fruits and vegetables

Data are collected over two consecutive one-week periods. To make the later derivation easy to handle, the original balanced panel data are converted to independently and identically distributed (i.i.d.) cross-sectional data. Specifically, the two observations that belong to the same household are merged to become one observation. For demographic and socio-economic variables, only values of one of the observations are used; for expenditures on fruits and vegetables, the two observations are summed to provide biweekly expenditures for each household. 36 Then, the biweekly expenditures are multiply by one-half of the number of weeks in a quarter to become quarterly data. Because no price data are available in the CEX, Stone-Lewbel price indexes are constructed based on the budget shares of subcategories of fruits and vegetables, and the quarterly Consumer Price Index (CPI) derived from monthly CPI on Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)’s Web site. The construction of Stone-Lewbel price indexes can be found in Chapter One. In total, there are 87,063 observations.

Cancer is widely perceived as a heterogeneous group of disorders, which is caused by a series of clonally se- lected “genetic” changes in key tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes. However, accumulating evidences in recent years indicate that tumor cell heterogeneity is, at least in part, due to the significant contribution of ‘epi- genetic’ alterations in cancer cells [72]. Among the risk factors related to the development of some cancers, such as esophagus, are represented by habits, such as alcohol consumption and smoking. Some studies showed that consumption of green vegetables and fruits exert a protective effect regarding this pathology [73]. Neves et al. [74] cited several studies showing as the usual diet is an important factor involved in the onset of colon and rec- tum cancer. Among the risk factors, a diet rich in animal fats and low fruit, vegetable and cereal intake stands out. These foods, especially fruits and vegetables, have been suggested to have a protective effect against pros- tate cancer [75] because they contain antioxidant substances, such as polyphenols.

Regardless of whether parasitic strains are great at aging essentially citrus extract which is being utilized since numerous years. But on the other hand it's to be viewed as that organism can undoubtedly taint people which can even prompts passing. Aspergillus molds exist pervasively as spores that are breathed in huge numbers day by day. While most are expelled by anatomical hindrances, infection may happen in specific conditions. Contingent upon the basic condition of the human insusceptible framework, clinical outcomes can result running from an inordinate safe reaction during unfavourably susceptible bronchopulmonary aspergillosis to the development of an aspergilloma in the immunocompetent state. The severest contaminations happen in the individuals who are immunocompromised where obtrusive pneumonic aspergillosis outcomes in high death rates [4]. Isolation of gram negative Bacillus from spoiled fruit and vegetables will be a suitable alternative for extraction of citric acid by fermenting these isolated bacterial strain on a suitable fermentation media made up extract from peels of fruits like pineapple, apple and orange along with some chemicals. The major mechanism of production of citric acid from aerobic bacterial species is the blocking of their TCA, cycle, during the process of fermentation by the above mentioned fermentation media. Bacteria are the major and important factor for fruit spoilage. They will survive in suitable temperature with the presence of food and water, which caused changes in the appearance, colour and smell of the fruits [5] .Fruits, provides the ideal environment for the survival and growth of many types of microorganisms especially bacteria. The internal fruits tissues consists high concentration of various types of sugars, minerals, vitamins and amino acids [6]. Commercial production of citric acid is generally by submerged fermentation of sucrose or molasses using the filamentous fungus A . niger or synthetically from acetone or glycerol [7]. Submerged fermentation was used in this study as it’s less expensive and can be easily accomplished[8].Many works had been done with apple, orange and pineapple which proved these best for carbon and nitrogen sources for bacterial strains: Orange ( Citrus sinensis ) peel was employed in this work as raw material for the production of citric acid ( CA ) ( 193 mg CA / g dry orange peel ) , corresponding to yields of product on total initial and consumed sugars ( glucose, fructose and sucrose ) of 376 and 383 mg CA / g, respectively [9 ]. Apple ____________________________

• Reengineer the core vegetable supply-demand matching processes: Combine advanced information technologies with innovative SCM techniques [42]. Incorporate regular and seasonal demand forecasting, strategic capacity planning, contract farmer loading, allocation management to various contract farmers, fruit and vegetable transfers, and regional warehouse management [95]. The business planning framework of supermarkets for the fresh produce fruits and vegetables is based on the fulfillment of customer demand followed by strategic supermarket goals of revenue, margin, and market share through system-wide planning across sales, finance, and production-distribution through monitoring, intelligent analysis, and control [1]. The solutions must provide a basis to optimize business plans across different F&V demand- supply scenarios and facilitate decision making [79]. The business planning activities may include demand and forecast planning [26], contract farmer capacity and inventory planning [45], and operational and financial evaluation [11]. The business planning framework must consider the following perspectives for closed-loop analysis of the F&V supply chain: (1) Supply management, (2) Demand management, (3) Inventory management, (4) Customer order management, and (5) Transportation and logistics management.

