Differential scanning calorimetry coupled with machine learning technique: An effective approach to determine the milk authenticity

Integrating mid-infrared spectroscopy, machine learning, and graphical bias correction for fatty acid prediction in water buffalo milk

BACKGROUND

Buffalo milk, constituting 15% of global production, has higher fatty acids content than Holstein milk. Fourier-transform mid-infrared (FT-MIR) spectroscopy is widely used for dairy analysis, but its application to buffalo milk, with larger fat globules, remains understudied. The ultimate goal of this study is to develop machine learning models based on FT-MIR spectroscopy for predicting fatty acids in buffalo milk and to assess the accuracy of commercial milk analyzers. This research provides a convenient, fast, and environmentally friendly method for detecting the fatty acid composition in buffalo milk.

RESULTS

We employed six machine learning algorithms to establish a detection model for 34 fatty acids in buffalo milk. The predictive models demonstrated robust capabilities for high-content fatty acids [C14:0, C15:0, C16:0, C17:0, C18:0, C18:1, saturated fatty acid (SFA), monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA)], with errors within a 15% range. Traditional FT6000 detection methods exhibited limitations in measuring SFAs and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). Implementing a mean difference correction of 0.21 for MUFAs and applying regression equations (SFA × 1.0639 + 0.0705; PUFA × 0.5472 + 0.0047) significantly improved measurement accuracy.

CONCLUSION

This study successfully developed a predictive model for fatty acids in Mediterranean buffalo milk based on FT-MIR spectroscopy. Additionally, a correction was applied to the existing measurement device, FT6000, enabling more accurate measurements of fatty acids in buffalo milk. The findings have practical implications for the food industry, offering a faster and more reliable approach to assess and monitor fatty acid composition in buffalo milk, potentially influencing product development and quality control processes. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.

Food authentication, current issues, analytical techniques, and future challenges: A comprehensive review

Food authentication and contamination are significant concerns, especially for consumers with unique nutritional, cultural, lifestyle, and religious needs. Food authenticity involves identifying food contamination for many purposes, such as adherence to religious beliefs, safeguarding health, and consuming sanitary and organic food products. This review article examines the issues related to food authentication and food fraud in recent periods. Furthermore, the development and innovations in analytical techniques employed to authenticate various food products are comprehensively focused. Food products derived from animals are susceptible to deceptive practices, which can undermine customer confidence and pose potential health hazards due to the transmission of diseases from animals to humans. Therefore, it is necessary to employ suitable and robust analytical techniques for complex and high-risk animal-derived goods, in which molecular biomarker-based (genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) techniques are covered. Various analytical methods have been employed to ascertain the geographical provenance of food items that exhibit rapid response times, low cost, nondestructiveness, and condensability.

Effects of geographical origin, vintage, and soil on stable isotopes and mineral elements in Ecolly grape berries for traceability

Stable isotopes and multi-element profiles of grapes and corresponding soils from different origins and vintages were determined by IRMS and ICP-MS, respectively. Stable isotope ratios and multi-element contents show significant differences among distinct regions and vintages. Grapes and soils were separated using δ2H and δ18O according to regions and vintages. PCA and CA results further verified that multi-element profiles were influenced by origins and vintages. In particular, δ2H, δ18O, and 21 elements in grapes were correlated with those in soil. Redundancy and Spearman analyses revealed that the BCF values were related to the longitude, latitude, altitude, precipitation, and average temperature. RF shows better performance than PLS-DA for discriminating grape origins and vintages. K, Tb, Cs, δ2H, and Co were important variables in discriminating grape origins. These findings confirm that isotopic and elemental profiles depend on the origin, vintage, and soil, establishing a promising method to discriminate grape origins and vintages.

