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Microwave sterilization is a novel potential sterilization technology to improve food quality. An industrial microwave sterilization system was used to sterilize imitation crab meat under thermal processing intensity F0 = 1, 2, 3. The characteristics of the microwave process, such as heating rate, processing time, and C100, were calculated. In addition, the quality of processed imitation crab meat was investigated. Compared with the conventional retort method, microwave sterilization significantly shortened the processing time of imitation crab meat by 63.71% to 72.45%. Under the same thermal processing intensity, microwave sterilization has demonstrated better results than retort sterilization in terms of water-holding capacity, color, and texture. Furthermore, microwave-treated imitation crab meat ingredients had a greater capacity to bind water molecules and obtained a more appropriate secondary protein structure. In addition, microwave technology can better preserve the unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) of imitation crab meat, which are 9.14%, 1.19%, and 0.32% higher than the traditional method at F0 = 1, 2, 3. The results would provide useful data for the subsequent research and development of ready-to-eat surimi products.

The Pacific oyster could be affected by several pressure sources during cold chain logistics, which reduce the quality of oyster, and even improve its mortality. For improving the quality of oyster, the effects of depuration process at different cooling rates (1, 3, 7, 11 and 16 °C/h) on selected Pacific oyster were studied. The results indicated that extreme fluctuations in the depuration temperatures could affect the survival rates and qualities of oysters. The oysters exhibited low survival rates, glycogen contents and pH values at an increased cooling rate. Their contents in the 1 °C/h group after 3 d preservation were 100 %, 16.30 ± 1.64 mg/100 g and 6.72 ± 0.01, respectively, while there were 71 %, 7.72 ± 0.88 mg/100 g and 6.53 ± 0.01 in the 16 °C/h group after 3 d preservation, respectively. Furthermore, the ATP-related compounds were affected by the different cooling rates. AMP and IMP were the main ATP-related compounds, and their contents in the 1 °C/h group after 3 d preservation were 37.21 ± 1.10 mg/100 g and 29.47 ± 1.10 mg/100 g, respectively, while there were 32.07 ± 1.10 mg/100 g and 13.16 ± 1.60 mg/100 g in the 16 °C/h group after 3 d preservation, respectively. The proportions of the total umami, as well as the sweet amino acids also decreased, the proportions of the umami amino acids and sweet amino acids in the total amino acids, were 31.37%–38.80%, and their proportions in 1 °C/h group were higher than that in 16 °C/h group. Conversely, the fatty acid content of each group exhibited significant differences. Combined with the above results, the oyster maintained a high survival rate and higher quality at a cooling rate of 1 °C/h during depuration.

With the prolongation of the post-catch circulation time, the soft tissue of live clam could gradually decline in its quality. This study investigated the quality changes of clams (Ruditapes philippinarum) during the cold chain transportation, and then focused on the rehydration processes, which included gradient heating rehydration (GR) and sudden heating rehydration (SR). Results showed that a higher survival rate of clams was obtained in the GR stage (95%) clams than that in the SR stage (76%). In addition, both glycogen content and adenylate energy charge (A.E.C) value were also higher in the GR stage (20.49 ± 1.05 mg/g, 70.77 ± 1.76%) than that in the SR stage (15.47 ± 1.83 mg/g, 61.63 ± 1.74%) clams. Conversely, the clams in the GR stage showed lower lactic acid content (0.167 ± 0.003 mmol/g) than that in the SR stage (0.181 ± 0.004 mmol/g). Therefore, during the rehydration processes, the GR was a better approach to preserve the quality of clams when compared with the SR. This work could provide reference to preserve the quality of clams and reduce the economic loss of clams during the transportation and rehydration process.

With the rapid concurrent advance of artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technology, manufacturing environments are being upgraded or equipped with a smart and connected infrastructure that empowers workers and supervisors to optimize manufacturing workflow and processes for improved energy efficiency, equipment reliability, quality, safety, and productivity. This challenges capital cost and complexity for many small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) who heavily rely on people to supervise manufacturing processes and facilities. This research aims to create an affordable, scalable, accessible, and portable (ASAP) solution to automate the supervision of manufacturing processes. The proposed approach seeks to reduce the cost and complexity of smart manufacturing deployment for SMMs through the deployment of consumer-grade electronics and a novel AI development methodology. The proposed system, AI-assisted Machine Supervision (AIMS), provides SMMs with two major subsystems: direct machine monitoring (DMM) and human-machine interaction monitoring (HIM). The AIMS system was evaluated and validated with a case study in 3D printing through the affordable AI accelerator solution of the vision processing unit (VPU).