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Potatoes are a staple food crop consumed worldwide, with their significance extending from household kitchens to large-scale food processing industries. Their market value and quality are often compromised by various internal defects such as pythium, bruising, internal browning, hollow heart, gangrene, blackheart, internal sprouting, and dry rot. This study aimed to classify internal-based defects and investigate the quantification of internal defective areas in potatoes using visible and short-wavelength near-infrared spectroscopy. The acquisition of the spectral data of potato tubers was performed using a spectrometer with a wavelength range of 400–1100 nm. The classification of internal-based defects was performed using partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), while the quantification of the internal defective area was based on partial least squares regression (PLSR). The PLS-DA double cross-validation accuracy for the distinction between non-defective and all internally defective potatoes was 90.78%. The double cross-validation classification accuracy achieved for pythium, bruising, and non-defective categories was 91.03%. The internal defective area model based on PLSR achieved a correlation coefficient of double cross-validation of 0.91 and a root mean square error of double cross-validation of 0.85 cm2. This study makes a valuable contribution to advancing nondestructive techniques for evaluating internal defects in potatoes.

This study performed non-destructive measurements of phenolic compounds in moringa powder using Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy within a spectral range of 3500–700 cm−1. Three major phenolic compounds, namely, kaempferol, benzoic acid, and rutin, were measured in five different varieties of moringa powder, which was approved with respect to the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. The prediction performance of three different regression methods, i.e., partial least squares regression (PLSR), principal component regression (PCR), and net analyte signal (NAS)-based methodology, called hybrid linear analysis (HLA/GO), were compared to achieve the best prediction model. The obtained results for the PLS regression method resulted in better performance for the prediction analysis of phenolic compounds in moringa powder. The PLSR model attained a correlation coefficient (Rp2) value of 0.997 and root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 0.035 mg/g, respectively, which is comparatively higher than the other two regression models. Based on the results, it can be concluded that FT-IR spectroscopy in conjugation with a suitable regression analysis method could be an effective analytical tool for the non-destructive prediction of phenolic compounds in moringa powder.