Machine Learning Approach to Comparing Fatty Acid Profiles of Common Food Products Sold on Romanian Market

Food composition issues represent an increasing concern nowadays, in the context of diverse food commodity varieties. The contents and types of fatty acids are a constant preoccupation among consumers because of their reflections of nutrition and health problems. This study aims to find the best tool for the rapid and reliable identification of similarities and differences among several food items from a fatty acid profile perspective. An acknowledged GC-FID method was considered, while, for a better interpretation of the analytical results, machine learning algorithms were used. It was possible to develop a recognition model able to simultaneously differentiate, with an accuracy of 79.3%, nine product types using the bagged tree ensemble model. The low number of samples or some similarities among the classes could be responsible for the wrong assignments that occurred, especially in the biscuit, wafer and instant soup classes. Better accuracies values of 95, 86.1, and 97.8% were obtained when the products were grouped into three categories: (1) sunflower oil, mayonnaise, margarine, and cream cheese; (2) biscuits, cookies, margarine, and wafers; and (3) sunflower oil, chips, and instant soup.

Rapid identification of adulteration in raw bovine milk with soymilk by electronic nose and headspace-gas chromatography ion-mobility spectrometry

The adulteration of soymilk (SM) into raw bovine milk (RM) to gain profit without declaration could cause a health risk. In this study, electronic nose (E-nose) and headspace-gas chromatography ion-mobility spectrometry (HS-GC-IMS) were applied to establish a rapid and effective method to identify adulteration in RM with SM. The obtained data from HS-GC-IMS and E-nose can distinguish the adulterated samples with SM by principal component analysis. Furthermore, a quantitative model of partial least squares was established. The detection limits of E-nose and HS-GC-IMS quantitative models were 1.53% and 1.43%, the root mean square errors of prediction were 0.7390 and 0.5621, the determination coefficients of prediction were 0.9940 and 0.9958, and the relative percentage difference were 10.02 and 13.27, respectively, indicating quantitative regression and good prediction performances of SM adulteration levels in RM were achieved. This research can provide scientific information on the rapid, non-destructive and effective adulteration detection for RM.

Analysis of the Composition of Different Instars of Tenebrio molitor Larvae using Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy for Prediction of Amino and Fatty Acid Content

Insects are a sustainable protein source for food and feed. The yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor L.) is a promising candidate for industrial insect rearing and was the focus of this study. This research revealed the diversity of Tenebrio molitor larvae in the varying larval instars in terms of the nutritional content. We hypothesized that water and protein are highest in the earlier instar, while fat content is very low but increases with larval development. Consequently, an earlier instar would be a good choice for harvest, since proteins and amino acids content decrease with larval development. Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) was represented in this research as a tool for predicting the amino and fatty acid composition of mealworm larvae. Samples were scanned with a near-infrared spectrometer using wavelengths from 1100 to 2100 nm. The calibration for the prediction was developed with modified partial least squares (PLS) as the regression method. The coefficient for determining calibration (R²_C) and prediction (R²_P) were >0.82 and >0.86, with RPD values of >2.20 for 10 amino acids, resulting in a high prediction accuracy. The PLS models for glutamic acid, leucine, lysine and valine have to be improved. The prediction of six fatty acids was also possible with the coefficient of the determination of calibration (R²_C) and prediction (R²_P) > 0.77 and >0.66 with RPD values > 1.73. Only the prediction accuracy of palmitic acid was very weak, which was probably due to the narrow variation range. NIRS could help insect producers to analyze the nutritional composition of Tenebrio molitor larvae fast and easily in order to improve the larval feeding and composition for industrial mass rearing.

Non-targeted detection of food adulteration using an ensemble machine-learning model

Recurrent incidents of economically motivated adulteration have long-lasting and devastating effects on public health, economy, and society. With the current food authentication methods being target-oriented, the lack of an effective methodology to detect unencountered adulterants can lead to the next melamine-like outbreak. In this study, an ensemble machine-learning model that can help detect unprecedented adulteration without looking for specific substances, that is, in a non-targeted approach, is proposed. Using raw milk as an example, the proposed model achieved an accuracy and F1 score of 0.9924 and 0. 0.9913, respectively, when the same type of adulterants was presented in the training data. Cross-validation with spiked contaminants not routinely tested in the food industry and blinded from the training data provided an F1 score of 0.8657. This is the first study that demonstrates the feasibility of non-targeted detection with no a priori knowledge of the presence of certain adulterants using data from standard industrial testing as input. By uncovering discriminative profiling patterns, the ensemble machine-learning model can monitor and flag suspicious samples; this technique can potentially be extended to other food commodities and thus become an important contributor to public food safety.

