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Tender coconut water is a beverage distinguished from mature coconut water as it's harvested during the early stages of coconut development. It's a well-liked natural drink in tropical regions where coconut trees are abundant. This study aimed to characterize the physicochemical, nutritional and antioxidant properties of different varieties of tender coconut water such as tall, dwarf, intermediate and hybrid varieties with a maturity stage of 5–7 months old. Standard assays assessed nutritional and antioxidant properties. The results of this study showed that the King coconut (Intermediate variety), had significantly higher total protein (0.59 mg BSA/ ml), Total soluble solids (5.0° Brix) and Total sugar content (63.58 mg/ml). The coconut water of Ran thembili (Tall variety) showed significantly higher antiradical activity (DPPH) (82.75 %), total tannin content (22.32 µg TE/ml) and reducing sugar content (43.80 mg/ml). Nawasi (Tall variety) showed significantly higher total flavonoid content (1.23 µg QE/ ml). Total phenolic content and total antioxidant activity were significantly higher for Ran thembili and King coconut. In essence, our findings illuminated the diverse and appealing attributes of tender coconut water. Importantly, the distinct coconut varieties examined in this study exerted a noticeable impact on the composition and properties of tender coconut water.
Increasing human population and extreme consumption of fossil fuels create the potential to generate alternative energy sources. Bioethanol is an alternative and renewable energy resource for fossil fuels, which can be generated from low-cost raw materials. The objective of the study is to optimize pretreatment and culture conditions to enhance bioethanol production from Azolla filiculoides substrate using Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The A. filiculoides was collected from fresh-water ponds, cleaned, dried, milled to fine powder and then autoclaved for 15 min at 121 ℃. When A. filiculoides substrate was pre-treated with different acids and alkaline separately and alcohol production was monitored, significantly higher alcohol (0.1%) was produced with 1 M H2SO4, thus it was selected as the best pre-treatment agent.
The consumer demand for healthier alternative sweeteners to replace modern confectionery continues to increase. Jaggery is a traditional non-centrifugal cane sugar used as a sweetener. This study investigates the physicochemical parameters, antioxidants, and phenolic contents of a confectionery developed by replacing refined sugar with sugarcane jaggery. Hence, its proximate composition, antioxidant activity, total phenolic content, mineral content, colour and texture were determined compared to a control sample made with refined sugar. In the samples made with refined sugar and jaggery the mean value for percentage content of moisture (6.2,7.4), protein (11.3,11.0), crude fibre (0.74,0.78), fat (23.9,25.6), and ash (2.6,3.0) were not significantly different (p > 0.05). The jaggery confectionery sample had significantly higher (p > 0.05) mean values for Mg (76.30 ppm), Ca (65.47 ppm), K (423.70 ppm), Fe (3.61 ppm), and Cu (0.25 ppm) contents than the control sample (Mg (49.38 ppm), Ca (49.30 ppm), K (308.50 ppm), Fe (3.24 ppm), and Cu (0.21 ppm). Total phenolic content and antioxidant activity based on the IC50 value of the developed product were significantly different from that of the control sample (p < 0.05). Collectively, results indicate that the jaggery confectionery sample has promising healthier attributes than the normal confectionery product made using refined sugar.
Plastic pollution, mainly due to single-use food packaging materials, has become a drastic environmental issue around the world. As a consequence of their accumulation, naturally balanced ecosystems may undergo various types of vulnerabilities, and eventually, it may lead to the annihilation of flora, and fauna. Hence, there is an urgent need to find alternative ways of packaging food with environmentally friendly materials. Currently, there are considerable numbers of research being done to prove that biodegradable packaging materials can be produced from plant leaves and sheaths. However, the large-scale production and application of eco-friendly packaging materials is still a challenge and more studies are further required to accomplish it. Hence, this review is done to identify initiatives made in the field of biodegradable packaging material and directs them towards practical application. In the end, it proves that there is a huge potential to produce biodegradable packaging materials from plant sources economically.
