حسن صدرنیا

Penicillium Digitatum (PD) and Penicillium italicum diseases pose significant economic challenges to citrus fruit production across the globe. The primary aim of this research is to investigate the synergistic effects of low concentrations of H2O2 solution combined with transient spark discharge plasma on the inactivation of PD. Additionally, assess the chemical and physical properties. Ultimately, this approach can be presented as an eco-friendly solution for rinsing citrus fruits on an industrial scale.

The Penicillium digitatum (PD) isolate (ATCC 24692) was obtained from the Tehran Molecular Mycology Laboratory and cultured on Sabouraud Dextrose Agar medium at pH 5.6 and 27°C for 7 days. The initial concentration of spores in the solution was determined using a UV absorption spectrophotometer, set to 0.1 at a wavelength of 420 nm, and the concentration of spores was approximately equivalent to 106 spores per milliliter (Palou et al., 2002). In this study, the plasma reactor had a point-to-plane geometry. The high-voltage needle electrode was placed above a Petri dish filled with a microbial solution combined with H2O2, while the grounded electrode was immersed in the solution. The distance between the tip of the needle electrode and the surface of the solution was 15 mm. Solutions of 0.05%, 0.1% and 0.5%v/v H2O2 (35% soluble in water) were added to the microbial solution before plasma treatment. The final volume of the solution was 5 ml and exposure times were 2.5, 5, 10, and 15 minutes. The reactor was fed with an air flow of 2 l/min. A transient spark discharge was generated, characterized by a discharge voltage of approximately 18 kV, short durations of less than 100 ns, and high current pulses exceeding 1A, with a repetition frequency ranging from 0.5 to 10 kHz. After treatment, H2O2, NO2‾, and NO3‾ as the main long-lived species in plasma-activated solution are measured. Also, physical factors such as electrical conductivity and pH were measured. Data Analysis performed using SAS 9.4 software. 

With increasing plasma treatment time and H2O2 concentration, the log reduction increased across all treatments. The combination of 0.1 and 0.5% H2O2 solution with plasma resulted in complete inactivation of P. digitatum within just 15 minutes. In plasma-treated solutions, regarding chemical properties, the concentrations of H2O2, NO2‾, and NO3‾ increased linearly with the treatment time. Furthermore, the electrical conductivity increased linearly, with a notable acceleration in the treated 0.5% H2O2 solution, reaching 373µS cm-1. Additionally, pH value dropped from an initial value of 6.95, using distilled water as a control, to a low of 2.14 for plasma treated with 0.5% H2O2 after 15 min of exposure.

The combined treatment was more effective than the isolated use of hydrogen peroxide solution. H2O2 enhances the effectiveness of plsma sterilization without requiring additional power input. Consequently, the synergistic application of atmospheric pressure plasma and H2O2 proved to be a promising method for the inactivation of PD. The findings indicate that reactive oxygen species (ROS) significantly contribute to the inactivation of PD cells, as well as the concentration of H2O2. Finally, the combination of H2O2 solution at 0.1 and 0.5% with cold plasma presents an environmentally friendly method for sanitizing citrus fruits.

Polylactic acid (PLA) is a biodegradable polymer that can replace petroleum-based materials in packaging films due to its unique properties. However, sometimes the degradability of polymers can be considered a negative factor, such as when significant changes in the mechanical properties of the polymer occur during use. Another notable issue is the brittleness of polylactic acid, which can be modified to some extent by adding other materials. The addition of materials such as nanoparticles and plasticizers can improve the flexibility and mechanical properties of polymer films. Polymer films must possess acceptable physical, mechanical, thermal, and other relevant characteristics for use in the packaging industry. The acceptable level of these properties can be obtained by comparing them with the established standards for commonly used polymers in the industry. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) is a polymer widely used in the packaging industry, making it a good benchmark for comparison. This research focused on studying various factors affecting the quality of the produced films, including mechanical properties, light absorption, contact angle, and microstructures. Investigating the mechanical properties of the PLA films is crucial due to the polymer’s degradability over time. Polylactic acid films with different compounds containing PEG 400 and Tween 80 as plasticizers and ZnO nanoparticles were investigated for 14 months (in the first, second, third, fourth, and fourteenth months) in terms of mechanical properties. Finally, the obtained values were compared with standard values for packaging and their mechanical behavior was analyzed.

Experiments were performed in the post-harvest and central laboratories of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. The films were prepared using the solvent casting method. First, PLA granules were dried for 24 hours at 60 °C and then 1 g of PLA in 50 ml of dichloromethane was dissolved at room temperature by magnetic stirring for 12 hours. ZnO nanoparticles, PEG 400 and Tween 80 were incorporated into PLA and DCM solution, 1 wt% PLA, 20 wt% PLA, and 0.25 wt% solution, respectively. To prepare films containing nanoparticles, nanoparticles and dichloromethane were sonicated with an ultrasonic probe for 10 minutes and then added to the base solution and stirred for one hour.Mechanical properties of the samples were determined based on the ASTM D882-02 standard method. A texture analyzer (H5 KS, Manchester, U.K.) was used for this test. Light absorption was studied using a spectrophotometer (CAMSPECM550, UK). The contact angle of the samples was measured using a goniometer (model 200-00, Ramé-Hart Instrument Co, Succasunna, USA) in accordance with the ASTM D5946-04 standard. The surface morphology of the samples was visualized using scanning electron microscope (LMU TESCAN BRNO-Mira3, Czech Republic). The results were analyzed using Minitab software version 18 (Minitab Inc, USA) and the graphs were created in Microsoft Excel 2013.

The neat PLA film has a smooth surface, and with the addition of nanoparticles or plasticizers, the surfaces become uneven. The addition of nanoparticles and plasticizers caused more opacity of the film and better protection against ultraviolet rays. The presence of plasticizers, especially Tween 80, increased the hydrophilicity of the films. Packaging films should be flexible and have ductile behavior and the addition of plasticizers caused ductile behavior. However, Tween 80 was not able to create stable ductile behavior. The stress-strain diagram shows that most samples displayed ductile behavior over 14 months, except for the neat PLA film and the film containing Tween 80 and nanoparticles. The values of tensile strength, elastic modulus, and elongation at break for low density polyethylene have been reported as 11.7 MPa, 260.4 MPa, and 225%, respectively. The lowest value of tensile strength (18.56 MPa) and elastic modulus (1114.68 MPa) were related to P400/T80 film. This difference shows the acceptability of polylactic acid in the packaging industry. The elongation value is much lower than the standard, indicating the need to modify this parameter.