developed to improve the shelf life of fruits and vegetables. It consists of an inner wall (aluminum of 0.6 mm thickness), external wall (galvanized steel of 1mm thickness), one suction fan, water pump and three trays. The walls were lagged by polyurethane of 25 mm, and three trays. Water distribution network contains two water tanks of 20 litres capacity each, a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe of 25 mm diameter for conveying water, a 0.5 hp pump for circulating water from the tank to the overhead reservoir and a floated switch for controlling the pump. Water is discharged from the overhead tank through a tap and drains through a jute bag which serves as a cooling pad material. As water drips through the pad, a suction fan of 38 cm swept depth set air in motion and blow through the wetted part. The cooler was evaluated with sweet orange, green tomatoes and red tomatoes for 7 days to determine firmness, colour changes and weight loss of the crops. Weight loss in the red and green tomatoes stored in the ambient was observed to be 47.20% and 5.14% respectively while it was 8.65% for red tomatoes stored in the cooler. Cumulative weight loss recorded in sweet oranges was 9.25% for ambient and 4.27% for the cooling device. The cooler reduced the ambient temperature of 29.5 o C to 22.8 o C and increased ambient relative humidity to 95.7%. Keywords: evaporative cooling, storage, orange, tomato, post-harvest losses

Foods which are characterised by a high nutritional value are not necessarily the best cost-effective op- tion (Drewnowski 2010). Within the food group, subgroups can also differ widely in terms of cost per MJ. Dried fruits seem less expensive as a source of energy than fresh F&V but their nutrient densities are also lower (Maillot et al. 2007). As published by Cassady et al. (2007), in the USA the highest average price per serving was observed for fruits and dark green vegetables. The subgroups with the lowest price per serving were oranges and starchy vegetables. Drewnowski (2010) found that in the USA the highest scoring foods were citrus fruits and juices followed by potatoes. More recently, white potatoes, beans, carrots, and some dark green vegetables were iden- tified as both affordable and nutrient-dense. Of the vegetables with the highest affordability scores, white potatoes and carrots had the highest frequency of use in the USA (Drewnowski & Rehm 2013). According to our results, the N-P ratio was significantly higher for vegetables than for fruits (P < 0.001). Figure 1 shows F&V with a higher N-P ratio than the others.

In recent years around the world, there has been an upsurge in the number of large, medium, and startup companies showing their interest in development & improvement of driverless agricultural tractors, robots, equipment’s for field management, and dairy milking systems. Moreover, the demand for agricultural robots is actuality driven by the global trends of increase in population, maximum pressure in strain of food supply, availability of farm workers, the challenges and complexities of farm labor, cost for workers, and the automation of the agriculture industry. Therefore, robots are applied for agricultural processes like pruning, weeding, picking and placing, sorting, seeding, spraying and harvesting fruits and vegetables with various kinds of end effectors, a desired grasping force should not only keep them from dropping, but also cause minimum mechanical damage. However, the fruits and vegetables commonly vary in shape, weight and maturity, and their viscoelastic mechanical properties can lead to complex deformation under the action of the grasping force. Thus it is necessary for the agriculture robot to adjust the griping force in real time rather than exerting a predetermined force. Generally, in order to ensure a stable grasp with the minimum griping force, two significant problems must be solved: (i) detection of slippage of the griped objects, especially the detection of ‘initial slip’; (ii) determination of the appropriate magnitude of the griping force, the

7 The data on most fruit and vegetable items is available in both quantity and value terms. There are however a few items for which data is either available in value terms alone or the unit of quantity is not in terms of weight. It is either number of pieces, tins, etc. The problem is mainly in the case of banana, orange, lemon and coconut where the unit for quantity was not kg or tonnes but was numbers. It is difficult to work out quantity in kg or tonne from the number of these products but some rough estimation could be made. The visit to a few Mother Dairy and other vegetable and fruit vendors revealed that around six bananas, seven oranges (includes ‘kino’ and mausmi), 26 lemons and 0.4 coconut separately account for one kg on an average. This helps in deriving the quantity of fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in the country.

