Multi-scale bioimpedance flexible sensing with causal hierarchical machine learning for fish vitality evaluation under adversity stress.

It is expected that waterless low-temperature stressful environments will induce stress responses in fish and affect their vitality. In this study, we developed a laser-activated, stretchable, highly conductive liquid metal (LM) based flexible sensor system for fish multi-scale bioimpedance detection. It has excellent conformability, electrical conductivity, bending and cyclic tensile stability. Meanwhile, test result showed that wireless power supply is a potential solution for realizing safe power supply for devices inside waterless low-temperature packages. In addition, a hierarchical regression model (GC-HRM) based on Granger causality was established. The result showed that tissue bioimpedance can induce changes in individual bioimpedance with unidirectional Granger causality. The R2 of the linear regression (LR), support vector regression (SVR) and artificial neural network (ANN) models under single-scale individual bioimpedance were 0.85, 0.90 and 0.78, respectively. By adding the multi-scale bioimpedance features, the R2 of the LR, SVR and ANN models were improved to 0.95, 1.00 and 0.98, respectively.

Flexible Sensing Enabled Nondestructive Detection on Viability/Quality of Live Edible Oyster.

Environmental and physiological fluctuations in the live oyster cold chain can result in reduced survival and quality. In this study, a flexible wireless sensor network (F-WSN) monitoring system combined with knowledge engineering was designed and developed to monitor environmental information and physiological fluctuations in the live oyster cold chain. Based on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan to identify the critical control points (CCPs) in the live oyster cold chain, the F-WSN was utilized to conduct tracking and collection experiments in real scenarios from Yantai, Shandong Province, to Beijing. The knowledge model for shelf-life and quality prediction based on environmental information and physiological fluctuations was established, and the prediction accuracies of TVB-N, TVC, and pH were 96%, 85%, and 97%, respectively, and the prediction accuracy of viability was 96%. Relevant managers, workers, and experts were invited to participate in the efficiency and applicability assessment of the established system. The results indicated that combining F-WSN monitoring with knowledge-based HACCP modeling is an effective approach to improving the transparency of cold chain management, reducing quality and safety risks in the oyster industry, and promoting the sharing and reuse of HACCP knowledge in the oyster cold chain.

Wearable Bioimpedance-Based Deep Learning Techniques for Live Fish Health Assessment under Waterless and Low-Temperature Conditions.

(1) Background: At present, physiological stress detection technology is a critical means for precisely evaluating the comprehensive health status of live fish. However, the commonly used biochemical tests are invasive and time-consuming and cannot simultaneously monitor and dynamically evaluate multiple stress levels in fish and accurately classify their health levels. The purpose of this study is to deploy wearable bioelectrical impedance analysis (WBIA) sensors on fish skin to construct a deep learning-based stress dynamic evaluation model for precisely estimating their accurate health status. (2) Methods: The correlation of fish (turbot) muscle nutrients and their stress indicators are calculated using grey relation analysis (GRA) for allocating the weight of the stress factors. Next, WBIA features are sieved using the maximum information coefficient (MIC) in stress trend evaluation modeling, which is closely related to the key stress factors. Afterward, a convolutional neural network (CNN) is utilized to obtain the features of the WBIA signals. Then, the long short-term memory (LSTM) method learns the stress trends with residual rectification using bidirectional gated recurrent units (BiGRUs). Furthermore, the Z-shaped fuzzy function can accurately classify the fish health status by the total evaluated stress values. (3) Results: The proposed CNN-LSTM-BiGRU-based stress evaluation model shows superior accuracy compared to the other machine learning models (CNN-LSTM, CNN-GRU, LSTM, GRU, SVR, and BP) based on the MAPE, MAE, and RMSE. Moreover, the fish health classification under waterless and low-temperature conditions is thoroughly verified. High accuracy is proven by the classification validation criterion (accuracy, F1 score, precision, and recall). (4) Conclusions: the proposed health evaluation technology can precisely monitor and track the health status of live fish and provides an effective technical reference for the field of live fish vital sign detection.

Conformal Temperature/Impedance Sensing Patch Based on Graphene Materials for Nondestructive Detection of Fish Freshness.

