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The harvesting of processing tomatoes is fully mechanised and it is well known that during harvest, fruits are subjected to mechanical stress causing physical injuries, including skin punctures, pulp and cell rupture. Some wireless sensors have been used for research during recent years with the main purpose of reducing the quality loss of tomato fruits by diminishing the number and intensity of impacts. In this study the IRD (impact recorder device) sensor was used to evaluate several tomato harvesters. The specific objectives were to evaluate the impacts during mechanical harvest using a wireless sensor, to determine the critical points at which damage occurs, and to assess the damage levels. Samples were taken to determine the influence of mechanical harvest on texture, or on other quality characteristics including percentage of damages. From the obtained data it has been possible to identify the critical points where the damages were produced for each one of the five harvester models examined. The highest risk of damage was in zone 1 of the combine—from the cutting system to the colour selector—because the impacts were of higher intensity and hit less absorbing surfaces than in zone 2—from colour selector to discharge. The shaker and exit from the shaker are two of the harvester elements that registered the highest intensity impacts. By adjusting, in a specific way each harvester model, using the results from this research, it has been possible to reduce the tomato damage percentage from 20 to 29% to less than 10%. ; The funding of this work has been covered by: Navarre Government Concerted Project: "Damage Determination in Processing Tomato Harvesters in Navarre", and CICYT Project AGL2000-0811

This document is the accepted manuscript version of a published work that appeared in final form in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1021/jf401292j ; Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important crops in the world being considered as a staple food in many developing countries. The potato industry like other vegetable and fruit industries is subject to the current demand of quality products. In order to meet this challenge, the food industry is relying on the adoption of nondestructive and environmentally friendly techniques to determine quality of products. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is currently one of the most advanced nondestructive technologies regarding instrumentation and application, and it also complies with the environment requirements as it does not generate emissions or waste. This paper reviews research progress on the analysis of potatoes by NIRS both in terms of determination of constituents and classification according to the different constituents of the tubers. A brief description of the fundamentals of NIRS technology and its advantages over other quality assessment techniques is included. Finally, future prospects of the development of NIRS technology at the industrial level are explored. ; The funding of this work has been covered by Navarre Government Technologists formation program and the Spanish National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA) project: "Genetic improvement of Potato. Characterization of the material by NIRS technology" RTA 2011-00018-C03-03.

The present study aimed to determine the volumetric shrinkage rate of bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) seeds during air-drying under different conditions of air, temperature and relative humidity, and to adjust several mathematical models to the empiric values observed, and select the one that best represents the phenomenon. Six mathematical models were adjusted to the experimental values to represent the phenomenon. It was determined the degree of adjustment of each model from the value of the coefficient of determination, the behavior of the distribution of the residuals, and the magnitude of the average relative and estimated errors. The rate of volumetric shrinkage that occurred in bean seeds during drying is between 25 and 37%. It basically depends on the final moisture content, regardless of the air conditions during drying. The Modified Bala & Woods' model best represented the process. ; The authors would like to acknowledge the agencies of the Brazilian government CAPES, CNPq and FAPEMIG, for their financial support, which was essential for the completion of this research.

BACKGROUND: Over the last two decades, the attractive colours and shapes of pigmented tubers and the increasing concern about the relationship between nutrition and health have contributed to the expansion of their consumption and a specialty market. Thus, we have quantified the concentration of health promoting compounds such as soluble phenolics, monomeric anthocyanins, carotenoids, vitamin C, and hydrophilic antioxidant capacity, in a collection of 18 purple- and red-fleshed potato accessions. RESULTS: Cultivars and breeding lines high in vitamin C, such as Blue Congo, Morada and Kasta, have been identified. Deep purple cultivars Violet Queen, Purple Peruvian and Vitelotte showed high levels of soluble phenolics, monomeric anthocyanins, and hydrophilic antioxidant capacity, whereas relatively high carotenoid concentrations were found in partially yellow coloured tubers, such as Morada, Highland Burgundy Red, and Violet Queen. CONCLUSION: The present characterisation of cultivars and breeding lines with high concentrations of phytochemicals is an important step both to support the consideration of specialty potatoes as a source of healthy compounds, and to obtain new cultivars with positive nutritional characteristics. Moreover, by using near infrared spectroscopy a non-destructive identification and classification of samples with different levels of phytochemicals is achieved, offering an unquestionable contribution to the potato industry for future automatic discrimination of varieties. ; This work was financed within the frame of INIA's project RTA2013-00006-C03 and the Basque Government.