Olfactory visualization sensor system based on colorimetric sensor array and chemometric methods for high precision assessing beef freshness

Beef is easily spoiled, resulting in foodborne illness and high societal costs. This study proposed a novel olfactory visualization system based on colorimetric sensor array and chemometric methods to detect beef freshness. First, twelve color-sensitive materials were immobilized on a hydrophobic platform to acquire scent information of beef samples according to solvatochromic effects. Second, machine vision algorithms were used to extract the scent fingerprints, and principal component analysis (PCA) was employed to compress the feature dimensions of the fingerprints. Finally, four qualitative models, k-nearest neighbor, extreme learning machine, support vector machine (SVM), and random forest, were constructed to evaluate the beef freshness according to the value of total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) and total viable counts (TVC). Results demonstrated that SVM had a preferable prediction ability, with 95.83% and 95.00% precision in the training and prediction sets, respectively. The results revealed that the simple constructed olfactory visualization sensor system could rapidly, robustly, and accurately assess beef freshness.

Simultaneous detection for adulterations of maltodextrin, sodium carbonate, and whey in raw milk using Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics

To achieve rapid on-site identification of raw milk adulteration and simultaneously quantify the levels of various adulterants, we combined Raman spectroscopy with chemometrics to detect 3 of the most common adulterants. Raw milk was artificially adulterated with maltodextrin (0.5-15.0%; wt/wt), sodium carbonate (10-100 mg/kg), or whey (1.0-20.0%; wt/wt). Partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) classification and a partial least square (PLS) regression model were established using Raman spectra of 144 samples, among which 108 samples were used for training and 36 were used for validation. A model with excellent performance was obtained by spectral preprocessing with first derivative, and variable selection optimization with variable importance in the projection. The classification accuracy of the PLS-DA model was 95.83% for maltodextrin, 100% for sodium carbonate, 95.84% for whey, and 92.25% for pure raw milk. The PLS model had a detection limit of 1.46% for maltodextrin, 4.38 mg/kg for sodium carbonate, and 2.64% for whey. These results suggested that Raman spectroscopy combined with PLS-DA and PLS model can rapidly and efficiently detect adulterants of maltodextrin, sodium carbonate, and whey in raw milk.

The Application of FTIR Spectroscopy and Chemometrics for the Authentication Analysis of Horse Milk

Expensive milk such as horse's milk (HM) may be the target of adulteration by other milk such as goat's milk (GM) and cow's milk (CM). FTIR spectroscopy in combination with chemometrics of linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and multivariate calibrations of partial least square regression (PLSR) and principal component regression (PCR) was used for authentication of HM from GM and CM. Milk was directly subjected to attenuated total reflectance (ATR) spectral measurement at midinfrared regions (4000-650 cm-1). Results showed that LDA could make clear discrimination between HM and HM adulterated with CM and GM without any misclassification observed. PLSR using 2nd derivative spectra at 3200-2800 and 1300-1000 cm-1 provided the best model for the relationship between actual values of GM and FTIR predicted values than PCR. At this condition, R 2 values for calibration and validation models obtained were 0.9995 and 0.9612 with RMSEC and RMSEP values of 0.0093 and 0.0794. PLSR using normal FTIR spectra at 3800-3000 and 1500-1000 cm-1 offered R 2 for the relationship between actual values of CM and FTIR predicted values of >0.99 in calibration and validation models with low errors of RMSEC of 0.0164 and RMSEP of 0.0336 during authentication of HM from CM. Therefore, FTIR spectroscopy in combination with LDA and PLSR is an effective method for authentication of HM from GM and CM.