Rapid nondestructive detection of fish freshness is essential to ensure food safety and nutrition. In this study, we demonstrate a conformal temperature/impedance sensing patch for temperature monitoring, as well as freshness classification during fish storage. The optimization of the flexible laser-induced graphene electrodes is studied based on both simulation and experimental validation, and dimensional accuracy of 5‰ and high impedance reproducibility are obtained. A laser-assisted thermal reduction technology is innovatively introduced to directly form a reduced graphene oxide-based temperature-sensitive layer on the surface of a flexible substrate. The comprehensive performance is superior to that of most reported temperature-sensitive devices based on graphene materials. As an application demonstration, the fabricated flexible dual-parameter sensing patch is conformed to the surface of a refrigerated fish. The patch demonstrates the ability to accurately sense low temperatures in a continuous 120 min monitoring, accompanied by no interference from high humidity. Meanwhile, the collected impedance data are imported into the support vector machine model to obtain a freshness classification accuracy of 93.07%. The conformal patch integrated with crosstalk-free dual functions costs less than $1 and supports free customization, providing a feasible methodology for rapid nondestructive detection or monitoring of food quality.

Non-Destructive Detection of the Freshness of Air-Modified Mutton Based on Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.

Monitoring and identifying the freshness levels of meat holds significant importance in the field of food safety as it directly relates to human dietary safety. Traditional packaging methods for lamb meat quality assessment present issues such as cumbersome operations and irreversible damage. This research proposes a quality assessment method for modified atmosphere packaging lamb meat using near-infrared spectroscopy and multi-parameter fusion. Fresh lamb meat quality is taken as the research subject, comparing various physicochemical indicators and near-infrared spectroscopic information under different temperatures (4 °C and 10 °C) and different modified atmosphere packaging combinations. Through precision parameter comparison, rebound and TVB-N values are selected as the modeling parameters. Six spectral preprocessing methods (multi-scatter calibration, MSC; standard normal variate transformation, SNV; normalization; Savitzky-Golay smoothing, SG; Savitzky-Golay 1 derivative, SG-1st; and Savitzky-Golay 2 derivative, SG-2nd), and three feature wavelength selection methods (competitive adaptive reweighted sampling, CARS; successive projections algorithm, SPA; and uninformative variable elimination, UVE) are compared. Partial least squares (PLS) and support vector machine (SVM) are used to construct prediction models for chilled fresh lamb meat quality. The results show that when rebound is used as a parameter, the SG-2nd-SPA-PLSR model has the highest accuracy, with a determination coefficient R2p of 0.94 for the prediction set. When TVB-N is used as a parameter, the MSC-UVE-SVM model has the highest accuracy, with an R2p of 0.95 for the prediction set. In conclusion, the use of near-infrared spectroscopic analysis enables rapid and non-destructive prediction and evaluation of lamb meat freshness, including its textural characteristics and TVB-N content under different modified atmosphere packaging. This study provides a theoretical basis and technical support for further encapsulating the models into portable devices and developing portable near-infrared spectrometers to rapidly determine lamb meat freshness.

Response Characteristics Study of Ethylene Sensor for Fruit Ripening under Temperature Control.

Post-ripening fruits need to be ripened to reach edible conditions, as they are not yet mature enough when picked. Ripening technology is based mainly on temperature control and gas regulation, with the proportion of ethylene being one of the key gas regulation parameters. A sensor's time domain response characteristic curve was obtained through the ethylene monitoring system. The first experiment showed that the sensor has good response speed (maximum of first derivative: 2.01714; minimum of first derivative: -2.01714), stability (xg: 2.42%; trec: 2.05%; Dres: 3.28%), and repeatability (xg: 20.6; trec: 52.4; Dres: 2.31). The second experiment showed that optimal ripening parameters include color, hardness (Change Ⅰ: 88.53%, Change Ⅱ: 75.28%), adhesiveness (Change Ⅰ: 95.29%, Change Ⅱ: 74.72%), and chewiness (Change Ⅰ: 95.18%, Change Ⅱ: 74.25%), verifying the response characteristics of the sensor. This paper proves that the sensor was able to accurately monitor changes in concentration which reflect changes in fruit ripeness, and that the optimal parameters were the ethylene response parameter (Change Ⅰ: 27.78%, Change Ⅱ: 32.53%) and the first derivative parameter (Change Ⅰ: 202.38%, Change Ⅱ: -293.28%). Developing a gas-sensing technology suitable for fruit ripening is of great significance.

