Polarimetric comparison of fresh and frozen skeletal muscle tissues of goat.

Optical properties can provide rich information about morphology and structure of tissues. Fresh and frozen muscle tissue samples of goat are investigated using imaging polarimetry to understand its structural nature. The outcomes demonstrate that the muscle tissues lose, to some extent, their integrity and organization on freezing. The fresh tissues offer very small circular retardance as compared to frozen samples. However, linear retardance is the main contributor in fresh muscle samples. Ultimately, linear and circular retardance can be used to differentiate fresh and frozen tissues. These investigations illustrate the capabilities of optical polarimetry for the characterization of muscle tissue structures. Specifically, the structure of biological tissue samples can be differentiated using real-time, cost effective and non-invasive optical polarimetry in the field of meat industry and biomedical diagnosis.

Machine assisted classification of chicken, beef and mutton tissues using optical polarimetry and Bagging model.

Optical polarimetry has been used to characterize muscle tissue samples of chicken, beef and mutton, exhibiting statistically significant (p <  0.01) differences in total depolarization and retardance of three tissue groups. Herein, the total depolarization and retardance were utilized to differentiate and classify the three tissue groups. Specifically, the Bagging classification algorithm was employed for this multi-class differentiation. The performance of the optical polarimetry in tandem with the Bagging model for machine-assisted classification of the three tissue groups was assessed in terms of a comprehensive set of evaluation metrics. The Bagging model correctly classified 47/48, 19/20 and 15/18, whereas the sensitivity (Sn = 97.9 %, 82.6 %, 100 %), specificity (Sp = 97.4 %, 98.4 %, 95.8 %), positive predictive values (PPV = 0.97, 0.95, 0.83) and negative predictive values (NPV = 0.97, 0.94, 1.0) were calculated for the chicken, beef and mutton tissue samples, respectively. This automatic classification of the three tissue samples indicates a novel application of the optical polarimetry in the meat industry.