One of the main challenges of the postharvest technology in the sector of the fruit and vegetables is the development of technical to be able to measure parameters of external and internal quality by means of the use of technical not destructive. This is important at the present time, due to the possibility and future necessity of research and development on behalf of the consumers, producers and sellers and as possible road of improving the quality in fruits and vegetables dedicated to different markets goals. In this work, a wide bibliographical revision is analyzed on the development of the optic technique VIS-NIR in the different agricultural products to international and national scale showing its incipient application in the Cuban case, and the importance of the evaluation of the physical-mechanical and optic properties of these products by means of this technology. This is the main scope of the paper.
This study investigated the impact of using Physics Education Technology (PhET) simulations in teaching Electromagnetism on the learners’ performance. Also, the study sort to establish the impact of using PhET simulations on the learners’ attitude towards Electromagnetism. The study was done on sixty-three 11th grade learners from Kantanshi Secondary School in Mufulira District of Zambia. Two intact grade-11 classes classes were randomly selected for this study. Then the two classes were randomly assigned to the experimental and the control groups respectively. A non-equivalent group pre-test, post-test quasi-experimental research design was used. The experimental group (N = 33) and the control group (N = 30) were taught the topic of Electromagnetism using PhET simulations and the traditional lecture method respectively. The collected data were analysed using t-tests and Mann-Whitney U tests in SPSS version 20. The findings of the research were that; the use of PhET simulations had a significant positive impact on the learners’ performance in Electromagnetism (i.e. t = 3.253 ; df = 61 ; p = 0.002). PhET simulations equally had a significant positive impact on the learner’s attitude towards Electromagnetism (i.e. U = 378.0; p = 0.050 ). Therefore, the study recommends the use of PhET simulations rather than the traditional lecture method in teaching electromagnetism.
Fine dust pollution in the atmosphere has been an increasing problem for human health around the globe. Specifically, neighbouring countries of China, such as Korea, have experienced more serious consequences of fine dust pollution due to Chinese development. The chemical compounds existing in fine dust pose harmful effects on the health of all generations, presenting increased statistics of various pulmonary diseases. Chemical compounds found in fine dust can be categorized into three different classes: agricultural, heavy metal, and emission pollutants. Although how these chemical compounds impact human health have been studied before, no studies have been conducted on how these compounds can impact different organisms and ecological stability. In this study, two chemical compounds from each category were utilized: bifenthrin and gamma-cyhalothrin from agricultural pollutants, copper nitrate and iron nitrate from heavy metals and sulfuric acid and nitric acid from emission pollutants. The compounds were used to observe acute physiological effects of Daphnia magna, specifically the heartbeat rate and phototactic swimming rate. Each daphnia’s heartbeat rate and phototactic swimming rate were evaluated after 30 minutes of incubation. Although the results varied, there were significant statistical differences in both the heart rate and phototactic swimming rate when compared with that of original parameters. The data demonstrated us to conclude that all the three categories of chemical compounds induced moderate changes to their heartbeat and swimming capability with the order from the largest agricultural>heavy metal>acidic pollutants in terms of regression slopes of swimming duration and relative magnitude of heartbeat change. Therefore, the results concluded that the chemical compounds existing in fine dust can cause acute physiological effects on daphnia magna.
Plastic pollution covers the Earth with plastic garbage and particles dispersed in the environment that gives severe damages for wildlife habitat, and even to humans. Plastics that function as pollutants are divided into the category of micro-, meso-, or macro debris, based on particle size. Most plastics are not biodegradable and takes a long time to be degraded chemically. Plastic wastes are detrimental to animals who consume them or even come in close contact with them since plastics don’t quickly disintegrate away in the environment. But it’s not just terrestrial animals being affected by the plastic pollution, a lot of that plastic that we litter float down to the ocean, leaving fatal damages to many marine animals. It should be imperative to create a plastic that might be biodegradable in the environment for traditional plastics do nothing but harm our environment. Banana peels might be the perfect choice to be created as biodegradable plastic, since it is regularly thrown out and, they don’t have any other uses. This study attempted to find the optimal conditions of multiple variables which included the amount of metabisulfite, banana paste mass, and concentration of HCl, glycerol and NaOH volume, oven temperature and oven time. Each banana plastic was created and tested by the weight force test. The study found that the optimal conditions for creating excellent characteristics of banana plastic were 200 ul of 0.1 N HCl, 2.0 ml glycerol, 200 ul of 0.1 M NaOH, 120°C oven temperature, 120 minute oven time when worked with 25 gram of pureed banana peel. The biodegradable capability of banana plastic created here was linearly related with treatment time in sodium metabisulfite. More study might be needed for their practical applications.
For the storage crops, various drying process are used. It should be synthesize on the basis of drying time, product quality such as color texture and the taste of the product when uses. To study the drying characteristics of bhindi thin piece was performed for a temperature range of 38 to 88 and velocity of air is fixed at 1.1 m/s in the fabricated tunnel. For the investigation of drying characteristics experiment were performed, the result was found, the drying rate was falling. The sample studied at 38 was much good in color texture and aroma than sample studied at 58 to 88. The experimental data were performed on different models proposed, by equating the determination coefficient, mbe, decreased and rmse measured and investigated moisture ratio.