Plant leaves, especially from bananas, have been used in food packing for a long time, and it has been proven that banana leaves possess the best attributes in developing bio-degradable packaging materials. The current study aims to determine the effects of four types of chemical treatments on the mechanical properties of banana leaves and to optimize the treatment conditions. Mature banana leaves were immersed in chemicals, namely glycerin (25%, 33%), citric acid (0.5%, 1%), calcium hydroxide (3%, 5%), and sodium chloride (5%, 10%) for seven days while drawing samples daily for testing. The treated samples were tested for mechanical properties such as hardness, tear resistance, and load-bearing capacity, using recommended protocols with slight modifications. The multi-response optimization was done using the statistical method named Grey Relational Analysis to select the best treatment setting. The results revealed that the treatments of citric acid solution (0.5%) for one day and two days, Glycerin (33.3%) for one day and two days, and NaCl solution (10%) for one day were among the first five in the Grey Relational Grades obtained for multi-response optimization and demonstrated a significant (p<0.05) increment for all the three mechanical properties. Hence, the selected chemical treatments positively affect the mechanical properties of banana leaves at their optimum treatment conditions.
Sri Lankan black tea is renowned for its high quality and regarded as a brand that is chemically safe, ozone-friendly, and ethically acceptable with accountable stakeholders in the supply chain. Meantime, food safety has become one of the mandated food attributes that is heavily concern by stakeholders even at the estate level. Hence, this study aimed to determine the level of knowledge, attitudes, and practice (KAP) of managers at black tea manufacturing in the Uva region of Sri Lanka regarding basic food safety concerns. Data were collected from 30 respondents at 30 black tea manufacturing factories in the Uva region using a stratified random sampling technique. A pre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire based on KAP of basic food safety was utilized and collected data were analyzed using descriptive analysis and correlation analysis. The study indicated that the mean percentage of knowledge was satisfactory (93.1%), and the mean score for attitudes and practices of food safety was 4.7±0.4 (X±SD) and 4.6±0.5 (X±SD), respectively. However, this study depicted that the knowledge of food safety influenced managers’ attitudes (0.421, P<0.05) but not their food safety behaviour. Further, they believed that food safety management systems would be a means of directing their black tea to the international market (76.7%), while pledging the concerns of food safety (70%). However, it was depicted that constraints with food handlers (100%) and financial difficulties (73.3%) hugely affected the implementation of food safety management systems at the black tea manufacturing factories in the Uva region of Sri Lanka. Hence, this study suggests continuous, periodical but short training to sustain the practice of handling teas safely in the Uva region of Sri Lanka.
Significance of EEG-electrode combinations while calculating filters with common spatial patterns
(2024)
Objective: Common spatial pattern (CSP) is a common filter technique used for pre-processing of electroencephalography (EEG) signals for imaginary movement classification tasks. It is crucial to reduce the amount of features especially in cases where few data is available. Therefore, different approaches to reduce the amount of electrodes used for CSP calculation are tried in this research.
Methods: Freely available EEG datasets are used for the evaluation. To evaluate the approaches a simple classification pipeline consisting mainly of the CSP calculation and linear discriminant analysis for classification is used. A baseline over all electrodes is calculated and compared against the results of the approaches.
Results: The most promising approach is to use the ability of CSP to provide information about the origin of the created filter. An algorithm that extracts the important electrodes from the CSP utilizing these information is proposed.
The results show that using subject specific electrode positions has a positive impact on accuracy for the classification task. Further, it is shown that good performing electrode combinations in one session are not necessarily good performing electrodes in another session of the same subject. In addition to the combinations calculated using the developed algorithm, 26 additional electrode combinations are proposed. These can be taken into account when selecting well-performing electrode combinations. In this research we could achieve an accuracy improvement of over 10%.
Conclusions: Carefully selecting the correct electrode combination can improve accuracy for classifying an imaginary movement task.