The research findings revealed a significant effect of film type on mechanical properties, as well as a remarkable impact of storage time on tensile strength and elongation at break. The effect of various factors such as changes in the texture of the film due to the presence of plasticizers or non-uniform distribution of nanoparticles makes it impossible to determine a consistent trend for the effect of time on the films. The elongation at break for the produced films was much lower than the standard, which still needs to be modified due to the importance and sensitivity of this parameter in packaging. Polylactic acid has high tensile strength and high elastic modulus. Therefore, it can be combined with other polymers, various plasticizers, or nanoparticles at higher percentage to improve flexibility. The presence of plasticizers and nanoparticles in the film substrate increased opacity and enhanced protection against ultraviolet rays. The produced films were more hydrophilic compared to low density polyethylene.

Water and soil are the main factors for agricultural production.. Due to the limitation of suitable land and good quality (fresh) water, it is very important to plant plants that can tolerate unfavorable water and soil conditions and have an economic crop. The pistachio tree is a plant that has relatively good resistance to salinity and lack of water, so its planting in lands where planting other garden and agricultural crops is not cost-effective has gradually become common, and thus, its cultivated area has increased in recent years. In this research, using the capability of geographic information system, the areas prone to pistachio cultivation in Ayask city were evaluated. For this purpose, the basic information of water (salinity, water absorbable sodium), soil (salinity, soil absorbable sodium and soil pH), topography (slope and elevation classes) and meteorology (average temperature, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, pollen temperature, (relative humidity and rain) of the area were collected and interpolated using the kriging method in the geographic information system; Then, based on the relationship between each of the environmental and climatic parameters of the city and the ecological needs of pistachio, the resulting maps were classified according to the possibility of pistachio cultivation. Using the hierarchical method, assigning value and combining the resulting maps in the GIS environment, the results showed that 44% of land is suitable, 47% is average land, and 9% is unsuitable for pistachio cultivation.

One of the important aspects of food drying technology is studying the moisture and temperature changes during the drying process. The temperature changes of the sample are often evaluated by instruments such as thermocouples and thermometers. In this research, infrared thermography was implemented for evaluating the temperature changes during drying process. Experiments were performed for drying air temperature of 60 and 80 oC and temperature changes were measured with T-type thermocouples and infrared thermography. Also, moisture content of apple slice was measured during dying process. The result shows infrared thermography is a good instrument for recording the temperature changes without contact or destroying sample. evaluation drying curves shows, with increasing drying air temperature, heat and mass transfer process increase and drying times decreased consequently.

Among the different types of polymers used for packaging and coating, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), given its very enviable properties, has been used in various industrial applications. It is used for instance as controlled release in pharmaceutical elements, paper, textile and food supplement coating due to its good physical properties, chemical resistance, thermostability, film-forming capability, efficiency and biodegradability. The aim of this work was to examine the combined effect of montmorillonite (MMT) platelets and titanium oxide (TiO2) spherical nanoparticles on the physical and mechanical properties of PVA/ TiO2/MMT nanocomposites, and to determine the optimal combination to provide good properties, using response surface methodology (RSM).   Materials &

PVA, PVA/TiO2, PVA/MMT and PVA/ TiO2/MMT nanocomposite films were prepared by the solution casting method. For each sample, 1.8 g of PVA was dissolved in 50 mL deionized water and maintained for 24 h at room temperature. The mixture was then heated to 90˚C and stirred using a magnetic stirrer up to 3 h to ensure the complete dissolution of PVA, followed by cooling down the solution to room temperature. Various amounts of TiO2 nanoparticles (1 and 2 w% on a dry basis) were added to deionized water and agitated with a stirrer for 12 h at 500 rpm. This method was also used for MMT (2 and 4 w% on a dry basis). The nanoparticle suspension was subjected to ultrasonic homogenization for 20 min to ensure a good dispersion. The 50 mL nanoparticle suspension was added to the PVA solution drop by drop during a period of 5 min while maintaining intense stirring (1000 rpm). Mixing was continued and glycerol (30 w% based on the polymer) was added. Vacuum with a rotary vacuum pump was applied to remove air bubbles from the solution. The solution was poured into a 15-cm internal diameter Petri dish with a perfectly flat bottom and carefully aligned horizontally. Homogeneous films were peeled off after drying in an air oven at 40˚C for 72 h. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) were performed for characterizing the morphology of nanocomposite films. The effect of these two nanoparticles on physical and mechanical properties, was evaluated by response surface methodology (RSM). A three-level factorial design was used to define the test points for the series of experiments. Among the various design alternatives suggested by theoretical algorithm, the selected design consisted of 13 experiments including five replicate central points used for variance calculation. Furthermore, PVA film data were analyzed using the Design-Expert program (Version 7.0, Stat-Ease Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota) to find the optimum combination of constituents for the best properties.  

X-ray diffraction patterns showed that the nanoparticles were well dispersed in the polymer matrix of PVA/ TiO2 and PVA / MMT films with layered microstructure. In addition, the linear effect of MMT nanoparticles and the interaction of TiO2 and MMT on tensile strength were significant. The linear, quadratic and interaction effects of both nanoparticles on Young's modulus were also significant. In general, the optimum values of TiO2 and MMT were 1% and 4% respectively for mechanical properties. The presence of both nanoparticles had a significant effect on transparency and ΔE. Results of nanocomposite films indicated that the film with 2% TiO2 and 4% MMT has higher WI and actually is darker than other samples. By analyzing different results with response surface method, the nanocomposite film with 0.5% TiO2 and 4% MMT was proposed as optimum combination for mechanical and physical properties

Research subject:

 The need to increase agricultural production in proportion to population growth and water crisis management requires initiatives that can increase the quantity and quality of crops by using soil moisture storage methods while preserving the environment. In this study, the effect of different wt. % of Thermoplastic starch (TPS) with maleic anhydride (MA) as compatibilizer and nanoclay (15A) on gel content and mechanical properties of Polylactic acid (PLA) and blends of  Linear low-density polyethylene/ Low-density polyethylene (LLDPE / LDPE) was evaluated.