Novel flexible sensing technology for nondestructive detection on live fish health/quality during waterless and low-temperature transportation.

Fish health/quality issues are increasingly attracting attention during waterless and low-temperature transportation. Nondestructive detection has become a great need for an effective method to improve fish health/quality. Currently, emerging Internet of Things, novel flexible electronics and data fusion technology have received great interest for nondestructive detection on live fish health/quality. This paper analysized nondestructive detection mechanisms using novel flexible sensing technology to achieve high-precision sensing of key parameters, and machine learning based data fusion modeling to achieve live fish health/quality nondestructive evaluation during waterless and low-temperature transportation. Recent studies on novel flexible electrochemical and physiological biosensors development and application for solving key ambient and physiological parameter sensing were summarized. The ML based data fusion modeling framework and application for live fish health/quality nondestructive evaluation was also highlighted. The future perspective is also proposed to provide promising solutions for accurate sensing of multi-parameter and real applications of live fish health/quality nondestructive detection during waterless and low-temperature transportation.

rGO-PDMS Flexible Sensors Enabled Survival Decision System for Live Oysters.

The shell-closing strength (SCS) of oysters is the main parameter for physiological activities. The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of SCS as an indicator of live oyster health. This study developed a flexible pressure sensor system with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as the substrate and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as the sensitive layer to monitor SCS in live oysters (rGO-PDMS). In the experiment, oysters of superior, medium and inferior grades were selected as research objects, and the change characteristics of SCS were monitored at 4 °C and 25 °C. At the same time, the time series model was used to predict the survival rate of live oyster on the basis of changes in their SCS characteristics. The survival times of superior, medium and inferior oysters at 4 °C and 25 °C were 31/25/18 days and 12/10/7 days, respectively, and the best prediction accuracies for survival rate were 89.32%/82.17%/79.19%. The results indicate that SCS is a key physiological indicator of oyster survival. The dynamic monitoring of oyster vitality by means of flexible pressure sensors is an important means of improving oyster survival rate. Superior oysters have a higher survival rate in low-temperature environments, and our method can provide effective and reliable survival prediction and management for the oyster industry.

Optimized Dynamic Monitoring and Quality Management System for Post-Harvest Matsutake of Different Preservation Packaging in Cold Chain.

The quality of Tibetan matsutake drops during cold chain transportation. To extend the shelf life and improve the market value, this study analyzed the matsutake logistics process, and optimized the dynamic monitoring and quality management systems for post-harvest matsutake with different preservation packaging in the cold chain. This system monitored the micro-environmental parameters of the cold chain in real time, and it identified the best preservation method by analyzing the quality change characteristics of the matsutake with different preservation packaging. It was concluded that the matsutake were best preserved under the conditions of modified atmosphere packaging. The data analysis on the collected data verified the performance of the system. Relevant personnel were invited to participate in the system performance analysis and offer optimization suggestions to improve the applicability of the established monitoring system. The optimized model could provide a more effective theoretical reference for the dynamic monitoring and quality management of the system.

Hysteresis Dynamic Modeling and Analysis of Flexible Nano Silver-Polyvinyl Alcohol Humidity Sensor Based on the Microscopic Process and Langmuir-Fick Theory.

In recent years, advances in materials science and manufacturing technologies have facilitated the development of flexible sensors. However, there are still performance gaps between emerging flexible sensors and traditional silicon-based rigid sensors, especially lacking dynamic modeling and optimization analysis for addressing above challenges. This paper describes a hysteresis dynamic modeling method for flexible humidity sensors. Through inkjet printing and coating methods, the polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) sensitive layer and nano silver interdigital electrode are fabricated on flexible polyethylene naphthalate substrates. The performance characterization results show that the sensitivity and maximum hysteresis within the range of 12-98% relative humidity (RH) are -0.02167 MΩ/% RH and 2.7% RH, respectively. The sensor also has outstanding dynamic response ability and stability in a wide range of humidity variation. The hysteresis mechanism of flexible humidity sensors is theoretically analyzed from microscopic hysteresis processes, Langmuir monomolecular adsorption dynamic modeling, and Fick diffusion dynamic modeling. These hysteresis models provide a path for the hysteresis optimization of flexible PVA humidity sensors. Further exploration of the diffusion rate of water molecules and the proportion of PVA in ink represents promising hysteresis optimization directions of flexible humidity sensors based on PVA-sensitive material.

