruits (Mangifera indica cv. Zebdia) to determine the mathematical relationship between the fruits’ weight and dimension attributes.  The researcher measured and photographed the dimensions of these fruits and processed the image captured for each fruit using a computer program to find the fruit’s dimensions.  The results obtained led to the development of six mathematical models to predict a fruit’s mass from the dimensions.  Given these results, the mathematical model based on the fruit’s length shows the best performance in the mass prediction (Pearson’s r=0.87).  One can infer that a fruit’s mass could be obtained from its dimensions.  This conclusion is not generalizable to other mango cultivars.  Thus, the researcher recommends conducting further studies of other cultivars to develop a unified mathematical model.  This will be helpful in developing modern post-harvest engineering systems

GENETIC EFFECT OF MIGRATORY COMPOUNDS FROM BOTTLED NATURAL DRINKING WATER STORED UNDER DIRECT SUNLIGHT

The drinking water is one of the important routes for human exposure to contaminants through releasing of antimony (Sb) and polymers from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of sunlight on chemical compounds migration into PET-bottled water and studying the cytotoxicity of di-butyl phthalate (DBP) and di-octyl phthalate (DOP) by SMART in Drosophila melanogaster. Four random water bottle samples produced by various companies as:  A (PET, clear, 0.6L), B (PET, clear, 1.5L), C (PET, blue, 1.5L) and D (polycarbonate PC, blue, 19L) for studying the effect of direct sunlight exposure on migration of antimony and phthalates. Experiment was carried out in the presence of sunlight (7 h daily) for 210 day. The migrated compounds profile (µg/L) that detected sample (A) before storage were only two compounds formaldehyde (FA) and acetaldehyde  (AA) out of nine compounds.   During storage under sunlight, four compounds (Sb), bis-phenol A (BPA), dimethyl phthalate (DMP) and diethyl phthalate (DEP) were increased till 30th day then did not affect till the end of storage. Other detected compounds were continuously progressed till the end of storage with different rates. The highest rate was appeared in case of FA, it was 222 fold followed by DOP compound (173 fold) as well as DBP (75.3 fold) and finally the AA compound with 17.9 fold. Regarding to another sample B, only 3  compounds (BPA, DMP and DBP) were not detected at zero time. The AA compound was detected with the highest concentration (0.9µg/L) and the lowest one was DOP (0.007µg/L). Only four compounds were detected before storage named Sb, DOP, FA and AA, the lowest level (0.006µg/L) was noticed in DOP, while the moderate level was recorded in FA (0.03µg/L) and Sb (0.08µg/L). Other detected compounds; i.e. DBP, DOP, AA and FA were consequently increased with higher levels. This study investigated genotoxic effects of (DBP) and (DOP) at 30µg/ml concentration using the somatic mutation and recombination test (SMART). The cytotoxicity of the tested phthalate compounds was also assessed at five different concentrations 0.5, 1, 5, 10 and 20µg/ml in two types of human cell lines; liver cancer (HepG2), colon cancer (HCT-116) using neutral red cytotoxicity assay. All of tested compounds significantly showed high levels of tumor induction and frequency compared to the negative control in SMART assay. It was also reduced the viability of the HepG2 cell lines cells using different concentrations and the highest cytotoxic effect. While, on HCT-116 showed no cytotoxic effect

QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF SPONGE CAKE AND BISCUIT PREPARED USING COMPOSITE FLOUR

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of partial substitution (10 and 15%) of wheat flour by sorghum or chickpea flour on quality parameters of sponge cake and biscuit. Chickpea flour contained the highest percentage of protein, lipids, ash and crude fiber. Water absorption was increased by replacement of wheat flour with sorghum or chickpea flour. From the obtained data, it could be seen that the deleterious effect of adding sorghum flour to wheat flour on the rheological properties was more pronounced than that happened when chickpea flour was added. Cake prepared with sorghum flour had less pronounced improvements in its chemical composition rather than those of chickpea. With regard to volume and specific volume, cake prepared with 10% chickpea flour with or without cake improver recorded the highest values. Cake prepared by chickpea flour had no any unfavorable sensory change especially for the cake produced by cake improver.  Crude protein, lipids, ash and crude fiber contents were increased progressively in all biscuit samples with increasing of either the sorghum or chickpea flour levels. Also, there were no significant differences (P>0.05) between the thickness and spread ratio of control biscuit compared to that of sorghum or chickpea- wheat composite flour.  It is worth mentioning that the substitution of wheat flour with chickpea flour gave biscuit more sensory acceptable