Over 20 Years of Machine Learning Applications on Dairy Farms: A Comprehensive Mapping Study

Machine learning applications are becoming more ubiquitous in dairy farming decision support applications in areas such as feeding, animal husbandry, healthcare, animal behavior, milking and resource management. Thus, the objective of this mapping study was to collate and assess studies published in journals and conference proceedings between 1999 and 2021, which applied machine learning algorithms to dairy farming-related problems to identify trends in the geographical origins of data, as well as the algorithms, features and evaluation metrics and methods used. This mapping study was carried out in line with PRISMA guidelines, with six pre-defined research questions (RQ) and a broad and unbiased search strategy that explored five databases. In total, 129 publications passed the pre-defined selection criteria, from which relevant data required to answer each RQ were extracted and analyzed. This study found that Europe (43% of studies) produced the largest number of publications (RQ1), while the largest number of articles were published in the Computers and Electronics in Agriculture journal (21%) (RQ2). The largest number of studies addressed problems related to the physiology and health of dairy cows (32%) (RQ3), while the most frequently employed feature data were derived from sensors (48%) (RQ4). The largest number of studies employed tree-based algorithms (54%) (RQ5), while RMSE (56%) (regression) and accuracy (77%) (classification) were the most frequently employed metrics used, and hold-out cross-validation (39%) was the most frequently employed evaluation method (RQ6). Since 2018, there has been more than a sevenfold increase in the number of studies that focused on the physiology and health of dairy cows, compared to almost a threefold increase in the overall number of publications, suggesting an increased focus on this subdomain. In addition, a fivefold increase in the number of publications that employed neural network algorithms was identified since 2018, in comparison to a threefold increase in the use of both tree-based algorithms and statistical regression algorithms, suggesting an increasing utilization of neural network-based algorithms.

Standardization of a rapid quadruplex PCR method for the simultaneous detection of bovine, buffalo, Salmonella spp., and Listeria monocytogenes DNA in milk

ABSTRACT The objective of the present study was to Standardize a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) protocol for the authentication of bovine and buffalo milk, and to detect the presence of Salmonella spp. and Listeria monocytogenes. For this, the target DNA was extracted, mixed, and subjected to a PCR assay. Milk samples were defrauded and experimentally contaminated with microorganisms to assess the detection of target DNA at different times of cultivation, bacterial titers, and concentration of genetic material. In addition, the protocol was tested with DNA extracted directly from food, without a pre-enrichment step. The proposed quadruplex PCR showed good accuracy in identifying target DNA sequences. It was possible to simultaneously identify all DNA sequences at the time of inoculation (0h), when the samples were contaminated with 2 CFU/250mL and with 6h of culture when the initial inoculum was 1 CFU/250mL. It was also possible to directly detect DNA sequences from the food when it was inoculated with 3 CFU/mL bacteria. Thus, the proposed methodology showed satisfactory performance, optimization of the analysis time, and a potential for the detection of microorganisms at low titers, which can be used for the detection of fraud and contamination.

Artificial Neural Networks for Pyrolysis, Thermal Analysis, and Thermokinetic Studies: The Status Quo

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are a method of machine learning (ML) that is now widely used in physics, chemistry, and material science. ANN can learn from data to identify nonlinear trends and give accurate predictions. ML methods, and ANNs in particular, have already demonstrated their worth in solving various chemical engineering problems, but applications in pyrolysis, thermal analysis, and, especially, thermokinetic studies are still in an initiatory stage. The present article gives a critical overview and summary of the available literature on applying ANNs in the field of pyrolysis, thermal analysis, and thermokinetic studies. More than 100 papers from these research areas are surveyed. Some approaches from the broad field of chemical engineering are discussed as the venues for possible transfer to the field of pyrolysis and thermal analysis studies in general. It is stressed that the current thermokinetic applications of ANNs are yet to evolve significantly to reach the capabilities of the existing isoconversional and model-fitting methods.

Artificial Intelligence to Improve the Food and Agriculture Sector

The world population is expected to reach over 9 billion by 2050, which will require an increase in agricultural and food production by 70% to fit the need, a serious challenge for the agri-food industry. Such requirement, in a context of resources scarcity, climate change, COVID-19 pandemic, and very harsh socioeconomic conjecture, is difficult to fulfill without the intervention of computational tools and forecasting strategy. Hereby, we report the importance of artificial intelligence and machine learning as a predictive multidisciplinary approach integration to improve the food and agriculture sector, yet with some limitations that should be considered by stakeholders.