Intelligent Dynamic Quality Prediction of Chilled Chicken with Integrated IoT Flexible Sensing and Knowledge Rules Extraction.

With the enhancement of consumers' food safety awareness, consumers have become more stringent on meat quality. This study constructs an intelligent dynamic prediction model based on knowledge rules and integrates flexible humidity sensors into the non-destructive monitoring of the Internet of Things to provide real-time feedback and dynamic adjustments for the chilled chicken cold chain. The optimized sensing equipment can be attached to the inside of the packaging to deal with various abnormal situations during the cold chain, effectively improving the packaging effect. Through correlation analysis of collected data and knowledge rule extraction of critical factors in the cold chain, the established quality evaluation and prediction model achieved detailed chilled chicken quality level classification and intelligent quality prediction. The obtained results show that the accuracy of the prediction model is higher than 90.5%, and all the regression coefficients are close to 1.00. The relevant personnel (workers and cold chain managers) were invited to participate in the performance analysis and optimization suggestion to improve the applicability of the established prediction model. The optimized model can provide a more efficient theoretical reference for timely decision-making and further e-commerce management.

Intelligent fish farm-the future of aquaculture.

With the continuous expansion of aquaculture scale and density, contemporary aquaculture methods have been forced to overproduce resulting in the accelerated imbalance rate of water environment, the frequent occurrence of fish diseases, and the decline of aquatic product quality. Moreover, due to the fact that the average age profile of agricultural workers in many parts of the world are on the higher side, fishery production will face the dilemma of shortage of labor, and aquaculture methods are in urgent need of change. Modern information technology has gradually penetrated into various fields of agriculture, and the concept of intelligent fish farm has also begun to take shape. The intelligent fish farm tries to deal with the precise work of increasing oxygen, optimizing feeding, reducing disease incidences, and accurately harvesting through the idea of "replacing human with machine," so as to liberate the manpower completely and realize the green and sustainable aquaculture. This paper reviews the application of fishery intelligent equipment, IoT, edge computing, 5G, and artificial intelligence algorithms in modern aquaculture, and analyzes the existing problems and future development prospects. Meanwhile, based on different business requirements, the design frameworks for key functional modules in the construction of intelligent fish farm are proposed.

An Electrochemical Enzyme Biosensor for Ammonium Detection in Aquaculture Using Screen-Printed Electrode Modified by Gold Nanoparticle/Polymethylene Blue.

A SPEC/AuNPs/PMB modified electrode was prepared by electrodeposition and electro-polymerization. The electrochemical behavior of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) on the surface of the modified electrode was studied by cyclic voltammetry. A certain amount of substrate and glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH) were coated on the modified electrode to form a functional enzyme membrane. The ammonia nitrogen in the water sample could be calculated indirectly by measuring the consumption of NADH in the reaction. The results showed that the strength of electro-catalytic current signal was increased by two times; the catalytic oxidation potential was shifted to the left by 0.5 V, and the anti-interference ability of the sensor was enhanced. The optimum substrate concentration and enzyme loading were determined as 1.3 mM NADH, 28 mM α-Ketoglutarate and 2.0 U GLDH, respectively. The homemade ceramic heating plate controlled the working electrode to work at 37 °C. A pH compensation algorithm based on piecewise linear interpolation could reduce the measurement error to less than 3.29 µM. The biosensor exhibited good linearity in the range of 0~300 µM with a detection limit of 0.65 µM NH4+. Compared with standard Nessler's method, the recoveries were 93.71~105.92%. The biosensor was found to be stable for at least 14 days when refrigerated and sealed at 4 °C.

