Effects of cell wall polysaccharides on the bioaccessibility of carotenoids, polyphenols, and minerals: an overview.

Carotenoids, polyphenols, and minerals (CPMs) are representative bioactive compounds and micronutrients in plant-based foods, showing many potentially positive bioactivities. Bioaccessibility is a prerequisite for bioactivities of CPMs. Cell wall polysaccharides (CWPs) are major structural components of plant cell wall, and they have been proven to affect the bioaccessibility of CPMs in different ways. This review summarizes recent literatures about the effects of CWPs on the bioaccessibility of CPMs and discusses the potential mechanisms. Based on the current findings, CWPs can inhibit the bioaccessibility of CPMs in gastrointestinal tract. The effects of CWPs on the bioaccessibility of polyphenols and minerals mainly attributes to bind between them, while CWPs affect the bioaccessibility of carotenoids by changing the digestive environment. Further, this review overviews the factors (environmental conditions, CWPs properties and CPMs characteristics) affecting the interactions between CWPs and CWPs. This review may help to better design healthy and nutritious foods precisely.

TDFusion: When Tensor Decomposition Meets Medical Image Fusion in the Nonsubsampled Shearlet Transform Domain.

In this paper, a unified optimization model for medical image fusion based on tensor decomposition and the non-subsampled shearlet transform (NSST) is proposed. The model is based on the NSST method and the tensor decomposition method to fuse the high-frequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) parts of two source images to obtain a mixed-frequency fused image. In general, we integrate low-frequency and high-frequency information from the perspective of tensor decomposition (TD) fusion. Due to the structural differences between the high-frequency and low-frequency representations, potential information loss may occur in the fused images. To address this issue, we introduce a joint static and dynamic guidance (JSDG) technique to complement the HF/LF information. To improve the result of the fused images, we combine the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm with the gradient descent method for parameter optimization. Finally, the fused images are reconstructed by applying the inverse NSST to the fused high-frequency and low-frequency bands. Extensive experiments confirm the superiority of our proposed TDFusion over other comparison methods.

Emerging chemical and physical disinfection technologies of fruits and vegetables: a comprehensive review.

With a growing demand for safe, nutritious, and fresh-like produce, a number of disinfection technologies have been developed. This review comprehensively examines the working principles and applications of several emerging disinfection technologies. The chemical treatments, including chlorine dioxide, ozone, electrolyzed water, essential oils, high-pressure carbon dioxide, and organic acids, have been improved as alternatives to traditional disinfection methods to meet current safety standards. Non-thermal physical treatments, such as UV-light, pulsed light, ionizing radiation, high hydrostatic pressure, cold plasma, and high-intensity ultrasound, have shown significant advantages in improving microbial safety and maintaining the desirable quality of produce. However, using these disinfection technologies alone may not meet the requirement of food safety and high product quality. Several hurdle technologies have been developed, which achieved synergistic effects to maximize lethality against microorganisms and minimize deterioration of produce quality. The review also identifies further research opportunities for the cost-effective commercialization of these technologies.

Chemical and physical pretreatments of fruits and vegetables: Effects on drying characteristics and quality attributes - a comprehensive review.

Pretreatment is widely used before drying of agro-products to inactivate enzymes, enhance drying process and improve quality of dried products. In current work, the influence of various pretreatments on drying characteristics and quality attributes of fruits and vegetables is summarized. They include chemical solution (hyperosmotic, alkali, sulfite and acid, etc.) and gas (sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and ozone) treatments, thermal blanching (hot water, steam, super heated steam impingement, ohmic and microwave heating, etc), and non-thermal process (ultrasound, freezing, pulsed electric field, and high hydrostatic pressure, etc). Chemical pretreatments effectively enhance drying kinetics, meanwhile, it causes soluble nutrients losing, trigger food safety issues by chemical residual. Conventional hot water blanching has significant effect on inactivating various undesirable enzymatic reactions, destroying microorganisms, and softening the texture, as well as facilitating drying rate. However, it induces undesirable quality of products, e.g., loss of texture, soluble nutrients, pigment and aroma. Novel blanching treatments, such as high-humidity hot air impingement blanching, microwave and ohmic heat blanching can reduce the nutrition loss and are more efficient. Non-thermal technologies can be a better alternative to thermal blanching to overcome these drawbacks, and more fundamental researches are needed for better design and scale up.