Research approach: 

Here, 0, 10, 20 and 30 wt. % TPS were added to the blends of LLDPE/LDPE (20/80) and also PLA. Independent parameters in the experimental design were wt. % of TPS, basic polymer type that was PLA or TPS and aging test. For dependent parameters were considered gel content, tensile strength, elongation at break and elastic modulus. Experiments were designed in General Full Factorial Design and performed in three replications.

Gel content in LLDPE/LDPE blends increased with the addition of TPS and decreased for PLA blends. The gel content change range for experimental samples before and after the aging test was between 10 to 21 and 2 to 5 percent, respectively. Tensile strength and elongation at break were reduced by adding TPS in both series of compounds before aging test. But this reducing rate was less in the 20 wt. % of TPS. The values ​​of tensile strength and elongation at break were: 12 to 19 MPa and 50 to 350 percent, respectively. These values changed after the aging test between 7 and 11 MPa and from zero to 5 percent, respectively.
Keywords: biodegradability, low density polyethylene, poly lactic acid, thermoplastic starch.

The classification of saffron as the most expensive spice is of great importance for customers and traders. In general, two methods are currently used to classify saffron. The first method is based on the experiences of an expert and by observing the samples. The second method is destructive and is performed using laboratory methods. According to experts, the use of machine learning techniques to classify saffron is a goal due to its non-destructive nature and timely characteristics. This method can also increase the accuracy of the industrial scale grading process. In this paper, a vision machine method is presented. Due to lack of documented research on this subject, a comprehensive literature search is presented in this work. Almost all color characteristics were extracted and used in a large number of classifiers. Experts in Iran classify saffron into three main categories based on their appearance: Pushal, Negin and Sargol. In this paper, a database consisting of 440 images from saffron for the three different classes was collected using a mobile phone camera. After applying some preprocessing steps, such as background removal, cropping etc., 21 color features were extracted using different image analysis methods. Twenty-two classifiers were employed for classification. Comparing results of different classifiers showed that the Linear Discriminant, Linear SVM, Bagged Trees and RUSBoost Trees can produce more accurate grading compared to other classifiers when using color features. In particular, mean classification accuracy of 82.23% was achieved in this work using Linear a SVM classifier.

Internal temperatures of greenhouse and its control is one of the important parameters in greenhouses and plays a key role in the economics of production. Although the greenhouse is a closed environment, it is not completely isolated from the outside. Therefore, the conditions inside the greenhouse are constantly changing under the influence of outside climate change. The purpose of this study was to estimate the internal air temperature of polyethylene greenhouse with respect to the external parameters of the greenhouse including air temperature (Tout), air relative humidity (Hout), solar radiation (S) and wind speed (V). For this purpose, different method of artificial neural networks including Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Radial Basis Function (RBF) and Adaptive Nero Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) were used. Comparison between different neural network models showed that RBF method had better prediction performance than MLP and ANFIS with higher coefficient of determination (R2=0.93) and lower error (RMSE=2.25). The results of the RBF model estimation for the prediction future temperature indicated an acceptable error in the prediction by the model for the next two hours and thus, the farmers had enough time to provide the necessary measures to prevent the greenhouse temperature rise in the future and save in energy consumption.

Saffron is a dry, red color of the Crocus Sativus L. It is the most expensive spice in the world. Drying is an important step in the process of saffron production. Drying causes physical, chemical and biochemical changes to achieve the desired properties of saffron. In this study, the kinetics of drying saffron stigma using a combined hot air-infrared dryer at three temperature levels of 40, 50 and 60°C and two hot air flow speeds of 0.3 and 0.6 m/s as well as an ordinary hot-air dryer using the same conditions were studied. The effect of the studied parameters on the amount of crocin, picocrocin and safranal and the microbial load of the final product were also investigated. The results showed that, the Midley model was found to be the best model in fitting data of both drying methods. Infrared irradiation and increased temperature and air velocity caused a dramatic reduction in the drying time of saffron. The infiltration coefficient ranged from 1.8003×10-08 to 2.38346×10-08 m2/s for the hot air-infra-red method and 5.07×10- 10 to 2.7892×10-09 m2/s for hot air drying. The amount of activation energy in the combination method of hot air-infrared  varied from 10.43 kJ/mol to 11.6 kJ/mol, and was obtained at 34.1 kJ/mol and 62.4 kJ/mol in hot-air drying. In terms of maintaining the color strength of saffron, the highest crocin was obtained when the combination of hot air-infrared at 50 ° C and 0.3 m / s was used with an average of   1%E440nm 278.5, which was the highest among all other treatments. According to the national standard of Iran, microbial tests were carried out including identification of E. coli, identification of enterococci, identification of sulfite reducing clostridia and counting mold and yeast on different treatments. No significant differences were observed between the treatments.

In the current paper, the optimum conditions for bioethanol production from sugars were surveyed. Then the operational condition effect on some physical characteristics of bioethanol fuel was investigated. 27 types of bioethanol samples from sugarcane molasses, sugar beet molasses and sugar cane juice were produced at anaerobic fermentation condition in three different temperature levels of 25 ˚C, 30˚c and 35 ˚C and in three different time levels of 24h, 48 h and 72 h. Then the values of density, kinematic viscosity and flash point were calculated in triplets. The results showed that with increasing the temperature and time processing, the viscosity, density and flashpoint would be decreased. The sugar type had a significant effect on these parameters. The closest value of viscosity to its standard amount was related to sugarcane molasses, producing at 25 ˚C and after 72 h fermentation, which was 1.5174 cSt. The nearest amount of density to its standard value was reported 0.9560 which was attributed to sugarcane juice producing at 35˚C and after 72 hours and for flashpoint it was 24.5 ˚C which belonged to sugarcane juice at 30 ˚C and 72 hours. The most bioethanol concentration was 74 gr.L-1 which was produced from sugarcane juice at 35 c◦ and after 72h.