Evaluation of IoT-Enabled Monitoring and Electronic Nose Spoilage Detection for Salmon Freshness During Cold Storage.

Salmon is a highly perishable food due to temperature, pH, odor, and texture changes during cold storage. Intelligent monitoring and spoilage rapid detection are effective approaches to improve freshness. The aim of this work was an evaluation of IoT-enabled monitoring system (IoTMS) and electronic nose spoilage detection for quality parameters changes and freshness under cold storage conditions. The salmon samples were analyzed and divided into three groups in an incubator set at 0 °C, 4 °C, and 6 °C. The quality parameters, i.e., texture, color, sensory, and pH changes, were measured and evaluated at different temperatures after 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 14 days of cold storage. The principal component analysis (PCA) algorithm can be used to cluster electronic nose information. Furthermore, a Convolutional Neural Networks and Support Vector Machine (CNN-SVM) based algorithm is used to cluster the freshness level of salmon samples stored in a specific storage condition. In the tested samples, the results show that the training dataset of freshness is about 95.6%, and the accuracy rate of the test dataset is 93.8%. For the training dataset of corruption, the accuracy rate is about 91.4%, and the accuracy rate of the test dataset is 90.5%. The overall accuracy rate is more than 90%. This work could help to reduce quality loss during salmon cold storage.

Ethylene Sensor-Enabled Dynamic Monitoring and Multi-Strategies Control for Quality Management of Fruit Cold Chain Logistics.

Due to the presence of bioactive compounds, fruits are an essential part of people's healthy diet. However, endogenous ethylene produced by climacteric fruits and exogenous ethylene in the microenvironment could play a pivotal role in the physiological and metabolic activities, leading to quality losses during storage or shelf life. Moreover, due to the variety of fruits and complex scenarios, different ethylene control strategies need to be adapted to improve the marketability of fruits and maintain their high quality. Therefore, this study proposed an ethylene dynamic monitoring based on multi-strategies control to reduce the post-harvest quality loss of fruits, which was evaluated here for blueberries, sweet cherries, and apples. The results showed that the ethylene dynamic monitoring had rapid static/dynamic response speed (2 ppm/s) and accurately monitoring of ethylene content (99% accuracy). In addition, the quality parameters evolution (firmness, soluble solids contents, weight loss rate, and chromatic aberration) showed that the ethylene multi-strategies control could effectively reduce the quality loss of fruits studied, which showed great potential in improving the quality management of fruits in the supply chain.

Multi-Sensors Enabled Dynamic Monitoring and Quality Assessment System (DMQAS) of Sweet Cherry in Express Logistics.

The market demand for fresh sweet cherries in China has experienced continuous growth due to its rich nutritional value and unique taste. Nonetheless, the characteristics of fruits, transportation conditions and uneven distribution pose a huge obstacle in keeping high quality, especially in express logistics. This paper proposes dynamic monitoring and quality assessment system (DMQAS) to reduce the quality loss of sweet cherries in express logistics. The DMQAS was tested and evaluated in three typical express logistics scenarios with "Meizao" sweet cherries. The results showed that DMQAS could monitor the changes of critical micro-environmental parameters (temperature, relative humidity, O2, CO2 and C2H4) during the express logistics, and the freshness prediction model showed high accuracy (the relative error was controlled within 10%). The proposed DMQAS could provide complete and accurate microenvironment data and can be used to further improve the quality and safety management of sweet cherries during express logistics.

Quality Characteristics Analysis and Remaining Shelf Life Prediction of Fresh Tibetan Tricholoma matsutake under Modified Atmosphere Packaging in Cold Chain.