An IBeacon-Based Location System for Smart Home Control.

Indoor location and intelligent control system can bring convenience to people’s daily life. In this paper, an indoor control system is designed to achieve equipment remote control by using low-energy Bluetooth (BLE) beacon and Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The proposed system consists of five parts: web server, home gateway, smart terminal, smartphone app and BLE beacons. In the web server, fingerprint matching based on RSSI stochastic characteristic and posture recognition model based on geomagnetic sensing are used to establish a more efficient equipment control system, combined with Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) technology to improve the accuracy of location. A personalized menu of remote “one-click” control is finally offered to users in a smartphone app. This smart home control system has been implemented by hardware, and precision and stability tests have been conducted, which proved the practicability and good user experience of this solution.

Deconvolution methods based on φHL regularization for spectral recovery.

The recorded spectra often suffer noise and band overlapping, and deconvolution methods are always used for spectral recovery. However, during the process of spectral recovery, the details cannot always be preserved. To solve this problem, two regularization terms are introduced and proposed. First, the conditions on the regularization term are analyzed for smoothing noise and preserving detail, and according to these conditions, φHL regularization is introduced into the spectral deconvolution model. In view of the deficiency of φHL under noisy condition, adaptive φHL regularization (φAHL) is proposed. Then semi-blind deconvolution methods based on φHL regularization (SBD-HL) and based on adaptive φHL regularization (SBD-AHL) are proposed, respectively. The simulation experimental results indicate that the proposed SBD-HL and SBD-AHL methods have better recovery, and SBD-AHL is superior to SBD-HL, especially in the noisy case.

Physicochemical Characterization and Biological Properties of Polysaccharides from Alpiniae oxyphyllae Fructus.

Polysaccharides (AOPs) were extracted from Alpiniae oxyphyllae fructus using three distinct methods: hot water (AOP-HW), hydrochloric acid (AOP-AC), and NaOH/NaBH4 (AOP-AL). This study systematically investigated and compared the physicochemical properties, structural characteristics, antioxidant activities, and α-amylase inhibitory activities of the extracted polysaccharides. Among the three AOPs, AOP-AC exhibited the highest yield (13.76%) and neutral sugar content (80.57%), but had the lowest molecular weight (121.28 kDa). Conversely, AOP-HW had the lowest yield (4.54%) but the highest molecular weight (385.42 kDa). AOP-AL was predominantly composed of arabinose (28.42 mol%), galacturonic acid (17.61 mol%), and galactose (17.09 mol%), while glucose was the major sugar in both AOP-HW (52.31 mol%) and AOP-AC (94.77 mol%). Functionally, AOP-AL demonstrated superior scavenging activities against DPPH, hydroxyl, and ABTS radicals, whereas AOP-AC exhibited the strongest inhibitory effect on α-amylase. These findings indicate that the extraction solvent significantly influences the physicochemical and biological properties of AOPs, thus guiding the selection of appropriate extraction methods for specific applications. The results of this study have broad implications for industries seeking natural polysaccharides with antioxidant and enzymatic inhibitory properties.

Effect of maturity on the drying characteristics of lotus seed and molecular structure, gelation and digestive properties of its starch.

Maturity and drying treatment are important factors affecting the processing characteristics of lotus seeds and its starch. This study aimed to investigate the effect of maturity (from low to high-M-1, M-2, M-3, M-4) on far-infrared drying kinetics of lotus seeds, and on the variation of structure, gelation and digestive properties of lotus seed starch (LSS) before and after drying. As the maturity increased, the drying time reduced from 5.8 to 1.0 h. The reduction of drying time was correlated with the decrease of initial moisture content, the increase of water freedom and the destruction of tissue structure during ripening. The increased maturity and drying process altered the multiscale structure of LSS, including an increase in amylose content, disruption of the short-range structure, and a decrease in relative crystallinity and molecular weight. The viscosity, pasting temperature and enthalpy of LSS decreased during ripening, and drying treatment caused the further decrease. The digestibility of LSS increased during ripening and drying. Lotus seeds at M-4 would be optimal for obtaining shorter drying time, lower pasting temperature and enthalpy, and higher digestibility. This study provided theoretical guidance for achieving effective drying process and screening LSS with suitable processing properties through maturity sorting.

