The paper demonstrates a low-cost rice quality assessment system based on image processing and ma... more The paper demonstrates a low-cost rice quality assessment system based on image processing and machine learning (ML) algorithms. A Raspberry-Pi based image acquisition module was developed to extract the structural and geometric features from 3081 images of eight different varieties of rice grains. Based on features such as perimeter, area, solidity, roundness, compactness, and shape factor, an automatic identification system is developed to segment the grains based on their types and classify them by using seven machine learning algorithms. These ML models are trained using the images and are compared using different ML models. ROC curves are plotted for each model for quantitative analysis to assess the model’s performance. It is concluded that the random forest classifier presents an accuracy of 77 percent and is the best-performing model for the classification of rice varieties. Furthermore, the same algorithm is efficiently employed to determine the price of adulterated rice sa...
Agricultural Engineering International: The CIGR Journal, 2020
This study was focused on investigating the use of pulsed ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration... more This study was focused on investigating the use of pulsed ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration (UAOD) for enhancing the infusion of phenolic compounds extracted from grape pomace (GPx) to Aloe vera ( Aloe barbadensis Miller,) gel (AVG) using response surface methodology (RSM) and produce a dehydrated product with high antioxidant content. Fresh AVG were initially immersed in a sucrose solution of 50° B with three levels of GPx (10, 20, and 30 v/v) and subjected to pulsed ultrasound (US) treatment with a probe of 2 cm diameter, two levels of ultrasound amplitude (UA) (50 and 100%), and three ultrasound treatment times (UT) (30, 135 and 210 min). The pulsed on and off times were set at 15 and 1 min, respectively. A multiple regression analysis was carried out to develop second-order polynomial models with high coefficients of determination value ( R 2 > 0.81). The optimal conditions were obtained using the Design Expert software. The best condition obtained for the UAOD optimi...
Emulsion coatings were formulated and films were developed using tragacanth gum as the basic stru... more Emulsion coatings were formulated and films were developed using tragacanth gum as the basic structural component. Preliminary experiments were carried out to determine the proper concentration of tragacanth gum, lipid and plasticizers in the film. The effects of tragacanth gum, oil and glycerol concentration on water vapor permeability (WVP), mechanical properties and opacity (OP) of the films were evaluated using the response surface methodology.WVP increased by tragacanth and glycerol concentration and was decreased by oil concentration. Increasing the amount of tragacanth gumand decreasing the glycerol and oil concentration increased tensile strength (TS) while elongation at break (EB) increased by increasing both tragacanth and glycerol concentration and decreased by increasing oil concentration. Oil was the most influential factor that affected opacity, which increased with increasing oil concentration. Models developed forWVP, EB, TS and OP had high coefficient ofmultiple det...
HighlightsFTC-4 treated brown rice showed better protein digestibility.BR-AAS was used to evaluat... more HighlightsFTC-4 treated brown rice showed better protein digestibility.BR-AAS was used to evaluate the nutritive value of released free amino acids.G24P treated brown rice is recommended to supplement amino acid intake in a daily diet.. The objective of this study was to evaluate the in vitro protein digestibility of brown rice (BR) after high-pressure (HP), freeze-thaw cycle (FTC), and germination-parboiling (GP) treatments. Four-cycle freeze-thaw (FTC-4) treatment enhanced digestibility, and all treated BR released more essential and total amino acids after digestion. To evaluate the nutritive value of free amino acids released after digestion (on the premise of the same intake of BR products), a BR amino acid score (BR-AAS) was used, based on the patterns of protein digestibility-corrected amino acid scores with modifications. Results suggested that BR treated with 24 h of germination followed by 10 min of parboiling (G24P) was a better choice for supplementing amino acid intake ...
Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies, 2021
Abstract Paneer, a product of India similar to cottage cheese, was prepared from cow's milk h... more Abstract Paneer, a product of India similar to cottage cheese, was prepared from cow's milk heat-treated (90 °C/5 min) (HTMP) or high-pressure (HP) treated (500 MPa/15 min) (HPPMP) for achieving pasteurization. HTMP and HPPMP paneer samples were HP treated (500 MPa for 15 min) again after vacuum packaging to get HTMP/HPP and HPPMP/HPP samples, respectively. The third set of samples were obtained by dipping HTMP and HPPMP paneer samples in 2% lactic acid solution and then subjecting them to the same HP treatment and stamped as HTMP/LA/HPP and HPPMP/LA/HPP, respectively. All six types of vacuum-packed paneer were studied for changes in moisture, acidity, pH, color, texture, and microbiological quality during storage at 5 ± 1 °C and 25 ± 1 °C. High-pressure treatment of milk increased the yield of paneer significantly (P
HighlightsHigh-pressure densification (HPD) resulted in more than 100% increase in the density of... more HighlightsHigh-pressure densification (HPD) resulted in more than 100% increase in the density of poplar wood.Density of wood during HPD treatment was up to 300% and 100% higher than observed before and after HPD.A method was developed to measure elastic recovery in the radial and tangential directions under HPD.. Plastic and elastic strains of poplar wood in the radial and tangential directions were investigated after high-pressure densification (HPD) using a special method that detected the elastic strain. There was a large difference in plastic and elastic strains obtained in compressed wood between the radial and tangential directions. The maximum total strain in the radial and tangential directions reached 26.9% and 66.9%, respectively, when compressed at 150 MPa for 300 s. Longer holding time (300 s) increased the plastic strain, by reducing the elastic strain, when the applied pressure was lower than 60 MPa. In addition, a large difference in compressed wood density prevailed...
. The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of high-pressure (HP) treatment on the me... more . The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of high-pressure (HP) treatment on the mechanical performance properties of Paulownia ( spp.) wood boards. The boards were HP treated at selected pressures (20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 MPa) for 30 s. A special vacuum-packing technique that sandwiched the test boards between two steel plates was used for the HP treatment to prevent board distortion. Thickness, density, vertical density profile (VDP), cell wall percentage (VC), porosity percentage (VH), surface roughness, hardness, and abrasion resistance were evaluated to assess the performance properties of the treated and untreated boards. HP treatment resulted in 45.7% to 60.0% reduction in thickness of the boards, while it increased the density by 88% to 170%. The VDP of densified boards was distributed uniformly, and core densities were only slightly higher than surface densities. HP treatment made the Paulownia board surfaces much smoother, and three roughness parameters were reduced with increasing treatment pressure level. Hardness values of the boards were improved by 84% to 173%. The mass loss values of HP treated wood samples in abrasion tests were significantly reduced by 40.7% to 75.0%. The results of this study demonstrate that HP treatment is a useful method to improve the end-use properties of low-density wood like Paulownia. Keywords: Abrasion resistance, Hardness, High-pressure densification, Paulownia wood boards, Vertical density profile, Surface roughness.
Three treatments, namely germination-parboiling (PG), freeze-thaw cycle (FTC) and high pressure p... more Three treatments, namely germination-parboiling (PG), freeze-thaw cycle (FTC) and high pressure processing (HPP) were compared for phytochemical content and antioxidant activity of brown rice (BR). These were determined in raw (uncooked), cooked, and in-vitro digested BR and compared with those from untreated BR and white rice (WR). PG showed the highest retention of phytochemicals after cooking (87–100%) while it dropped to 59–72% with FTC and 64–76% with HPP. After in-vitro digestion, the highest amount of phenolics was found in PG-24 h and flavonoids in FTC for two cycles. The antioxidant activity, as determined by oxygen radical absorbance capacity and ABTS methods, showed the highest value to be associated with in-vitro digested sample of PG-24 h, and lowest in WR. The results of this study show that these three treatments could improve or retain the phenolic content and antioxidant activity in cooked BR after in-vitro digestion.
Three food processing projects, cryogenic freezing of pork loin and of fish as well as Modified A... more Three food processing projects, cryogenic freezing of pork loin and of fish as well as Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) of pork loin, were evaluated. By adopting a similar plant layout and production plan, it was shown that construction and operation of a processing plant in Quebec for each of the three processes was financially profitable. Further sensitivity analysis was also carried out. The calculated IRR compared favorably with the return rates on the Toronto Stock Exchange and on capital for some food and beverage industries. The results also showed that theMAPtechnology ofprocessing pork was much more profitable than the other alternatives.