Heating is one of the most commonly used methods for accessing various purposes in the food process. The main problems with microwave heating are the possibility of cold and hot spots. The aim of this study was to investigate the uniformity of temperature distribution in Fandoghi Pistachio under the microwave heating process under study conditions. Independent factors included the shape of product geometry, the position of the thermometer and the heating time. This research was based on a completely randomized design based on a factorial experiment of 2×6×4. Independent factors included the shape of product geometry, the position of the thermometer and the heating time. These experiments were performed separately for 900 and 630 w microwave power, and the temperature of the pistachio product was measured and recorded during the four-time heat treatment at six different positions of the product as an associated factor. The results of this study were based on two types of analysis of the comparison of the mean temperature of the samples and the determination of the relative non-uniformity index. The results showed that all the main effects were significant at 1% level in both applied power states. Comparison of means showed that in treatment "B" (cubic - 630 w) in 5 positions of 6 positions, there is no significant difference between the mean temperature under investigation. This means that the temperature distribution at different product positions at the end of the microwave heating period has been quite uniform. Subsequently, the cubic – 900 w and cylindrical- 630 w had the highest uniformity in temperature distribution. By calculating the relative non-uniformity index, the highest uniformity was obtained in cubic - 630 w.

Convective air drying is one of the oldest and most popular drying methods. Designing and controlling the convective air drying needs the mathematical description of the moisture transfer during the drying process, known as drying kinetics. Fick’s second law of diffusion can be used for modelling the moisture distribution inside the moist object during drying process.
Mathematical modeling of drying process is a very important tool, as it contributes to understand better moisture distributions inside the product which helps designing, improving and controlling drying operation in the food industry.
Implementation of the partial differential equations subject to the correspondent initial and boundary conditions is one of the main methods of mathematical modeling to describe the physical phenomena such as moisture transfer during drying. In the recent decades, considerable number of research works have been devoted to numerical solution of mass transfer phenomena during convective drying of food products by using the common numerical solution such as FDMs, FEMs and FVMs.
The spectral collocation (pseudospectral) methods is a powerful tool for the numerical solutions of smooth PDEs like mass transfer equations. Pseudospectral methods are able to achieve the high precision with using a small number of discretization points compared to FDMs and FEMs and with low computational time and computer memory.
The objective of present research is to simulate the mass transfer phenomena in one dimension during convective drying of apple slices. The validation of the presented numerical model was done by comparing experimental drying data taken from Kaya et al. (2007) and Zarein et al. (2013). For more confirming the numerical approach, a numerical example with the exact solution is provided and the related errors were evaluated. Estimation of mass transfer coefficients
The convective mass transfer coefficient in the surface of the apple slice was obtained according to the relationship presented by Paitil (1988) and Janjai et al. (2008).
(1)
Estimation of effective moisture diffusivity coefficient
Fick’s second law of diffusion was applied to obtain the effective moisture diffusivity coefficient of the apple slices. The analytical solution of this equation can be written as follows (Crank, 1975): (2)
In this study, we consider the Pseudospectral methods for solving 1D mass transfer equation. In order to develop the model, the following common assumptions are considered: negligible heat changes during drying process, moisture is transferred inside the slices by diffusion, one-dimensional mass transfer in apple slices, non-shrinkage and non-deformation of the slice. In the field of numerical analysis, the main advantage of pseudospectral methods compared to others such as FDMs and FEMs are exponential convergence and sufficient accuracy (Sun et al., 2012). The values of parameters and coefficients of mathematical model are summarized in Table 1. The comparisons between the predicted average moisture content and the experimental data are shown in Fig. 1 & 2. It can be seen, the numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental data. The values of the correlation coefficient and the root mean square error from comparison of numerical result with experimental data taken from Zarein et al. (2013) and Kaya et al. (2007) were 0.9996, 0.0729 and 0.997, 0.1561 respectively. Moreover, the running time for solving 1D mass transfer equations was about 3 seconds. This result is the evident that the presented model is successful for predicting the moisture content history during drying process.
Moreover, by using the considered numerical method the approximate solutions of defined numerical example for different discretizing points was evaluated and the associated error history are shown in Figure 3. It can be seen that the values of errors are very low and about 10-3 and 10-5, that confirms the high accuracy, robustness and efficiency of the suggested numerical approach. Spectral collocation (pseudospectral) method is presented to solve mass transfer equation in one dimensional in during convective drying process approximately. The model was validated by the reported experimental data from convective drying of apple slices. Also, a numerical example, which had an exact solution in a closed form, was provided to illustrate the high accuracy of the proposed method. The results of statistical computations ( and ) and numerical example showed the efficiency, applicability and robustness of the presented approach.

The lack of uniform distribution of temperature in the product is one of the main problems of thermal processes. The modeling of microwave pistachio (Ahmadaghaee cv.) thermal process was studied using response surface method (RSM). The optimum conditions were determined in order to achieve the highest uniformity of temperature distribution in the product. Independent quantitative variables included the heating time (20-50 s) and the microwave power (630-900 w). In addition, an Independent qualitative variable included the position of the thermometer in six positions in the container. The dependent variable (response) is the temperature of the product under microwave heating. These experiments were performed separately for two cubic and cylindrical containers. The results of analysis of variance showed that all the main effects and the interaction are significant (P< 0.01). According to the results, the uniformity of temperature distribution in the product was more cubic than the cylindrical container. The uniformity of temperature distribution in the minimum power (630 w) was greater than the maximum power (900 w). The optimum conditions were determined in order to maximize the uniformity of temperature distribution for cylindrical containers with a heating time of 44 to 45 seconds and power of 720 to 750 watts. These conditions for the cube containers were obtained with a heating time of 44 to 47 seconds and power of 630 to 670 watts. The accuracy of the model was evaluated by calculating the root mean square error (RMSE). The low value of RMES in all six positions of the product indicates the proximity of the experimental and predicted values and confirms the model's accuracy.