Transformation of cell wall pectin profile during postharvest ripening process alters drying behavior and regulates the sugar content of dried plums.

This study evaluated the effects of postharvest ripening (0-6 days, D0-6) on cell wall pectin profile, infrared-assisted hot air-drying characteristics, and sugar content. Results showed that during postharvest ripening progress, the content of water-soluble pectin (WSP) and chelate-soluble pectin (CSP) increased while the content of Na2CO3-soluble pectin (NSP) and hemicellulose (HC) decreased. In addition, the average molecular weight of WSP increased while the average molecular weight of NSP decreased. Secondly, the drying time of plums with different postharvest ripening periods was in the order: D3 < D4 < D2 < D1 < D0 < D5 < D6. Furthermore, the sugar content of dried plums was mainly influenced by drying time, with three stages of sugar changes observed, tied to moisture content: (1) Sucrose hydrolyzes (50-85%); (2) Fructose and glucose degrade (15-50%); (3) Sorbitol degrades (15-42%). These findings indicate that the transformation of cell wall pectin profile during the postharvest ripening process alters drying behavior and regulates the sugar content of dried plums. CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS STUDIED IN THIS ARTICLE: Galacturonic acid (PubChem CID: 439215); Acetone (PubChem CID: 180); Distilled water (PubChem CID: 962); Trans-1,2-Diaminocyclohexane-N, N, N, N'-tetraacetic acid (PubChem CID: 2723845); Na2CO3 (PubChem CID: 10340); Glucose (PubChem CID: 5793); fructose (PubChem CID: 2723872) sucrose (PubChem CID: 5988) sorbitol (PubChem CID: 5780) and Sodium borohydride (PubChem CID: 4311764).

Modulation of acid-induced pea protein gels by gellan gum and glucono-δ-lactone: Rheological and microstructural insights.

This study investigated the effect of gellan gum (GG) and glucono-δ-lactone (GDL) on the acid-induced gel properties of pea protein isolate (PPI) pretreated with media milling. The inclusion of GG substantially enhanced the gel hardness of PPI gel from 18.69 g to 792.47 g though slightly reduced its water holding capacity (WHC). Rheological analysis showed that GG increased storage modulus (G') and decreased damping factor of gels in the small amplitude oscillatory shear region and transformed its strain thinning behavior into weak strain overshoot behavior in the large amplitude oscillatory shear region. SEM revealed that GG transformed the microstructure of gel from a uniform particle aggregate structure to a chain-like architecture composed of filaments with small protein particles attached. Turbidity and zeta potential analysis showed that GG promoted the transformation of PPI from a soluble polymer system to an insoluble coagulant during acidification. When GG content was relatively high (0.2 %-0.3 %), high GDL content increased the electrostatic interaction between PPI and GG molecules, causing their rapid aggregation into a dense irregular aggregate structure, further enhancing gel strength and WHC. Overall, GG and GDL can offer the opportunity to modulate the microstructure and gel properties of acid-induced PPI gels, presenting potential for diversifying food gel design strategies through PPI-GG hybrid systems.

Acid-induced pea protein gels pretreated with media milling: Gelling properties and the formation mechanism.

This study explored the effect of stirred media mill (SMM) processing on the acid-induced gelling properties of pea protein. Results showed that SMM treatment enhanced the gel strength from 75.06 g to 183.89 g and increased the water holding capacity from 46.64 % to 73.50 %. The minimum gelation concentration achieved for SMM-treated pea protein was 4 %, significantly lower than that of heat-pretreated pea protein (9 %). SMM decreased protein aggregate size from 104 µm to 180 nm. Microscopy analysis revealed that the small aggregates facilitated the formation of uniform gel networks with tight connections. Linear rheology indicated that small protein aggregates resulted in slower gelation rates with a higher G' for the formed gels. The SMM-pretreated protein gel showed strain hardening, shear thinning behaviors, and satisfactory stability to withstand large-amplitude oscillatory shear. Overall, SMM emerges as a promising technology for producing protein gel products with strong mechanical attributes and customizable rheological properties.