Several studies (Blitstein, Snider, Evans, 2012; Brunt et al, 2007;Baranowski et al., 2006; Winkler et al., 2005) shows that fruits and vegetables purchases of an individual are influenced from variety of factors such prices, family influences, assesibility and avaialbility, income level, and social support, attitude, habit, knowledge and practices. Some qualitative research highlighted the major influences on food purchased were taste, preferences, habit and nutritional concern (Henry et al., 2003; Reicks et al., 2003). Leibtag and Kaufman (2003) suggested lower-income families economizes on their food expenditure by purchasing foods on sale, store brand, less expensive meat, fruits and vegetables. In the line with Palwasha, Ali, Khan, Andaleeb and Khan (2011), demonstrated that food consumption pattern is changed by different variables such as price of food item, income of individual, high population and preferences of consumers. In addition, they stated that, when people are more educated or with the advancement in the education, in general especially in health education people are trying to shift from less nutrient diet to more nutrient diet. Previous research regarding to the purchasing behavior and consumption pattern were explored from abroad based on gender and living arrangement(Morse & Driskel, 2009; Brunt & Rhee 2008; Wardle et al., 2004). Besides the personal factors, the previous study (Blanchette, & Brug, 2005) showed that environmental attributes as the contributing factors for fruits and vegetables consumption. Availability and accessibility, social condition, as well as cultural condition including financial situation are the determinants for fruits and vegetables consumption (Carljin et al., 2006). Some researchers found that a person who consumes Mediterranean diet such as those coming from countries like Spain, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Croatia consumes more fruits and vegetables than those who consume conventional Western diet (Cordain et al., 2005).

Consumers have more choices throughout the store. This is true for foods for which dieticians and nutritionists usually urge moderation, such as calorie-dense desserts and snack foods, as well as for foods usually recog- nized as healthy, such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Kaufman and others (2000) note that through the 1980s and 1990s, produce departments expanded in size. Produce departments took over larger shares of grocery store space, even as supermarkets became larger to accommodate additional departments such as service meat and seafood, prepared foods, and deli items. From 1987-97, produce departments nearly doubled the number of items sold (stockkeeping units), “…primarily to meet consumers’ demands for added convenience, healthy diets, and gourmet and ethnic items.” (p. 3) Fruit and vegetable products that have only recently been offered for sale may be more expensive because they contain more value-added services. In fact, value added through transportation, processing, wholesaling, and retailing has grown to account for about three-fourths of the retail price of fruits and vegetables, on average, compared with about two-thirds in the early 1980s (Stewart, 2006). These services serve two purposes: increased convenience and variety.

Eighty samples of fruits and vegetables(viz: Guava, Lemon, Moringa, Okra, Pepper, Roselle, Spinach and Tomato) collected from ten different irrigation areas of Kano State (viz: Magaga, Thomas Dam, Wasai, Garin-dau, Danguguwa, Watari, Marke, Joda, `Yarrutu and Guzu-guzu) were investigated. All the samples were washed with water to remove any adhered materials and soil and stored in polythene bags for analysis. The fruit and vegetable samples were cut into small pieces, dried at 105 0 C for 2 hours in an oven and were pounded in a mortar and pestle until a powder was produced which was stored in air-tight plastic container before analysis. All samples were analyzed in triplicate and mean values reported.

Red fruits and vegetables are colored by natural plant pigments called “lycopene” or “anthocyanins.” They contain Ellagic acid, Quercetin, and Hesperidin. Lycopene in tomatoes, watermelon and pink grapefruit, for example, may help reduce risk of several types of cancer, especially prostate cancer. Lycopene in foods containing cooked tomatoes, such as spaghetti sauce, and a small amount of fat are absorbed better than lycopene from raw tomatoes. Anthocyanins in strawberries, raspberries, red grapes and other fruits and vegetables act as powerful antioxidants that protect cells from damage. Antioxidants are linked with keeping hearts healthy, too. These nutrients reduce the risk of prostate cancer, lower blood pressure, reduce tumor growth and LDL cholesterol levels, scavenge harmful free-radicals, and support join tissue in arthritis cases.

Non-destructive methods/techniques (NDT) measure the physical properties of fruits and vegetables; and correlate with the desired quality factors (dry matter, sugar content, water content, fat content, pigment concentration, etc.) by using various data analysis methods. Non-destructive methods facilitate the grading of fruits and vegetables based on their size, shape, maturity or ripeness. It is useful in the detection of external (deformation, discolouration) as well as internal defects (internal browning, internal bruises, freeze damage, presence of insects in the core, etc.). It is useful in the evaluation of both unprocessed and processed fruits and vegetables. Non- destructive methods can be used in fields to measure the fruit maturity on trees; in laboratories for sampling purpose and also in industries such as fruit processing, packaging and ware houses for continuous quality monitoring by adopting online systems. It is rapid, precise, reduces the processing time, reduces cost, save energy, improve the shelf life and quality. Hence, it is advantageous over destructive methods.

benefits. Table-3 shows vegetables of different modification like leafy, stem, flower, roots, bulb and tuber while fruits only ovary of flower. The vegetables of different modification shows different nutritive value basically it is characterized due to presence of vitamins and minerals, some leafy and flower vegetables having dietary fiber while root, bulb and tuber stored complex carbohydrate and dietary fiber. Table 4 as well as Figure-2 shows some bioactive compounds or phytochemicals derived from different fruits and vegetables used as nutraceuticals.