In recent decays, the microwave heating treatment is one of the best ways for the pest control. It is difficult to determine temperature in different parts of materials by Thermometer, but we can solve this problem by Comsol Multiphysics Software. In a research, results of a farm test were consistent with laboratory data and high temperature area was belonged to the outer part of wooden piece (Massa et al., 2015). The numerical simulation of Microwave heating was successfully done for fruits and compared with experimental measurement in two cylindrically and spherically states by Zhao et al (2011). The results indicated that, the temperature prediction in a wooden piece under heating of a Microwave system was in conformity with experimental infra-red rays data (Rattanadecho, 2006). The outer part of the piece was impressed by inspired heating and the inner part by transmission of heating (Massa et al., 2011). A high frequency structure simulator software, a radiant trumpet shaped antenna with 2.45GHz frequencies, 100 watt electric power were the tools that were used to predict the temperature at a Date Palm Wooden piece at 10, 12, 14 and 16 centimeters (Al Shwear and Remili, 2016). Microwave pretreatment was studied with two factors of Microwave radiation (170, 450, and 850 W) and Microwave duration (2, 6, and 10 min). It can be concluded that the Ozonolysis is the most effective pretreatment regarding to saccharification percentage of sugarcane bagasse (Eqra et al,2015). This study has been done with the aim of fighting with Rhynchophorus ferrugineus blight by microwave and removing toxins in crops.
Samples features such as physical, mechanical and magnetic once were established in both Tehrans Material and Energy lab and Polymer and Petrochemical Research Center, Then it was simulated by Time_ Temperature profile software. For simulating research by Comsol Multiphysics software, at first sample and chamber sizes were determined and the type of material, meshing, 2.45GHz frequencies and the time duration of heating were measured, respectively. Finally the research was analyzed and Time¬_Temperature profile which was one of the outcomes of Multiphysics software was determined. A cubic piece of wood (103×86×78 mm) (Fig. 1), a Digital Thermometer and a Microwave are the tools which the researcher used in this sample. The temperature was measured at three different parts of cub diagonal by Thermometer. At first, the wooden sample was divided in two equal parts and a sensor was placed in the middle of it and then it was placed in the Microwave. The primary temperature of sample and Microwaves was 27°C. We turn the Microwave on for a period of 10 minutes, after that we check the wooden piece temperature by Thermometer at 20 seconds intervals.
T-test was used to compare statistical results achieved by simulated and experimental temperature of cubic diagonal. According to T mark at 5 percent level, we can say that there is a significant difference between simulated and experimental temperature at point1, however, there is no such a significant difference at 2 and 3 points. In the following phase, the temperature was compared at two simulated and experimental states by variance analysis test. There was significant difference at 1, 2 and 3 points according to data are shown at figure 4. Moreover, Duncan Post hoc test is shown at figures 5 and 7 that experimental temperature shows no difference at 1 and 3 points but it makes difference at 1, 2 and 2, 3 points.
Results show that the simulation model can predict the temperature in different parts of a wooden sample. The temperature will be higher as much as the points will be closer to the wave producer resource. In order to control pests in the trunk of a tree, we should use several wave generator systems, instead of ones. It is recommended that cylindrical microwave should be simulated and designed instead cubic ones, because it is better adjusted with tree stock and the wave generator system is placed on this surface so that the temperature will be distributed symmetrically along the diagonal.

IntroductionThe demand of pre-determined optimal coverage paths in agricultural environments have been increased due to the growing application of field robots and autonomous field machines. Also coverage path planning problem (CPP) has been extensively studied in robotics and many algorithms have been provided in many topics, but differences and limitations in agriculture lead to several different heuristic and modified adaptive methods from robotics. In this paper, a modified and enhanced version of currently used decomposition algorithm in robotics (boustrophedon cellular decomposition) has been presented as a main part of path planning systems of agricultural vehicles. Developed algorithm is based on the parallelization of the edges of the polygon representing the environment to satisfy the requirements of the problem as far as possible. This idea is based on "minimum facing to the cost making condition" in turn, it is derived from encounter concept as a basis of cost making factors.
Materials and MethodsGenerally, a line termed as a slice in boustrophedon cellular decomposition (BCD), sweeps an area in a pre-determined direction and decomposes the area only at critical points (where two segments can be extended to top and bottom of the point). Furthermore, sweep line direction does not change until the decomposition finish. To implement the BCD for parallelization method, two modifications were applied in order to provide a modified version of the boustrophedon cellular decomposition (M-BCD). In the first modification, the longest edge (base edge) is targeted, and sweep line direction is set in line with the base edge direction (sweep direction is set perpendicular to the sweep line direction). Then Sweep line moves through the environment and stops at the first (nearest) critical point. Next sweep direction will be the same as previous, If the length of those polygon's newly added edges, during the decomposition, are less than or equal to the base edge, otherwise a search is needed to choose a new base edge. This process is repeated until a complete coverage. The second modification is cutting the polygon in the location of the base edge to generate several ideal polygons beside the base edges. The algorithm was applied to a dataset (including 18 cases, ranging from simple-shaped to complex-shaped polygons) gathered from other studies and was compared with a split-merge algorithm which has been used in some other studies. The M-BCD algorithm was coded in C language using Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 software. Algorithm was run on a laptop with 2.5 GHz Intel(R) core™ i5-4200M CPU, processor with 4 GB of RAM. Also Split-merge algorithm provided by Driscoll (2011) was coded. Two algorithms were applied to the dataset. Cost of coverage plan was calculated using cost function of U-shaped turns in study Jin and Tang (2010). In this paper machine-specific parameters were working width 10 m and minimum turning radius 5 m.
Results and DiscussionBased on the results, the proposed algorithm has low computational time (below 100 ms in dataset and runs many times (on average 75 times) faster than split-merge algorithm. Algorithm resulted in a calculated savings up to 12% and on average 2% than the split-merge algorithm. Another consequence from parallelization method was effectiveness of multi-optimal direction coverage pattern than a single-optimal direction coverage; a calculated savings up to 14% and 2% on average than a single optimal direction achieved. Algorithm was evaluated on several test cases in detail. Based on the results, it is possible to loose optimal solutions especially in the case of simple shaped environments (in terms of number of convex points and internal obstacles), for example case 10 in dataset, is a case with a number of orthogonal edges. Reviewing the algorithm and Figure 4 demonstrate that sweep line moves down from the first longest edge in top of the polygon, and it doesnt stop during the process until the whole area is covered with a single coverage path direction (parallel to the longest edge). As it can be seen, no decomposition is proposed, because sweep line has faced no critical points. Based on the results in Table 2, there is 8% (equal to 88m) more cost (in term of the non-effective distance) in this case than an optimal direction and the split-merge algorithm. There are similar cases in the dataset: number 9, 12 and 13. This condition rarely occurs in complex environments, but in general it can be prevented by using an evaluation step at the end of the decomposition process. Ideally, the cost of coverage plan must be significantly less than related costs of a single optimal direction. Unlike the simple cases, algorithm returns near the optimal solution, especially in the case of complex environments. A good example of this ability of the algorithm can be seen in Figure 6. This field is case 17 in the dataset. It has many edges (almost 90 edges) and several non-convex points and an internal irregular shaped obstacle. M-BCD algorithm in a very short time (87 ms) generated several near to ideal shaped sub-regions around the field. Algorithm resulted in a calculated saving of 5% than an optimal direction with minimum non-effective distance. We can see the solution of split-merge algorithm by Oksanen and Visala (2009) in Figure 6, it can be clearly seen that coverage pattern by M-BCD is very close to the high time-consuming and optimal split-merge algorithm by Oksanen and Visala (2009). It verifies that M-BCD is efficient and optimal. There are similar test cases as hard cases in which considerable savings has been achieved (cases 6, 8 and 14).
ConclusionsIn this paper a modified decomposition algorithm as a main part of path planning systems in agricultural environments was presented. Proposed algorithm uses method of parallelization of the edges of polygon. This method is based on encounter concept and "minimum facing to cost making condition". Although the general problem had been proved to be NP-hard problem, the method has limited the search space correctly and effectively which resulted close to the optimal solutions quickly. Another advantage of the method is suitability of the solutions for any kind of machine and any polygonal flat field (and those which can be considered as flat fields).