Tricholoma matsutake (T. matsutake) growing in Tibet is very popular for its high economic and medicinal value, but fresh T. matsutake has an extremely short shelf life. The shelf life of T. matsutake is complex, influenced by product characteristics, surrounding environmental conditions, and spoilage development. The objective of this work was to study the quality characteristics of fresh T. matsutake during its shelf life period in modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) conditions and establish its remaining shelf life prediction models in a cold chain. In this study, we measured and analyzed quality indicators of fresh T. matsutake, including hardness (cap, stipe), color, odor of sensory characteristics, pH, soluble solids content (SSC), and moisture content (MC) of physical and chemical characteristics under the temperature condition of 4 °C and relative humidity (RH) of 90%. The sensory evaluation results showed that the odor indicator in sensory characteristics was more sensitive to the freshness of T. matsutake. The changes of pH, SSC, and MC were divided into three periods to analyze the physiological changes of T. matsutake. The cap spread process could affect the changes of pH, SSC, and MC in period S1, and they changed gradually in period S2. In the period S3, they changed complicatedly because of deterioration. The remaining shelf life prediction model of T. matsutake was established by the back propagation (BP) neural network method to quantify the relationship between the quality indicators and the remaining shelf life. The shelf life characteristics are complex, which were optimized by correlation analysis. Significant benefits of this work are anticipated on the transportation and preservation of fresh T. matsutake to the market and the reduction of its losses in the postharvest chain.

Evaluation on home storage performance of table grape based on sensory quality and consumers' satisfaction.

With continuous rise of table grapes consumption and increased public awareness of food safety, the quality control of grapes in storage after purchase is not sufficiently examined. Home storage constitutes the last and important stage in grape supply chain. Literature review shows that few researches on grape quality focus on the home storage stage compared with numerous researches reported on the quality control during postharvest and transportation process. This paper reports the performance evaluation of grape quality at home storage and consumers' satisfaction using integrated sensory evaluations. The internal attributes, including Texture, Taste and Odor of the table grapes and the appearance indices, Color and Cleanliness are examined. Key results show that during home storage, all the internal attributes decrease rapidly as time goes on, and cleanliness and color appear to be deteriorating in a lower speed. A comprehensive quality index was created to measure the quality of table grape which has high correlation with the Overall acceptability perceived by consumers.

Logistics Process Safety System of Table Grapes Based on NIR.

In view of the actual logistics process of table grapes and the situation that fresh keeping agents based on sulfur dioxide are commonly used in table grape logistics, we studied the shelf life prediction method of table grapes under 4 temperatures and constant concentrations of sulfur dioxide based on near infrared spectrum (NIR) and the evolution of texture in this work. Logistics process safety system based on shelf life prediction was designed to reduce the loss of table grapes in the logistics. The change of texture is an important cause of postharvest table grapes to end their shelf life in postharvest logistics. In this work, we used SO2 concentration sensors to control solenoid valves, and obtained the set SO2 concentrations by automatic compensation mechanism. The evolutions of table grape texture under different concentrations of sulfur dioxide were studied as well as the influence of temperature. The NIR pretreatment effects of multiplicative scatter correction and the first S-G derivation were compared. The table grape texture nondestructive testing model built base on NIR and partial least squares regression achieved a determination coefficient of 0.93 and the root mean squared error (RMSE) was 1.70. In full cross-validation, the prediction accuracy reached to 0.81 and got a RMSE of 2.91. Research indicated that the NIR detection combined with the quality change modeling and information technology could be used to improve the logistics process safety management efficiency of postharvest fruits and vegetables.

Development and evaluation of an intelligent traceability system for frozen tilapia fillet processing.

BACKGROUND: The main export varieties in China are brand-name, high-quality bred aquatic products. Among them, tilapia has become the most important and fast-growing species since extensive consumer markets in North America and Europe have evolved as a result of commodity prices, year-round availability and quality of fresh and frozen products. As the largest tilapia farming country, China has over one-third of its tilapia production devoted to further processing and meeting foreign market demand. RESULTS: Using by tilapia fillet processing, this paper introduces the efforts for developing and evaluating ITS-TF: an intelligent traceability system integrated with statistical process control (SPC) and fault tree analysis (FTA). Observations, literature review and expert questionnaires were used for system requirement and knowledge acquisition; scenario simulation was applied to evaluate and validate ITS-TF performance. CONCLUSION: The results show that traceability requirement is evolved from a firefighting model to a proactive model for enhancing process management capacity for food safety; ITS-TF transforms itself as an intelligent system to provide functions on early warnings and process management by integrated SPC and FTA. The valuable suggestion that automatic data acquisition and communication technology should be integrated into ITS-TF was achieved for further system optimization, perfection and performance improvement.