Apple slice grading is useful in post-harvest operations for sorting, grading, packaging, labeling, processing, storage, transportation, and meeting market demand and consumer preferences. Proper grading of apple slices can help ensure the quality, safety, and marketability of the final products, contributing to the post-harvest operations of the overall success of the apple industry. The article aims to create a convolutional neural network (CNN) model to classify images of apple slices after immersing them in atmospheric plasma at two different pressures (1 and 5 atm) and two different immersion times (3 and again 6 min) once and in filtered water based on the hardness of the slices using the k-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Tree, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithms. The results showed an inverse relationship between the storage period and the hardness of the apple slices, with the average hardness values gradually decreasing from 4.33 (day 1) to 3.37 (day 5). Treatment with atmospheric plasma at a pressure of 5 atm and an immersion time of 3 min gave the best results for maintaining the hardness of the slices during the storage period, recording values of 4.85 (first day) and 3.68 (fifth day), outperforming other treatments. The average improvement rate was 23.09% over five consecutive days. Regarding the CNN algorithms, the ANN algorithm achieved the highest classification accuracy of 97%, while the Tree algorithm achieved the lowest accuracy of 88.7%. The KNN and SVM algorithms achieved classification accuracies of 94.7% and 95.1%, respectively. The study demonstrated the possibility of using a CNN to classify apple slices based on the degree of hardness. Furthermore, the application of atmospheric plasma at 5 atmospheres with a 3-min immersion improves the firmness of the apple slices by inhibiting degradative enzymes while preserving the cellular structure and tissue quality.
In subterranean coal seam gas (CSG) reservoirs, massive amounts of small-sized coal fines are released during the production and development stages, especially during hydraulic fracturing stimulation. These coal fines inevitably cause mechanical pump failure and permeability damage due to aggregation and subsequent pore-throat blockage. This aggregation behavior is thus of key importance in CSG production and needs to be minimized. Consequently, such coal fines dispersions need to be stabilized, which can be achieved by the formulation of improved fracturing fluids. Here, we thus systematically investigated the effectiveness of two additives (ethanol, 0.5 wt % and SDBS, 0.001 and 0.01 wt %) on dispersion stability for a wide range of condit
... Show MorePeriodontitis is a dysbiosis-driven inflammatory disease in which a pathogenic subgingival biofilm disrupts the host–microbe equilibrium and promotes progressive loss of tooth-supporting tissues. While periodontal destruction has traditionally been explained mainly through the host immune response, increasing experimental and clinical evidence suggests that epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT)-like changes in the gingival epithelium may contribute to barrier failure and tissue remodeling during disease progression. EMT is characterized by reduced epithelial adhesion and polarity, alongside a shift toward a mesenchymal-like phenotype with enhanced motility and impaired epithelial barrier function. This narrative review focuses
... Show MoreConcrete columns with hollow-core sections find widespread application owing to their excellent structural efficiency and efficient material utilization. However, corrosion poses a challenge in concrete buildings with steel reinforcement. This paper explores the possibility of using glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) reinforcement as a non-corrosive and economically viable substitute for steel reinforcement in short square hollow concrete columns. Twelve hollow short columns were meticulously prepared in the laboratory experiments and subjected to pure axial compressive loads until failure. All columns featured a hollow square section with exterior dimensions of (180 × 180) mm and 900 mm height. The columns were categorized into
... Show MoreBackground. Implant insertion in regions with poor bone quantity, such as the posterior maxilla, is potentially associated with an increased rate of implant failure. Calcium sulfate can be used as the coating material for commercially pure titanium (CpTi) and as the bone graft material around implants when bound to eggshell powder to enhance the bone quality and quantity of bone defect regions. This study performed a torque removal test to evaluate the effectiveness of eggshell powder as a bone substitute for filling bone defects around CpTi-coated implants coated with nanocrystalline calcium sulfate. Materials and Methods. Eighty screw implant designs were used in the tibiae of 20 white New Zealand rabbits. A total of uncoated 20 s
... Show MoreVarious assays are used to determine the toxic effects of drugs at cellular levels in vitro. One of these methods is the dye exclusion assay, which measures membrane integrity in the presence of Trypan blue. Trypan blue the dye which was used in this study to investigate cytotoxic effect of a new Cis –dichloroplatinum (II) complex [(Qu)2PtCl2] on the viability of polymorphonuclear cells (PMNs). Three concentrations of platinum complex were prepared (70, 35and 17.5 µg/ ml) and the results revealed that the percentage of cell viability decreased as the platinum complex concentration increased in comparison with control.
... Show MoreIn this study, the flexural performance of a new composite beam–slab system filled with concrete material was investigated, where this system was mainly prepared from lightweight cold-formed steel sections of a beam and a deck slab for carrying heavy floor loads as another concept of a conventional composite system with a lower cost impact. For this purpose, seven samples of a profile steel sheet–dry board deck slab (PSSDB/PDS) carried by a steel cold-formed C-purlins beam (CB) were prepared and named “composite CBPDS specimen”, which were tested under a static bending load. Specifically, the effects of the profile steel sheet (PSS) direction (parallel or perpendicular to the span of the specimen) using different C-purlins c
... Show MoreThe study explains how translation participates in shaping the responses of different communities to global awareness campaigns, and the extent to which language and translated terminology from English to Arabic influence the audience’s understanding and interaction with the awareness messages delivered by these campaigns. The research aims to explore the problems in translating these campaign titles, which may lead to vague meaning, as the process is considered a major challenge due to the need to navigate linguistic nuances, cultural differences, and contextual variations. In this study, some awareness phrases were randomly chosen from many types of organizations’ campaigns, like the WHO, UN, mental health, and Empowerment, a
... Show MoreThe study aimed to spread the culture of efficient performance between nursing staffs, which would contribute and achieve health care quality, and to clarify the role of nursing in improving the quality of high-quality health care, as well as to clarify how to reach national standards for the quality of health care in Iraq, Therefore, the study dealt with the efficiency of nursing performance as an explanatory variable, and the quality of health care as a dependent variable. The fact that the health sector is the foundation for building a healthy society free from diseases, so hospital of IBN AL-NAFIS as an institution and it's nursing teams were taken as a community for this study. The results to be objective and reflect the rea
... Show MoreThe present study has examined the spatiotemporal varieties of the demographics of the Shatt Al-Arab River fishes and their relation to some ecological components. The aim is to forecast these groups in the unexplored parts of the waterway with an emphasis on environmental indices of diversity. Three sites in the river were selected as an observation and study of these species, which lasted from March 2019 to February 2020, the study dealt with factors affecting fishes, as Water Temperature (WT), Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Potential Hydrogen Ion (pH), Salinity (Sal), and Transparency (Tra). Gill nets, cast nets, hooks, and hand nets were adopted to collecting fish. The results indicated that the fish population comprises 60 species represent
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