Plastic debris remaining in the field after harvest is one of the difficulties in farming under plastic mulch. In this study, the performance parameters of a domestic plastic remover machine in collecting plastic mulches were evaluated. The dependent factors were fuel consumption, plastic tearing frequency during collecting and the total collecting time. The independent factors included film thickness (two levels: 20 and 30 μm), ground speed (three levels: 2.7, 3.8 and 5.4 km/h) and the time interval between harvesting and plastic collecting (two levels: 5 and 10 days). The tests were performed in triplicate in a full factorial experimental design. Experiments were carried out in some farms of Fars province employing a two-wheel drive MF399 tractor. The results showed that using thick plastic (30 μm) reduces the plastic tearing frequency and hence with a lower number of stops, reduces the fuel consumption and increases the efficiency of the machine during plastic collection. To increase the efficiency of plastic collection, when using 30 μm plastic, the ground speed of 5.4 km/h is recommended. The best plastic collecting time with the minimum tearing frequency of are recommended as 5 and 10 days after harvesting for 20 and 30 μm plastics, respectively. According to the results the least fuel consumption was observed for collection of 30 μm plastic and with ground speed of 5.4 km/h. Also the simultaneous collection of drip irrigation tapes and plastic mulch tapes reduce costs and increase the efficiency of the plastic mulch remover.

The high energy consumption is one of the serious problems in poultry industry. The poultry industry consume about five percent of total energy sources in different countries, with consideration of losses, it increases up to 16-20%. In the year 2003 also, the Iranian chicken meat consumption per capita was 13.3 kg, while in the year 2013 it increased to 25.9 kg (FAO, 2014). It shows that in the diet of Iranian people, the chicken meat has become a strategic food. Poultry industry is one of the biggest and most developed industries in Iran. In the past two decays, mainly due to population growth and increase demand of white meats, it is necessary to change and improve energy efficiency in this industry.
Technical efficiency of broiler farms in the central region of Saudi Arabia was analyzed through stochastic frontier approach (Alrwis and Francis, 2003). They reported that many farms under study work lower than their total capacity. In the research, the output was chicken meat weight in the term of the kilogram per one period and the inputs were the number of chicks, feed, the total of all variable expenses and fixed input except chicks and feed and the total cost of fixed inputs including building, equipment and machinery used for the broiler houses. They found that the small and large size broiler farms in the Central Region of Saudi Arabia were produced chicken with mean technical efficiency 83 and 88%, respectively (Alrwis and Francis, 2003). Efficiency measurement of broiler production units in Hamadan province was investigated by Fotros and Solgi (2003). They reported that the minimum, maximum and mean technical efficiency under variable return to scale were 12.7, 100 and 64.4%, respectively. Their results showed that technical efficiency at 16.5 (14 units) and 42.35% (24 units) of farms were more than 90 and 70%, respectively (Fotros and Salgi, 2003).
Khorasan Razavi province after Esfahan and Mazandaran provinces is the third largest producer of broilers in Iran. This research was performed because it is necessary to have energy consumption status; also there is a few data about broiler’s energy consumption in Mashhad. In this research, the data of Mashhad’s broilers was analyzed by Data Envelopment Analysis Method. The other objectives of this study were to separate efficient and inefficient units to use energy resource efficiently and determine total energy saving.
This study was performed in 2013 in Mashhad, Iran. The data were collected through interviews and questionnaires from 36 poultry farmers for a growing period of April to May. Input energies were the feed, fuel (gas and gas oil), electricity, labor, equipment and chicken, and the output energies were the chicken meat and the manure. The energy consumption for each element was calculated by multiplied amount of inputs/outputs to energy equivalents.
The total of input and output energies were obtained 125.2, 24.9 GJ/1000Birds, respectively. Energy indices such as energy ratio, energy efficiency and specific energy were determined to be 0.2, 0.019 kg/MJ and 52.55 MJ/kg, respectively. The highest share of energy consumption were 50.84 and 42.43%, for fuel (natural gas and diesel fuel) and feed respectively, the lowest share among the input energies were 0.39 and 0.06%, for chicken and labor respectively. Comparison of energy in three levels of farm sizes (≤15000, 15000-30000 and ≥30000 chicks) showed the energy ratio for large farms were higher than the other levels.
Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used to evaluate the poultry efficiency. The results showed that 13 poultry units had average technical efficiency (0.93) in the definition of Constant Returns to Scale (CRS), and 21 poultry units had pure technical efficiency (0.99) in the definition of Variable Returns to Scale (VRS).
The Fuel (natural gas and diesel fuel) consumption energy had the highest shares of energy consumption; it is because of the low efficient heating equipment in poultry houses and low fuel prices in Iran. Energy efficiency of broiler farms in Mashhad was obtained 0.2 that show low energy efficiency. Improvements in energy efficiency could be achieved by increasing yield or reducing inputs energies.