The paper demonstrates a low-cost rice quality assessment system based on image processing and ma... more The paper demonstrates a low-cost rice quality assessment system based on image processing and machine learning (ML) algorithms. A Raspberry-Pi based image acquisition module was developed to extract the structural and geometric features from 3081 images of eight different varieties of rice grains. Based on features such as perimeter, area, solidity, roundness, compactness, and shape factor, an automatic identification system is developed to segment the grains based on their types and classify them by using seven machine learning algorithms. These ML models are trained using the images and are compared using different ML models. ROC curves are plotted for each model for quantitative analysis to assess the model’s performance. It is concluded that the random forest classifier presents an accuracy of 77 percent and is the best-performing model for the classification of rice varieties. Furthermore, the same algorithm is efficiently employed to determine the price of adulterated rice sa...
Agricultural Engineering International: The CIGR Journal, 2020
This study was focused on investigating the use of pulsed ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration... more This study was focused on investigating the use of pulsed ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration (UAOD) for enhancing the infusion of phenolic compounds extracted from grape pomace (GPx) to Aloe vera ( Aloe barbadensis Miller,) gel (AVG) using response surface methodology (RSM) and produce a dehydrated product with high antioxidant content. Fresh AVG were initially immersed in a sucrose solution of 50° B with three levels of GPx (10, 20, and 30 v/v) and subjected to pulsed ultrasound (US) treatment with a probe of 2 cm diameter, two levels of ultrasound amplitude (UA) (50 and 100%), and three ultrasound treatment times (UT) (30, 135 and 210 min). The pulsed on and off times were set at 15 and 1 min, respectively. A multiple regression analysis was carried out to develop second-order polynomial models with high coefficients of determination value ( R 2 > 0.81). The optimal conditions were obtained using the Design Expert software. The best condition obtained for the UAOD optimi...
Emulsion coatings were formulated and films were developed using tragacanth gum as the basic stru... more Emulsion coatings were formulated and films were developed using tragacanth gum as the basic structural component. Preliminary experiments were carried out to determine the proper concentration of tragacanth gum, lipid and plasticizers in the film. The effects of tragacanth gum, oil and glycerol concentration on water vapor permeability (WVP), mechanical properties and opacity (OP) of the films were evaluated using the response surface methodology.WVP increased by tragacanth and glycerol concentration and was decreased by oil concentration. Increasing the amount of tragacanth gumand decreasing the glycerol and oil concentration increased tensile strength (TS) while elongation at break (EB) increased by increasing both tragacanth and glycerol concentration and decreased by increasing oil concentration. Oil was the most influential factor that affected opacity, which increased with increasing oil concentration. Models developed forWVP, EB, TS and OP had high coefficient ofmultiple det...
HighlightsFTC-4 treated brown rice showed better protein digestibility.BR-AAS was used to evaluat... more HighlightsFTC-4 treated brown rice showed better protein digestibility.BR-AAS was used to evaluate the nutritive value of released free amino acids.G24P treated brown rice is recommended to supplement amino acid intake in a daily diet.. The objective of this study was to evaluate the in vitro protein digestibility of brown rice (BR) after high-pressure (HP), freeze-thaw cycle (FTC), and germination-parboiling (GP) treatments. Four-cycle freeze-thaw (FTC-4) treatment enhanced digestibility, and all treated BR released more essential and total amino acids after digestion. To evaluate the nutritive value of free amino acids released after digestion (on the premise of the same intake of BR products), a BR amino acid score (BR-AAS) was used, based on the patterns of protein digestibility-corrected amino acid scores with modifications. Results suggested that BR treated with 24 h of germination followed by 10 min of parboiling (G24P) was a better choice for supplementing amino acid intake ...
Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies, 2021
Abstract Paneer, a product of India similar to cottage cheese, was prepared from cow's milk h... more Abstract Paneer, a product of India similar to cottage cheese, was prepared from cow's milk heat-treated (90 °C/5 min) (HTMP) or high-pressure (HP) treated (500 MPa/15 min) (HPPMP) for achieving pasteurization. HTMP and HPPMP paneer samples were HP treated (500 MPa for 15 min) again after vacuum packaging to get HTMP/HPP and HPPMP/HPP samples, respectively. The third set of samples were obtained by dipping HTMP and HPPMP paneer samples in 2% lactic acid solution and then subjecting them to the same HP treatment and stamped as HTMP/LA/HPP and HPPMP/LA/HPP, respectively. All six types of vacuum-packed paneer were studied for changes in moisture, acidity, pH, color, texture, and microbiological quality during storage at 5 ± 1 °C and 25 ± 1 °C. High-pressure treatment of milk increased the yield of paneer significantly (P
HighlightsHigh-pressure densification (HPD) resulted in more than 100% increase in the density of... more HighlightsHigh-pressure densification (HPD) resulted in more than 100% increase in the density of poplar wood.Density of wood during HPD treatment was up to 300% and 100% higher than observed before and after HPD.A method was developed to measure elastic recovery in the radial and tangential directions under HPD.. Plastic and elastic strains of poplar wood in the radial and tangential directions were investigated after high-pressure densification (HPD) using a special method that detected the elastic strain. There was a large difference in plastic and elastic strains obtained in compressed wood between the radial and tangential directions. The maximum total strain in the radial and tangential directions reached 26.9% and 66.9%, respectively, when compressed at 150 MPa for 300 s. Longer holding time (300 s) increased the plastic strain, by reducing the elastic strain, when the applied pressure was lower than 60 MPa. In addition, a large difference in compressed wood density prevailed...
. The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of high-pressure (HP) treatment on the me... more . The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of high-pressure (HP) treatment on the mechanical performance properties of Paulownia ( spp.) wood boards. The boards were HP treated at selected pressures (20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 MPa) for 30 s. A special vacuum-packing technique that sandwiched the test boards between two steel plates was used for the HP treatment to prevent board distortion. Thickness, density, vertical density profile (VDP), cell wall percentage (VC), porosity percentage (VH), surface roughness, hardness, and abrasion resistance were evaluated to assess the performance properties of the treated and untreated boards. HP treatment resulted in 45.7% to 60.0% reduction in thickness of the boards, while it increased the density by 88% to 170%. The VDP of densified boards was distributed uniformly, and core densities were only slightly higher than surface densities. HP treatment made the Paulownia board surfaces much smoother, and three roughness parameters were reduced with increasing treatment pressure level. Hardness values of the boards were improved by 84% to 173%. The mass loss values of HP treated wood samples in abrasion tests were significantly reduced by 40.7% to 75.0%. The results of this study demonstrate that HP treatment is a useful method to improve the end-use properties of low-density wood like Paulownia. Keywords: Abrasion resistance, Hardness, High-pressure densification, Paulownia wood boards, Vertical density profile, Surface roughness.
Three treatments, namely germination-parboiling (PG), freeze-thaw cycle (FTC) and high pressure p... more Three treatments, namely germination-parboiling (PG), freeze-thaw cycle (FTC) and high pressure processing (HPP) were compared for phytochemical content and antioxidant activity of brown rice (BR). These were determined in raw (uncooked), cooked, and in-vitro digested BR and compared with those from untreated BR and white rice (WR). PG showed the highest retention of phytochemicals after cooking (87–100%) while it dropped to 59–72% with FTC and 64–76% with HPP. After in-vitro digestion, the highest amount of phenolics was found in PG-24 h and flavonoids in FTC for two cycles. The antioxidant activity, as determined by oxygen radical absorbance capacity and ABTS methods, showed the highest value to be associated with in-vitro digested sample of PG-24 h, and lowest in WR. The results of this study show that these three treatments could improve or retain the phenolic content and antioxidant activity in cooked BR after in-vitro digestion.
Three food processing projects, cryogenic freezing of pork loin and of fish as well as Modified A... more Three food processing projects, cryogenic freezing of pork loin and of fish as well as Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) of pork loin, were evaluated. By adopting a similar plant layout and production plan, it was shown that construction and operation of a processing plant in Quebec for each of the three processes was financially profitable. Further sensitivity analysis was also carried out. The calculated IRR compared favorably with the return rates on the Toronto Stock Exchange and on capital for some food and beverage industries. The results also showed that theMAPtechnology ofprocessing pork was much more profitable than the other alternatives.
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Papers by Hosahalli Ramaswamy