Csaba Farkas

This work aims to estimate the shelf life of Golden Delicious apple fruit stored at room temperature by determining the changing trend in color every week using a non-destructive measurement method. Moreover, the study will measure the changes in weight loss (Δm) and the total soluble solids (TSS) contained in the apple. The research focuses on the last stage of ripening and the effect of shelf life affecting consumer behavior; therefore, the examined fruits were picked at the end of the season and were stored at an ambient temperature and in controlled laboratory conditions for six weeks, at 24 °C under 60% RH relative. Color measurements were performed with a portable color sensor, which provided a simple and effective examination method in the case of an appropriate number of fruit samples. The findings showed a significant increase in TSS and weight loss over time. Color varying (ΔE) and chroma (C*) parameters increased with prolonged storage duration, meaning that the color of the apples became darker and more color-saturated at the end of storage. While weight loss and TSS follow a linear tendency in the given storage period, the color changes in deteriorating fruits were characterized by exponential asymptotic regression. It was found that although the moisture content reaches its limit value during the drying process of apples, the saturation of color coordinates allows for determination of the limit parameters of consumption in the linear stage of weight loss. The saturation limits (70.97; 12.77; 56.34 CIELAB L*; a*; b*), the dominant color part (b*), and the growth rate of the saturation curves allow an accurate characterization of ripening from the visual aspect, thus determining the limit parameters of shelf life and improving the critical analysis factors affecting the life of fruits after harvest. By assessing color characteristics using a non-destructive technology, customers may quickly evaluate the quality of apples and make better decisions during their purchase.

Biodegradables are a promising path for the future of electronics in a greener mindset. The review study focuses on their applications and past and current research results. The paper also investigates the application of nanomaterials as fillers to control or increase the physical (electrical, mechanical, thermal) properties of biodegradable biopolymers. These biodegradables and nanocomposites are already effectively used in prototypes and advanced application areas with demanding requirements, such as flexible and wearable electronics, implantable or biomedical applications, and traditional commercial electronics. The nano-enhanced biopolymer substrates (e.g., with improved gas and water barrier functionalities) sometimes also with integrated, nano-enabled functionalities (such as electromagnetic shielding or plasmonic activity) can be beneficial in many electronics packaging and nanopackaging applications as well.

One of the most significant phenomena in the processing of horticultural crops, leading to the damaging of the fruit, is fatigue due to repeated mechanical stress, which endangers the integrity of the produce, especially during transport. In the event of such damages, the immediate environment of the damaged fruit, or even the entire batch of crops may be in danger, as the biological processes leading to spoilage are not limited to the individual crop damaged. In the case of repeated effects, a force less than the static limit value is sufficient to cause spoilage, but in addition to the load, the material properties of the given crop, as well as the energy balance observed during damage play important roles in determining the mechanical resistance. Accordingly, in our work, a description of the spoilage process is built on the material models most characteristic of the selected crops, on the dissipated energy indicators measured during repeated loads, and on the definition and determination of the spoilage time. In the experiments, the fatigue indices of Golden Delicious apples, making up most of the apple production of the European Union, and of long shelflife Packham pears are compared by setting up linear regression models.

A kertészeti termények feldolgozási folyamataiban az egyik legjelentősebb, a gyümölcs tönkremeneteléhez vezető jelenség az ismétlődő mechanikai igénybevételek miatt bekövetkező kifáradás, ami főleg a szállítás során veszélyezteti a termények épségét. Ilyen sérülések esetében a károsodott gyümölcs közvetlen környezete, vagy akár a teljes terményhalmaz is veszélybe kerülhet, hiszen a romláshoz vezető biológiai folyamatok nem korlátozódnak a károsodott terményegyedre. Az ismétlődő hatások esetében a statikus határtértékhez képest kisebb erő is elegendő a tönkremenetelhez, de a terhelés mellett az adott termény anyagi tulajdonságai, valamint a károsodás közben megfigyelhető energiamérleg is fontos szerepet játszik a mechanikai ellenállás meghatározásában. Munkánkban ennek megfelelően a választott terményeket leginkább jellemző anyagmodellekre, az ismételt terhelések során mért disszipált-energia mutatókra, valamint a tönkremeneteli idő definiálására és meghatározására építjük a tönkremeneteli folyamat leírását. A kísérletek során az Európai Unió almatermelésének legnagyobb arányú képviselője, a Golden Delicious alma, valamint a hosszú tárolhatóságú Packham körte kifáradási jellemzőit hasonlítjuk össze lineáris regressziós modellek felállításával.

In this paper, the multiple linear regression model of mechanical properties related to the failure mechanism of apple tissue under repeated compressive load was investigated. More refined failure characteristics may lead to improved processing and logistics aspects of the given fruits. For our study, the following failure-related factors are considered during the cyclic measurements of Golden Delicious apples: the viscoelastic parameters, the dissipated energy, and the rupture point of the cell-structure, which is described with the time to failure parameter (TTF). For the determination of viscoelastic components, the three element Poynting-Thomson body was applied, and a closed-loop control system is identified with the measured creep data. From the hysteresis loop - in each cycle of the force-deformation parametric curve - the dissipated energy can be calculated with a numeric integration method. The rupture point of the fruit tissue - where the measuring pin is breaking through the peel and the cortex - is observed with a high-framerate video analysis, so that the time index of the failure point can be evaluated. The focus is to define the influence of the mentioned factors to the TTF parameter of the examined fruit material. During the statistical evaluation of the resulted data, the failure of time can be successfully determined with a multiple lienar regression model of the determined viscoelastic and dissipated energy variables. With the resulted equation, the failure time of Golden Delicious apples can be predicted based on the measured failure-related parameters obtained during the compressive load tests.