Performance optimization of diesel engines is the subject of most researchers in the field of internal combustion engine in recent decades. One of the the most effective ways toward optimizing the performance of heating systems is exergy analysis. In this study, energy and exergy concepts are applied to evaluate the performance of a compression ignition engine with premixed gasoline fuel at various loads and constant speed. To reach proper performance of diesel engine with premixed fuel, in addition to first and second-law efficiencies, exhaust emission characteristics are reviewed. The results of this study indicated that greater portion of exergy transfer was due to the irreversibility, averaged 50% while at high loads exergy destruction rate decreased to %5 by using premixed gasoline fuel. Also, energy and exergy losses through exhaust emissions with premixed fuel will be reduced to about %8.5 and %16/5 (averaged on all engine loads), respectively. The use of premixed fuel gasoline can increase energy and exergy efficiency (maximum 8% at high loads) at all loads while NOX pollutants will be reduced. It was also found that both HC and CO emissions with premixed gasoline fuel will be increased at all loads.

The working day is an important component in selection and analysis of farm machinery systems. The number of working days is affected by various factors such as climate, soil characteristics and type of operation. Daily soil moisture models based on weather long-term data and soil characteristics were almost used for calculating probability of working days. The goal of this study was to develop a simulation model to predict the number of working days for secondary tillage and planting operation in fall at 50, 80 and 90% probability levels.
A Simulation model was developed using 21 years weather data and soil characteristics for calculate daily soil moisture content in Research Station of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. So soil moisture was calculated using daily soil water equation for top 25 centimeter of soil depth. Moisture equal or lower than 85% of soil field capacity and precipitation lower than 4 millimeter (local data) were considered as soil workability criteria. Then the working days were determined for secondary tillage and planting operation at 50, 80 and 90% probability levels in falls. The number of days at 50% probability was the mean over 21 years and the number of days at 80% and 90% were determined for each two weeks period as the average number of working days minus the product of t value and standard deviation of those numbers.
Model Evaluation: Evaluation of model included a comparison of predicted and the observed the number of working days in Research Station of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad during 2002-2010 and sensitivity analysis was implemented to test the effect of changes in soil workability criterion (80, 90, 95 and 100% of soil field capacity), drainage coefficient (25 % decrease and increase) and soil field capacity (40% increase) on simulation results.
Comparison of predicted and observed days showed that correlation coefficient was 0.998 and the difference between the simulated data and observed data was not significant at the 5% level.
Results from sensitivity analysis in Table 3 showed that when soil workability, drainage coefficient and field capacity increased, the number of working days increased, but model sensitivity was very low to drainage coefficient and soil field capacity. In general, the most important factor is precipitation in this weather conditions.
The number of working days for secondary tillage and planting operation for each period in fall are shown in Table 4.
A simulation model was developed for predicting the number of working days for secondary tillage and planting operation in fall. This model was based on weather long-term data and soil characteristics for the Research Station of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. The most important factor was precipitation and the model had low sensitivity to drainage coefficient and soil field capacity. The number of working days in 50%, 80% and 90% probability levels for period of ten days was on average 9.94, 9.21, 8.57 days for 23th September to 22th October and 9.77, 8.02, 6.41 days for 23th October to 21th November and 9.68, 7.48 and 5.24 for 22th November to 21th December, respectively.

Due to the disadvantages of synthetic packaging materials such as migration into food, polluting the environment, difficult recovery, high costs of raw materials and production, natural biopolymers have recently been paid more attention as alternatives to the petroleum-derived plastics for packaging. The aim of this study was producing biodegradable edible films based on native tragacanth from Iran and determining their physical and mechanical properties. Also, the effects of different percentages of glycerol as a plasticizer (30%, 40% and 50%) on the films properties were investigated. According to the results, tragacanth based films showed appropriate mechanical properties and high transparency. Different percentage of glycerol did not affect the physical properties of the samples, but made some changes in mechanical properties. Among all treatments, films with 30% glycerol showed higher tensile strength in comparison to the other samples. Also, films with 50% glycerol showed more %E and lower stiffness. Because of high solubility of tragacanth films, they cannot be used in film production alone, but it is an appropriate candidate for composite films.

For fighting with blights and studying on effect of thickness, two experiments were done. The first series were included independent variable ages of blight in four levels (age1,age2,age3 and age4) and the thermal care temperature in four levels(10,15,20 and 30 seconds) and the dependent variable is death rate . The second series were included independent variables thermal care temperature in three levels (30, 60 and 100 seconds) and the thickness in three area (5, 10, 12 cm) and the dependent variable is death rate. The results showed that the most fatalities is pertaining to age 3 with 100 percent death and the least fatalities is pertaining to age1 and 4. The results showed that the death rate with thickness is reverse and with heating treatment time is direct.

