Exploring the current dynamics of preprints.

Preprints are non-peer-reviewed and publicly available articles for open and transparent research communication. Preprint servers host the submission of such manuscripts, and despite the presence of established preprint servers, their numbers have continued to rise in recent times. A steep increasing pattern in posted preprints and their accommodating servers has been observed over the last decade. In this article, we explored the global trends in the preprint adoption and its involvement in promoting open and transparent research findings across various domains. We further emphasized the importance of preprinting, highlighting its significant impact during the pandemic through effective information sharing, and advocating for its broader integration in scholarly communication.

Non-destructive optical sensing technologies for advancing the egg industry toward Industry 4.0: A review.

The egg is considered one of the best sources of dietary protein, and has an important role in human growth and development. With the increase in the world's population, per capita egg consumption is also increasing. Ground-breaking technological developments have led to numerous inventions like the Internet of Things (IoT), various optical sensors, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and cloud computing, transforming the conventional industry into a smart and sustainable egg industry, also known as Egg Industry 4.0 (EI 4.0). The EI 4.0 concept has the potential to improve automation, enhance biosecurity, promote the safeguarding of animal welfare, increase intelligent grading and quality inspection, and increase efficiency. For a sustainable Industry 4.0 transformation, it is important to analyze available technologies, the latest research, existing limitations, and prospects. This review examines the existing non-destructive optical sensing technologies for the egg industry. It provides information and insights on the different components of EI 4.0, including emerging EI 4.0 technologies for egg production, quality inspection, and grading. Furthermore, drawbacks of current EI 4.0 technologies, potential workarounds, and future trends were critically analyzed. This review can help policymakers, industrialists, and academicians to better understand the integration of non-destructive technologies and automation. This integration has the potential to increase productivity, improve quality control, and optimize resource management toward sustainable development of the egg industry.

Antioxidant assessment of agricultural produce using fluorescence techniques: a review.

The study of bioactive compounds like food antioxidants is getting huge attention and curiosity by researchers and other relevant stakeholders (e.g., food and pharmaceutical industries) due to their health benefits. However, the currently available protocols to estimate the antioxidant activity of foods are time-consuming, destructive, require complex procedures for sample preparation, need technical persons, and not possible for real-time application, which are very important for large-scale or industrial applications. On the other hand, fluorescence spectroscopy and imaging techniques are relatively new, fast, mostly nondestructive, and possible to apply real-time to detect the antioxidants of foods. However, there is no review article on fluorescence techniques for estimating antioxidants in agricultural produces. Therefore, the present review comprehensively summarizes the overview of fluorescence phenomena, techniques (i.e., spectroscopy and computer vision), and their potential to monitor antioxidants in fruits and vegetables. Finally, opportunities and challenges of fluorescence techniques are described toward developing next-generation protocols for antioxidants measurement. Fluorescence techniques (both spectroscopy and imaging) are simpler and faster than available traditional methods of antioxidants measurement. Moreover, the fluorescence imaging technique has the potential to apply in real-time antioxidant identification in agricultural produce such as fruits and vegetables. Therefore, this technique might be used as a next-generation protocol for qualitative and quantitative antioxidants measurement after improvements like new material technologies for sensor (detector) and light sources for higher sensitivity and reduce the cost of implementing real-world applications.

Research Note: Nondestructive detection of super grade chick embryos or hatchlings using near-infrared spectroscopy.

Some unresolved questions in poultry science were addressed: what determines the yield of chick embryos or hatchlings; what kind of influence does egg yolk content have on embryonic development; and how to detect eggs producing super grade chicks? Since the yolk acts as a vital energy and nutrient reservoir for embryos, we hypothesized that a higher yolk content of similar sizes eggs would play an important role in embryo or chick viability during incubation, as well as at hatch. As experimental sample, we used ROSS 308 (broiler line) and a nondestructive spectroscopic absorbance method. The influence of high yolk content to embryonic heartbeat and chick yield (i.e., chick weight/egg weight) were then investigated. Embryonic heartbeat signal was measured indirectly using a prototype near-infrared sensor during incubation period. A positive influence was found in both cases. Similar size eggs with higher yolk content were found to significantly (P-value < 0.05) promote higher chick yield at hatch. This methodology may have the potential to be used to precision poultry production system, ornithology, developmental, or evolutionary biology in the near future.