The results from this study showed that recoveries obtained were comparable to those obtained from the established silica gel cleanup method, However lower recoveries occasionally occurred for chloropyrifos pesticide in water,fruits and vegetables using both cleanup methods. The benefits of the solid phase extraction method are less solvent consumption, no hazardous solvent is used, no cross-contamination and shorter analysis time.

loss of orange compared to the non-treated orange (Karaca, 2010). Ozone can also destroy ethylene gas which can reduce the rate of senescence in ethylene sensitive commodities in mix-stored room. As reported by Skog and Chu (2001) ozone concentration of 0.4 µL/L was effective in reducing ethylene concentration in a storage room of fruits and vegetables where there is an ethylene sensitive crops. However, excess exposure of ozone had been reported to cause physiological injury towards citrus due to high oxidative stress (Karaca, 2010). In some cases, even high ozone concentration that are dangerous to human does not give any significant results. An application of 10 µL/L ozone for 20 min exposure time on citrus does not reduce the incidence of green mold and sour rot cause by Geotrichum citri-aurantii and Penicilium digitatum (Smilanick et al., 2002). Karaca (2010) also discovered the same as he applied ozone towards green and blue mold (Penicillium italicum and Penicillium digitatum) on citrus fruits but discovered there is no significant effect as compared to the non-treated fruits. Since ozone can reduce the odor or foul smell, fruits volatile compounds are also included. It has been reported that aroma of strawberries was reduced in treatment with ozone (Pérez et al., 1999). Weight loss upon continuous ozone treatment had also been reported. Treatment of 0.15 µL/L ozone for 15 days was reported to cause electrolytes release on fruits that indicate damage on cuticle which promote water loss (Rao et al., 2000). While an exposure of 0.3 µL/L of gaseous ozone towards peaches at 5 °C and 90% RH had caused significant water loss compared to non-ozonated peaches but similar exposure and storage condition towards Flame seedless table grapes did not cause any significant water loss (Palou et al., 2002). This proved that different fruits have different response towards ozone and further research need to be done in order to determine the best treatment for each fruits.

Some studies focused on the degradation effects of organic chemicals of ultrasound and even optimized the ultrasonic treatment conditions or developed this means in order to improve its effectiveness. Gong et al. [44] combined ozone water treatment with ultrasound (power 360 W, temperature 35℃, for 20 min) to degrade the pesticides in commercially available apples and obtained an improved removal rate compared with single ultrasound and single ozone treatment. According to the study of Yue et al. [45] , under the optimum technological conditions (power 609.16 W, temperature 15.45℃ for 70.46 min), the removal rate for organochlorine pesticide residues in apples reached 64.32%. Besides, ultrasound (40 kHz, 180 W)/detergent treatment was also used to clean the dirt embeds on mushroom root. Under the optimum condition (detergent 0.67%, sample:water = 1:100, temperature 21.5-25.0°C for 20 min), the cleaning efficiency can be increased 55.5% and more edible parts of the rare mushroom was obtained than that without sonication [46] . These results showed that ultrasound significantly reduced chemical residues and dirt in fruits and vegetables, therefore improved their edible safety. 3.2 Maintaining quality parameters of fruits and vegetables

We know that the value of fruits and vegetables directly proposal to quality of product. The assessment of quality of fruits and vegetables can be done by traditional method but it is very time consuming and not able to produce accurate results. Due to availability of the supermarket we required more efficient and accurate system for background extraction. Image sets of pixels, each pixel having some attribute. In the segmentation techniques all are grouped with similar attribute pixel. That's why segmentation is an important and challenging task in image processing. For example, suppose

Advertised Prices for Fruits & Vegetables at Major Retail Supermarket Outlets ending during the period of 06/27 to 07/09 1,2.. Our offices will be closed Friday, July 3rd in observa[r]

Abstract- The term quality implies the degree of excellence of a product or its suitability for a particular use. Quality of produce encompasses sensory properties such as appearance, texture, taste and aroma, and mechanical properties, chemical constituents, nutritive values, functional properties and defects. Product quality and quality evaluation methods are naturally extremely important. Quality evaluation of fruits and vegetables can be of destructive and nondestructive types. In the former the entire fruit is destroyed while evaluating the quality. In nondestructive quality evaluation the fruits and vegetables are not destroyed while evaluating its quality. Current and new technologies are being utilized to develop better nondestructive methods for measuring fresh fruit and vegetable quality. Nondestructive quality evaluation of fruits and vegetables can be classified into mechanical, optical, electromagnetic and dynamic techniques. There are different techniques under these categories.