High percentage of orchard products, such as apples, is wasted due to mechanical damages that cause fruit quality loss. Damages due to static or dynamic pressure or impact are among very common mechanical damages that begin to bruise fruits. Post-harvest bruise damage is a major cause for the loss in fruit quality. Bruising means damaging fruit tissue and consequently physical changes resulting in fruit color and chemical changes resulting in fruit tastes (Xing and Baerdemaeker, 2005). Most research projects conducted on apple bruising have focused on the use of image processing techniques for detecting apple surface defects from images. In addition to images taken in visible spectral range, thermal images have been also used for this purpose. Having reviewed the literature and research gaps in this area, we set two hypotheses for this research project: first, the color characteristics of bruised tissue would change over time and these changes would be detectable on the images taken from the affected fruits. Second, there would be a significant difference between the surface temperature of bruised and sound tissues. The distribution of temperature on an impact-caused bruised tissue would change over time in a different manner compared with that for a sound tissue. The color and temperature variation is particularly related to the intensity of impact caused bruising and where the impact is applied on apples.
Therefore, the first objective of this paper was to study the color changes on the tissues bruised from the impacts with three energy levels applied on three locations on apple surface with different curvatures: top, middle and bottom. The second objective was to investigate the temperature variation on the surface of the bruised apples and to examine the capability of visible and thermal imaging in detecting bruised tissues at different times after bruising occurred.
For these purposes, the experiments were conducted on sixty apples of Golden Delicious variety. From sixty samples, five apples were used for determining apples ripeness index and five apples were used for determining emissivity factor which was used later in calibrating fruit surface temperatures on thermal images. Bruising was simulated by an impact pendulum. Bruising was conducted at three impact energy levels of 200, 700, 1200 mJ and applied at three locations on apple surfaces: top, middle and bottom. The samples affected by bruising-simulated impacting device were kept in a refrigerator at 5°C and were individually imaged in a regular basis until 624 hours after impact application. At the time of imaging, both visible and thermal images were taken from each sample. Samples visible images were taken in an imaging box with uniform controlled lighting. Thermal images were taken while samples were placed in a box that was thermally insulated from surrounding temperature.
A newly defined color factor, named excessive yellow index (EYI) was extracted from visible color images. The EYI index formula is EYI = 1.5r1.5g where r, g and b are red, green and blue color values, respectively. Factorial experiment was conducted for the assessment of EYI. This experimental design looked at the effects of three factors of time, impact energy and impact landing location on EYI.
Result and The results showed that time passed after impact and the location of impact application had significant effect on EYI at 95% confidence interval. The apples EYI index decreased until 15 days after impact application and started increasing thereafter.
Surface temperatures were extracted from the thermal images of samples. The results of processing thermal images showed that the bruised tissue was cooler than the sound tissue until 48 hours after impact application. Both tissues had the same temperature from 56 to 96 hours and then the bruised tissue started becoming warmer by 0.5-1°C after 96 hours.
The color variation of bruised region was not detectable from visible images within the first 48 hours after impact application, while these regions were cooler than undamaged region and detectable from thermal images. The bruised regions started to turn dark brown at 48 hours after impact application. However, there was no temperature difference between bruised and sound regions on fruit surface for the period of 56-96 hours. The bruised brown regions paled after 360 hours. As a result, this reduced the capability of visible images for discriminating bruised apples from sound ones.
The results of this research show that both the visible spectrum and thermal imaging systems can record the changes in color and temperature at different times after the bruising in apples. Therefore, these methods can be used as an efficient methods for grading apples.

Among the healthy compounds such as sodium bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate, vegetable oils, and biocontrol yeasts including heat treatments, as well as a good alternativeto chemical pesticides are considered hazardous. In this study, the effect of different levels of sodium bicarbonate treatment (0, 500 and 1000 mg/l and combination 1500 mg/l sodium bicarbonate with hot water 53 °C) were investigated onwound healing in oranges, c.vJaffa and Sanguinella of Golestan local, inoculated with a suspension of Penicilliumdigitatum.The treated fruits were stored at eight degrees Celsius and relative humidity 85±5%.Variables such as weight loss, firmness, TSS, acidity, maturity index, decay rate were measured once per two weeks in six steps. The ANOVA results showed that acidity value, maturity index,decay rate were significantly influenced by variety and storage duration. Also,the amounts of weight loss and decay rate were significantly affected by period of storage andconcentrations. In both variety of oranges,Jaffa and Sanguinella, the appropriate result was found in combination treatment, using 1500 mg/l sodium bicarbonate and hot water immersion at 53 °C for three minutes.

Mechanical damagesin theprocessof harvestingandpost-harvest are the most important reason in Cucurbits losses. It causes the tissue destructionand consequentfruits decay. Because of difference in the mechanical strength of flesh and skin of cantaloupe، internal bruising are more usual damages with no visibility. This type of injuriesis hard to predict byanalytical methods. In this study،the mechanical properties of skin and flesh were determined by individual experiments and then finite element model was developed by ABAQUS software. The applied displacements on model were equal to 5. 5، 11 and 16. 5 mm or 10، 20 and 30% of final deformation، respectively. The analytical results showedthat the internal tissue of fruit got to yield in 20%of whole displacementor in 90N force and the internal failure were occurred that it was not visible in the surface of fruit. The model was verified by the comparison of force-displacement graph from experimental data and FEM results. High correlation (R2=0. 983) between the predicted force and the actual force showed the validity of FEM model.

External and internal changes in fruits during storage time are affected by the various factors that some of them can by studied by measuring the qualitative parameters (physical and mechanical). The effects of storage time on some physical and mechanical properties of Valencia orange were investigated. The experiment was performed as factorial based on completely randomized design. Analysis of experimental results showed a significant effect of storage time on all the physical parameters of Valencia orange. With increasing time، the true density of oranges increased while other physical parameters decreased. Rind ratio and moisture content increased and true density decreased with increasing the size of fruit. Also the effect of storage time and fruit size on the rupture force and deformation was significant at the level 0. 01. The mean failure load for 2، 32 and 62 days storage were obtained 206. 05، 139. 64 and 221. 07 N، respectively. Rupture force and deformation values were followed by increasing fruit size.