High carbon-di-oxide modified atmospheric packaging on quality of ready-to-eat minimally processed fresh-cut iceberg lettuce.

Fresh-cut lettuce is a very well-known salad for today's routines because it obliges minimal preparation to minimize the loss of health beneficial vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other phytochemicals. It is a prodigious challenge to serve its consumers fresh. Quality of freshly processed lettuce under high CO2 modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) has been investigated as a realistic alternative technique for its preservation. Storage under high CO2 atmospheric treatments exhibited a significant impact in microbial development, electrolyte leakage, volatile metabolites and sensory quality of fresh-cut iceberg lettuce. This storage condition (MAP 1: 5 kPa O2 and 20 kPa CO2 balanced by N2 at 7 °C for 6 days) inhibited the growth of mesophilic bacteria and yeasts; delayed the enzymatic browning (cut-edges and intact surface) of fresh-cut iceberg lettuce and overall visual quality was also in acceptance limit. The development of off-odors was perceived in high CO2 MAP as a consequence of volatiles (ethanol and acetaldehyde) accumulation which was persisted at an inexcusable level during 6 days of storage periods.

Association of fruit, pericarp, and epidermis traits with surface autofluorescence in green peppers.

We investigated the association of blue fluorescence (excitation at 365 nm) with the traits of the fruit, pericarp, and epidermis in green peppers. The fruits were manually classified into two groups based on fluorescence brightness. The dark fluorescence group showed the accumulation of blue-absorbing pigments and a thicker cuticular structure, suggesting epidermal development.

Chick Embryo Growth Modeling Using Near-Infrared Sensor and Non-Linear Least Square Fitting of Egg Opacity Values.

Non-destructive monitoring of chick embryonic growth can provide vital management insights for poultry farmers and other stakeholders. Although non-destructive studies on fertility, hatching time and gender have been conducted recently, there has been no available method for embryonic growth observation, especially during the second half of incubation. Therefore, this work investigated the feasibility of using near-infrared (NIR) sensor-based egg opacity values-the amount of light lost when passing through the egg-for indirectly observing embryo growth during incubation. ROSS 308 eggs were selected based on size, mass and shell color for this experiment. To estimate the embryo size precisely, we fit various mathematical growth functions during incubation, based on the opacity value of incubated eggs. Although all the growth models tested performed similarly in fitting the data, the exponential and power functions had better performances in terms of co-efficient of determination (0.991 and 0.994 respectively) and RMSE to explain embryo growth during incubation. From these results, we conclude that the modeling paradigm adopted provides a simple tool to non-invasively investigate embryo growth. These models could be applied to resolving developmental biology, embryonic pathology, industrial and animal welfare issues in the near future.

A Nondestructive Eggshell Thickness Measurement Technique Using Terahertz Waves.

Eggshells play a number of important roles in the avian and reptile kingdom: protection of internal contents and as a major source of minerals for developing embryos. However, when researching these respective roles, eggshell thickness measurement remains a bottleneck due to the lack of a non-destructive measurement techniques. As a result, many avian and reptile research protocols omit consideration of eggshell thickness bias on egg or embryo growth and development. Here, we validate a non-destructive method to estimate eggshell thickness based on terahertz (THz) reflectance spectroscopy using chicken white coloured eggs. Since terahertz waves are reflected from outer air-eggshell interface, as well as the inner eggshell-membrane boundary, the resulting interference signals depend on eggshell thickness. Thus, it is possible to estimate shell thickness from the oscillation distance in frequency-domain. A linear regression-based prediction model for non-destructive eggshell thickness measurement was developed, which had a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.93, RMSEP of 0.009, RPD of 3.45 and RER 13.67. This model can estimate eggshell thickness to a resolution of less than 10 µm. This method has the potential to expand the protocols in the field of avian and reptile research, as well as be applied to industrial grading of eggs.