A Multidimensional Tensor Low Rank Method for Magnetic Resonance Image Denoising.

In this paper, we present the Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) denoising method via nonlocal multidimensional low rank tensor transformation constraint (NLRT). We first design a nonlocal MRI denoising method by non-local low rank tensor recovery framework. Furthermore, a multidimensional low rank tensor constraint is used to obtain low-rank prior information combined with 3-dimensional structure feature of MRI image cubes. Our NLRT can achieve denoising by retaining more image detail information. The optimization and updating process of the model is solved via the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm. Several state-of-the-art denoising methods are selected for comparative experiments. In order to reflect the performance of the denoising method, Rician noise with different levels is added to the experiment to analyze the results. The experimental results prove that our NLTR has more outstanding denoising ability and can obtain better MRI images.

A novel whole peanut butter refined by stirred media mill: The size, microstructure, rheology, nutrients, and flavor.

A novel whole peanut butter (PB) was developed using an emerging technology called stirred media mill (SMM). The impact of SMM on the size, microstructure, rheology, nutrient, and flavor of PB was investigated. The SMM treatment significantly decreased the particle size of PB, damaged cell structure, and released the oil body from cells. The apparent viscosity of PB decreased with the grinding process. Visual inspection revealed that the colloidal stability of PB was improved. The fatty acid composition was not affected by the grinding process. However, the tocopherol contents of the extracted oil slightly increased. Electronic nose and GC-MS analysis indicated that SMM could alter the flavor of PB after grinding for 45 min. Overall, SMM was a potential process technology to manufacture stable nut butter with smooth texture and delightful flavor profile.

Developing industry-scale microfluidization for cell disruption, biomolecules release and bioaccessibility improvement of Chlorella pyrenoidosa.

To facilitate biomolecules extraction and bioaccessibility of Chlorella pyrenoidosa, a novel industry-scale microfluidization (ISM) was used to disrupt cells effectively. Microscope images showed ISM damaged cell integrity, disorganized cell wall structure, pulverized cell membrane and promoted the release of intracellular components. The decrease of particle size and the increase of ζ-potential also confirmed the cell disruption. The cell breakage ratio of sample treated at 120 MPa was 98%. Compared with untreated samples, total soluble solid content and protein extraction rate of the sample treated at 120 MPa increased by 2 °Brix and 12%. Protein was degraded by ISM, the release of intracellular protein and the reduction of molecular weight increased protein digestibility by 20% in in vitro gastric phase. Lipid yield and chlorophyll b content were also increased by ISM. These results provided a new solution to cell disruption of microalgae and expanded the application field of ISM.

Structure characteristics and physicochemical property of starch, dietary fiber, protein in purple corn flour modified by low temperature impact mill.

The structural changes of macromolecules (starch, dietary fiber and protein) in purple corn flour (PCF) modified by a low temperature impact mill (LTIM) at different air classifier speed (ACS) were investigated. LTIM changed the multi-scale structure of starch, which was characterized by increased starch damage, stronger destruction of relative crystallinity (from 37.85 % to 15.53 %) and short-range ordered structure (R1047/1022, from 1.21 to 0.73) with the increased ACS. The structure of dietary fiber was also destroyed on multi-level, including decreased particle size, destructive morphology, and slightly changed crystalline structure. Additionally, LTIM showed high damage on the senior structure (surface hydrophobicity, disulfide bond, secondary structure) of protein. Due to the structure changes modified by LTIM, starch, dietary fiber and protein played different role on hydration property of PCF. Starch had positive effect, while dietary fiber and protein had negative effect. Our experimental results may provide valuable information for further analysis of other quality changes (oil holding capacity, cation exchange capacity, ability to produce high-quality dough or end-out products, etc.) of purple corn flour after LTIM treatment.

Extraction, characterization and spontaneous gelation mechanism of pectin from Nicandra physaloides (Linn.) Gaertn seeds.