Fuzzy set theory has developed a prolific armamentarium of mathematical tools for each of the topics that has fallen within its scope. One of such topics is data comparison, for which a range of operators has been presented in the past. These operators can be used within the fuzzy set theory, but can also be ported to other scenarios in which data are provided in various representations. In this work, we elaborate on notions for type-2 fuzzy sets, specifically for the comparison of type-2 fuzzy membership degrees, to create function comparison operators. We further apply these operators to hyperspectral imaging, in which pixelwise data are provided as functions over a certain energy spectra. The performance of the functional comparison operators is put to the test in the context of in-laboratory hyperspectral image segmentation. ; This work has been partially funded by the Ministry of Science of the Spanish Government (TIN2016-77356-P) and the Research Services of the Universidad Publica de Navarra.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum, L) compounds are generally determined by analytical methods including gasliquid chromatography (GLC), HPLC and UV-VIS spectrophotometry. These methods require a lot of time and are destructive. Therefore, they seem to be not suitable for in-line applications in the food industry. Nearinfrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a technique that presents some advantages over reference methods for quantitative analysis of agricultural and food products since it is fast, reliable and non-destructive. For this reason, in this study, quantitative analyses were carried out to determine main compounds in potatoes using NIRS. Potato tubers grown in two consecutive years were used for the analyses. NIR spectral acquisition was acquired on lyophilized samples. In year 1, a total of 135 samples were used while 228 samples were used in year 2. Lyophilized samples were also scanned by NIRS, two replicates per samples were acquired and the mean spectrum of each sample was used for the analysis. Different chemical analyses were carried out each year. Thus, in year 1 the following parameters were quantified: reducing sugars (RS) and nitrogen (N), whereas in year 2, total soluble phenolics (TSP) and hydrophilic antioxidant capacity (HAC) were extracted and quantified. Then, chemometric analyses were performed using Unscrambler X (version 10.3, CAMO software AS, Oslo, Norway) to correlate wet chemical analysis with spectral data. Quantitative analyses based on PLS regression models were developed in order to predict the above chemical compounds of tubers in a non-destructive manner. Good PLS regression models were obtained for the prediction of nitrogen and TSP with coefficients of determination (R2) above 0.83. Moreover, PLS models obtained for the estimation of HAC could be used for screening and approximate calibrations. ; This work was financed within the frame of INIA's project RTA2013-00006-C03-01-03, the Basque Government and the Universidad Pública de Navarra through the concession of a predoctoral research grant.

Powdery mildew is a worldwide major fungal disease for grapevine, which adversely affects both crop yield and produce quality. Disease identification is based on visible signs of a pathogen once the plant has already been infected; therefore, techniques that allow objective diagnosis of the disease are currently needed. In this study, the potential of hyperspectral imaging (HSI) technology to assess the presence of powdery mildew in grapevine bunches was evaluated. Thirty Carignan Noir grape bunches, 15 healthy and 15 infected, were analyzed using a lab-scale HSI system (900–1700 nm spectral range). Image processing was performed to extract spectral and spatial image features and then, classification models by means of Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) were carried out for healthy and infected pixels distinction within grape bunches. The best discrimination was achieved for the PLS-DA model with smoothing (SM), Standard Normal Variate (SNV) and mean centering (MC) pre-processing combination, reaching an accuracy of 85.33% in the cross-validation model and a satisfactory classification and spatial location of either healthy or infected pixels in the external validation. The obtained results suggested that HSI technology combined with chemometrics could be used for the detection of powdery mildew in black grapevine bunches. ; This research received funding from the Department of Economic Development of the Navarre Government (Project: DECIVID (Res.104E/2017)), by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project TIN2016-77356-P) and by the research services of the Universidad Pública de Navarra. C.P.-R is a beneficiary of postgraduate scholarships funded by Universidad Pública de Navarra (FPI-UPNA-2017 (Res.654/2017)).