Hybrid extended Kalman filtering and noise statistics optimization for produce wash state estimation

Fresh-Cut Vegetables Processing: Environmental Sustainability and Food Safety Issues in a Comprehensive Perspective

The fresh-cut industry supplies the food market with healthy fresh fruit and vegetables and, in that way, may contribute to improve the nutritional status of the general population. On the other hand, over the last few years increasing concerns have been raised regarding the environmental impact of the fresh-cut industry, human health risks from exposure to disinfection by-products found in fresh-cut products and chlorine-based disinfection treatments during produce processing. This review provides a comprehensive view of the main interlinked aspects related to food safety and environmental impact of processing of fresh-cut vegetables. Advantages and downsides of the mainstream disinfection strategy, based on the use of chlorine-related disinfecting agents, along with some alternative treatments close to a wide commercial application, are discussed. Limitation in the application of these strategies to processing of organic fresh-cut produce are also highlighted, examining the specific environmental and food safety problems in the organic sector. Areas where lack of available information hinders at present a clear understanding of priorities of research and action are pointed out. Innovative conceptual tools are proposed to address these multiple and interlinking issues and to overcome limitations of currently available technologies. A comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach is suggested to move toward a more safe and environmentally sustainable production of fresh-cut products.

The Supervision of Dough Fermentation Using Image Analysis Complemented by a Continuous Discrete Extended Kalman Filter

Dough fermentation is an important step during the preparation of fermented baking goods. For the supervision of dough fermentation, a continuous-discrete extended Kalman filter was applied, which uses an image analysis system as the measurement. By estimation a fixed number of gas bubbles inside the dough, the radius of an average bubble was determined. A mathematical dough model was used by the extended Kalman filter to estimate the radius of the average bubble, the CO2 concentration of the non-gas dough phase and the number of CO2 molecules in the average bubble. During a fermentation of 50 min, the extended Kalman filter estimated that the average radius increased from 50 µm to 127 µm, the CO2 concentration in the non-gas dough increased to 23 mol/m³, and the CO2 amount in the bubble increased from 0.1 × 10−10 to 4 × 10−10 mol. Also, the specific CO2 production rate was estimated to be in the range from 1.5 × 10−3 to more than 4 × 10−3 mol·m³/kg/s. The advantages of an extended Kalman filter for the supervision of the dough fermentation process are discussed.