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In this research, an optical system based on fibre optic Vis/NIR spectroscopy combined with chemometrics methods and software as a graphical user interface (GUI) was developed and presented for fast and non-destructive detection and determination of pesticide residues in agricultural products (a case study on diazinon in intact cucumbers). Vis/NIR spectra of cucumber samples without and with different concentrations of diazinon residue were analyzed at the range of 450–1000 nm. Partial least squares (PLS) regression models were developed based on chemical reference measurements and the spectral information of the samples after performing different pre-processing methods. Moreover, partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models were developed based on different spectral pre-processing techniques to classify cucumbers with contents of diazinon below and above the maximum residue limits (MRL) as safe and unsafe samples, respectively. Finally, user-friendly software as a GUI was created based on the best PLS and PLS-DA models developed for prediction of diazinon contents in the samples and for classification of intact cucumbers by the absence/presence of diazinon residues, respectively. Evaluation of the system and software designed based on the best developed PLS and PLS-DA models indicated good performance for measuring and detection of diazinon residue in cucumbers. It was concluded that the designed system and software based on Vis/NIR spectroscopy combined with chemometrics methods can be utilized for fast and non-destructive safety control of intact cucumbers by the absence/presence of diazinon residues. It can also be generalized for detection of other pesticide residues in agricultural products if developing their appropriate models is feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the feasibility of visible near-infrared (Vis-NIR) spectroscopy method as a low-cost, quick and reliable method for the prediction of qualitative characteristics (fruit juice percentage, soluble solids, acidity, taste index and vitamin C) of an export variety of Persian pomegranate. For this purpose, pomegranate samples were first analyzed by Vis-NIR spectroscopy, followed by destructive reference methods for quality determination. Subsequently, the data from Vis-NIR were evaluated with different pre-processing methods, among which the combination of the Savitzky–Golay (SG) smoothing model and standard normal variation (SNV) normalization model, generates the best outcomes in predicting six desired qualitative characteristics by partial least square regression (PLSR) model. Fruit juice percentage and pH presented the best prediction models with a correlation coefficient (r P) of 0.98 for both, and root mean square errors of prediction (RMSEP) equal to 0.036 and 0.041, respectively. The values of r p for all desired parameters in this study were higher than 0.95, which pointed to the excellent accuracy of the PLSR models in the prediction of pomegranate qualitative features. It can be concluded from the present study that, Vis-NIR spectroscopy using the PLSR model as a non-destructive functional approach is capable of verifying the quality of Persian export variety pomegranate as an online technique with the aim of grading products before the export phase in order to augment the product marketability. [Display omitted] • Twelve quality parameters of fruit determined through destructive tests. • The most important quality parameters were selected for non-destructive prediction. • Vis-NIR was able to predict selected quality parameters with excellent accuracy. • The fruit juice percentage was predicted for the first time as a quality parameter. • The proposed method can be utilized in the grading stage prior to the export phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A new approach for in-situ monitoring of apple nutrient contents was proposed. • Apple leaf spectra can replace costly and destructive analysis to predict NPK. • The RF model with Rfrog wavelength selection achieved the best results. • PLSR-based models are not recommended for nutrient estimation. • The approach can be used to develop a portable instrument to estimate NPK concentrations. Timely and rapid monitoring of apple trees nutrition status is vital for accurate management of nutrient fertilizers in order to improve the yield and quality, as well as to reduce the risk of environmental degradation. As a most frequently used method, tissue analysis used to assess the nutritional status of apple tree leaves is laborious, costly, time-consuming, environmentally unfriendly, and destructive. Ground-based sensors are able to efficiently provide information on nutritional status using leaf spectra reflectance. This research aims to establish a novel cost-effective and non-destructive approach for rapidly estimating the status of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) in apple tree leaves based on Visible/Near-infrared (Vis/NIR) spectroscopy (500–1000 nm) coupled with machine learning. The Vis/NIR spectra of apple trees' leaves were acquired. Then, leaf chemical contents of NPK elements were considered as reference points. Different pre-processing techniques were used to pre-treat the spectra. Four different chemometrics analysis consist of support vector machine (SVM), Artificial neural network (ANN), Random Forest (RF) and partial least square (PLS) were applied to predict NPK contents in comparison to actual values. In order to simplify the models, the sensitive wavelengths were extracted using three wavelength selection approaches, variable importance in projection (VIP), partial least squares (PLS), and random frog (Rfrog). The extracted feature wavelengths from PLS, VIP, and Rfrog methods were widely distributed in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum. The performance of the developed models was tested using Residual Prediction Deviation (RPD) and the Ratio of Performance to Interquartile Distance (RPIQ). The results demonstrated that among all models, the non-linear modeling methods were superior to the linear model. The best results for estimation of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K) elements were achieved by the models of MSC + D 2 -Rfrog-RF (r p = 0.985, RMSEP = 0.029%, RPD = 8.77, RPIQ = 7.72), SNV + D 2 -Rfrog-RF (r p = 0.977, RMSEP = 0.0053%, RPD = 6.42, RPIQ = 5.09) and SNV + D 2 -Rfrog-RF (r p = 0.978, RMSEP = 0.018%, RPD = 8.16, RPIQ = 7.01), respectively. The findings of the current approach may provide an efficient approach to predict in-situ NPK contents of apple trees based on leaf spectral reflectance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Safety assessment of lettuce based on E. coli using the Vis/NIR spectra is possible. • SIMCA & SVM can be more reliable than PCA & HCA to distinguish unsafe samples. • Microbial population amount cause a complex process in lettuce. • Chemical component of lettuces with E. coli concentration have a non-linear relationship. • PLSDA provides a robust qualitative model accurately classified lettuce samples. Escherichia coli is a main cause of microbial contamination in lettuce. Detection of microbial contamination is the essential key to ensure the consumption of fresh lettuce. In this investigation, the potential of Vis/NIR spectroscopy system with chemometrics analysis was probed for detecting different microbial loads (0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 ml concentration of E. coli solution) on the lettuce samples in the wavelength range of 350–1100 nm. Five different chemometrics analyses consist of soft independent modeling of class analogies (SIMCA), support vector machine (SVM), Partial least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) (supervised techniques), principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) (unsupervised techniques) were used. The results proved that HCA were correctly clustered unsafe samples with 0.2 ml and 0.3 ml microbial contamination. However, some overlapping was observed between safe and unsafe samples with 0.1 ml microbial contamination. Vis/NIR spectral data with pattern recognition methods (SIMCA and SVM) can be obtained acceptable degree of classification (87.1% and 89.39% accuracy, respectively) between safe and unsafe samples. Compare with 5 different methods, the best model was recommended by PLS-DA using standard normal variation (SNV) + second derivate (D 2) pre-processing methods in 6 optimal selected wavelengths (520, 670, 700, 750, 900, 970 nm) with the minimum standard deviation of cross-validation (SECV = 0.176). Besides, a good correlation (r c = 0.989) between Vis/NIR spectral data and E. coli contamination proved the possibility of using Vis/NIR spectroscopy system to detection and evaluation of microbial contamination in lettuce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]