Nicandra physaloides (Linn.) Gaertn seeds (NPGS) could be manually scrubbed to obtain water-soluble pectin, which forms gel at room temperature without additives. The extraction, characterization and spontaneous gelation (SG) mechanism of the pectin were studied. The results showed that the pectin was located on the surface of NPGS and easily to be dissolved. Chemically, the pectin was low methoxy pectin with esterification degree of 46.93%, Gal-A content of 65.80%, and average molar weight of 631.15 kDa. The SG occurred at the pectin concentration of 1.5%, it can be destroyed by urea and SDS, however, EDTA cannot. In addition, KCl and NaCl induced the gelation of 1.0% pectin solution and the ions of K, Mg, Ca and Na were detected in the pectin. Hydrogen bonding, electrostatic and hydrophobic interaction contributed to the SG. This study could promote the commercial applications of the pectin in the field of edible colloids and cosmetics.

Oat starch - How physical and chemical modifications affect the physicochemical attributes and digestibility?

Oat is a promising grain well-incorporated into human diet due to the presence of multiple nutrients in composition and its unique health-enhancing attributes. Similar to other cereals, starch is the most important component of the oat kernel, which makes up at least 60 % of the grain's dry weight. Considering the need to access new sources of starch with a broad range of capabilities, oat starch has experienced various modifications by physical and chemical strategies. Thus, this study aims to comprehensively review the impacts of various physical and chemical modifications on the physicochemical, functional, as well as digestibility properties of oat starch. Besides, the effects of oat starch combination with other biomacromolecules (whey protein isolate, caseinate, gums and lipids) on mentioned criteria were also reviewed. In conclusion, various modification methods could properly enhance the physicochemical attributes and digestibility of oat starch for its further successful application in food and pharmaceutical formulations.

Ripening induced degradation of pectin and cellulose affects the far infrared drying kinetics of mangoes.

The quality parameters of mangoes change during ripening, which has a vital impact on processing characteristics. Effects of ripening stage (four stages from the lowest to highest degree-RS-1, RS-2, RS-3, RS-4) on cell wall polysaccharides and far infrared drying kinetics of mangoes were investigated. As ripening progressed, the water-soluble pectin contents increased by 213.5%; while the chelate-, sodium carbonate-soluble pectin and hemicellulose contents decreased by 44.0%, 59.5% and 65.8%, respectively. Moreover, the molecular weight reduction confirmed the degradation of pectin. These further caused the alteration of cell wall structure and changes in water distribution. Meanwhile, the drying time of mangos with different ripeness were in the order: RS-3 > RS-4 > RS-2 > RS-1. It correlated with the degradation of cell wall polysaccharides, the destruction of cell wall and the increases in free water during ripening. The ripeness classification could effectively improve the uniformity and efficiency of fruits drying processing.

Elastic Net Constraint-Based Tensor Model for High-Order Graph Matching.

The procedure of establishing the correspondence between two sets of feature points is important in computer vision applications. In this article, an elastic net constraint-based tensor model is proposed for high-order graph matching. To control the tradeoff between the sparsity and the accuracy of the matching results, an elastic net constraint is introduced into the tensor-based graph matching model. Then, a nonmonotone spectral projected gradient (NSPG) method is derived to solve the proposed matching model. During the optimization of using NSPG, we propose an algorithm to calculate the projection on the feasible convex sets of elastic net constraint. Further, the global convergence of solving the proposed model using the NSPG method was proved. The superiority of the proposed method is verified through experiments on the synthetic data and natural images.

Thermal Decontamination Technologies for Microorganisms and Mycotoxins in Low-Moisture Foods.

The contamination risks of microorganisms and mycotoxins in low-moisture foods have heightened public concern. Developing novel decontamination technologies to improve the safety of low-moisture foods is of great interest in both economics and public health. This review summarizes the working principles and applications of novel thermal decontamination technologies such as superheated steam, infrared, microwave, and radio-frequency heating as well as extrusion cooking. These methods of decontamination can effectively reduce the microbial load on products andmoderately destruct the mycotoxins. Meanwhile, several integrated technologies have been developed that take advantage of synergistic effects to achieve the maximum destruction of contaminants and minimize the deterioration of products.