(Press-News.org) This release is available in Spanish.
High-tech tactics to carefully examine apples and other fresh produce items as they travel along packinghouse conveyor belts will help ensure the quality and safety of these good-for-you foods.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in Beltsville, Md., have developed and patented an experimental, cutting-edge optical scanning system that would use two different kinds of lighting, a sophisticated camera and other pieces of equipment to scrutinize produce-section favorites while they are still at the packinghouse.
The system would provide, in a single image, evidence of certain kinds of defects or contaminants, according to biophysicist Moon S. Kim with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS). Defects could include cuts and bruises. Contaminants might include specks of fertilizer from orchard or field soil.
Kim, ARS agricultural engineers Yud-Ren Chen (now retired) and Kuanglin (Kevin) Chao, and ARS biomedical engineer Alan M. Lefcourt received a patent in 2010 for their automated approach to detecting defects and contaminants on the exterior of fresh produce or other items. The scientists work in the ARS Environmental Microbial and Food Safety Research Laboratory at Beltsville.
The team's system harnesses the capabilities of a type of camera known as a high-speed multispectral/hyperspectral line-scanner. Positioned above a conveyor belt, the scanner captures images of each fast-moving item, such as an apple. Each apple is exposed simultaneously to ultra-violet light from a UV fluorescent lamp and near infra-red light from a halogen lamp. The near infra-red light that bounces off the apple can be captured by an instrument known as a spectrograph and analyzed for tell-tale patterns of defects, while the UV light beamed on the apple can disclose the whereabouts of contaminants.
The system combines information from both forms of illumination into a single image with contaminant and defect results. When linked to a sorting machine, the system can signal the sorter to separate the problem apples from others.
At present, the system offers, at the rate of about 3 to 4 apples per second, a 180-degree view of each apple's exterior, Kim reports. The scientists are working to improve the process so it will provide a 360-degree whole-surface view for thorough inspection.
Preliminary findings from this work appeared in a 2008 issue of the journal Sensing and Instrumentation for Food Quality and Safety.
###
ARS is the USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency. The Beltsville team's investigations are helping enhance food safety, a USDA top priority.
USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice), or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
High-tech approach uses lights, action and camera to scrutinize fresh produce
2011-05-11
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Training to promote health
2011-05-11
This release is available in German.
Marianne has constant pain in her right knee at the moment – she hurt it when she took a tumble skiing in the Swiss Alps. Everything happened so quickly: The searing pain, the helicopter ride to hospital, the operation the following day, and then a week later the return home with crutches to rest in a reclining chair. Her aim now is to mobilize the operated knee and regain full mobility of the joint – something she'll achieve by following a targeted machine-based training plan drawn up by a physiotherapist.
In order to be able ...
Depression associated with poor medication adherence in patients with chronic illnesses
2011-05-11
People who are depressed are less likely to adhere to medications for their chronic health problems than patients who are not depressed, putting them at increased risk of poor health, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
Researchers found that depressed patients across a wide array of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease had 76 percent greater odds of being non-adherent with their medications compared to patients who were not depressed. The findings were published online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
The study is the largest systematic ...
Study: Lowering cost doesn't increase hearing aid purchases
2011-05-11
DETROIT – Lowering the cost of hearing aids isn't enough to motivate adults with mild hearing loss to purchase a device at a younger age or before their hearing worsens, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital.
A new study shows that simply lowering the cost of hearing aids – even by as much as 40% – does not improve hearing aid purchase for patients with partial insurance coverage or those who need to cover the entire cost out of pocket.
Only patients with full insurance coverage for hearing aids get them at a younger age and with significantly less hearing ...
Zebrafish models identify high-risk genetic features in leukemia patients
2011-05-11
SALT LAKE CITY—Leukemia is the most common childhood cancer; it also occurs in adults. Now researchers working with zebrafish at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have identified previously undiscovered high-risk genetic features in T-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia (T-ALL), according to an article published online May 9, 2011, in the cancer research journal Oncogene. When compared to samples from human patients with T-ALL, these genetic characteristics allowed scientists to predict which patients may have more aggressive forms of the disease that ...
2 new studies describe likely beneficiaries of health care reform in California
2011-05-11
According to two new policy briefs from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, the majority of state residents likely to be eligible for federally mandated health insurance coverage initiatives in California in 2014 are also those who may be least likely to excessively use costly health services: men, singles and those of working age.
As a result of last year's passage of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), up to 4.57 million previously uninsured or underinsured Californians may be eligible for coverage, either through an expansion of ...
Less than half of patients with MS continually adhere to drug therapies for treatment: Study
2011-05-11
TORONTO, Ont., May 11, 2011 — Disease-modifying drugs (DMDs) are injected medications used to slow the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS), and have been shown to reduce the frequency and severity of relapses. But according to a new study led by St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), adherence to all DMDs is low, with less than half of patients, or 44 per cent, continually adherent after two years.
"There are a number of reasons why adherence to therapies of proven value might be low," says Dr. Paul O'Connor, director of the ...
Harnessing the energy of the Sun: New technique improves artificial photosynthesis
2011-05-11
This discovery will make it possible to improve photoelectrochemical cells. In the same way that plants use photosynthesis to transform sunlight into energy, these cells use sunlight to drive chemical reactions that ultimately produce hydrogen from water. The process involves using a light-sensitive semi-conducting material such as cuprous oxide to provide the current needed to fuel the reaction. Although it is not expensive, the oxide is unstable if exposed to light in water. Research by
Adriana Paracchino and Elijah Thimsen, published May 8, 2011 in the journal Nature ...
Foot and mouth disease may spread through shedding skin cells
2011-05-11
LIVERMORE, Calif. --Skin cells shed from livestock infected with foot and mouth disease could very well spread the disease.
In a new paper appearing in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Michael Dillon proposed that virus-infected skin cells could be a source of infectious foot and mouth disease virus aerosols. His proposal is based on the facts that foot and mouth disease virus is found in skin and that airborne skin cells are known to transmit other diseases.
The proposal could lead to new methods for surveillance ...
Doppler effect found even at molecular level – 169 years after its discovery
2011-05-11
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Whether they know it or not, anyone who's ever gotten a speeding ticket after zooming by a radar gun has experienced the Doppler effect – a measurable shift in the frequency of radiation based on the motion of an object, which in this case is your car doing 45 miles an hour in a 30-mph zone.
But for the first time, scientists have experimentally shown a different version of the Doppler effect at a much, much smaller level – the rotation of an individual molecule. Prior to this such an effect had been theorized, but it took a complex experiment with a ...
Tiny talk on a barnacle's back
2011-05-11
Even the merest of microbes must be able to talk, to be able to interact with its environment and with others to not just survive, but to thrive. This cellular chatter comes in the form of signaling molecules and exchanged metabolites (molecules involved in the process of metabolism or living) that can have effects far larger than the organism itself. Humans, for example, rely upon thousands of products derived from microbially produced molecules, everything from antibiotics and food supplements to ingredients used in toothpaste and paint.
Remarkably, most of what's known ...