Search Results (646)

Meat, as an important source of animal protein, plays a central role in the human diet, and its processing operations critically influence the product quality. As an emerging non-thermal physical technology, ultrasound has demonstrated considerable application potential and distinct advantages in meat processing. This review systematically summarizes recent advances in the application of ultrasound for meat tenderization, marination, sterilization, fermentation, freezing, thawing, drying, and the extraction of bioactive compounds from meat by-products, with particular emphasis on its ability to enhance processing efficiency and final product quality. The underlying mechanisms of ultrasound action in meat systems are discussed in depth. Current evidence indicates that ultrasonication not only intensifies processing operations but also positively modulates the physicochemical and functional properties of meat products, including improved tenderness, water-holding capacity, and color stability, promoted flavor development, reduced cooking loss, and extended shelf life. This review aims to provide a theoretical foundation for the scientific research, practical application, and future development of ultrasound technology in meat processing, highlighting its potential to partially replace conventional methods and contribute to more sustainable food processing practices. Full article

Agriculture faces significant challenges from crop diseases, which threaten global food security and cause substantial economic losses annually. While deep learning has advanced plant disease detection, existing models often struggle with generalization across heterogeneous environments and real-time deployment constraints, hindering their practical application in diverse agricultural settings. This paper proposes AD-DETR, an enhanced real-time detection transformer framework specifically designed for agricultural scenarios. The model incorporates three key innovations to address these issues. First, the Multi-Scale Align Network (MSANet) achieves adaptive feature alignment through an Adapt Fusion Align (AFA) block, effectively preserving disease detail information across varying scales. Second, the Spatial–Spectral Attentive Feature Fusion (SSAFF) module integrates frequency-domain processing with attention mechanisms, enhancing feature representation quality by combining spatial and spectral information. Third, the IPIoUv2 loss function improves bounding-box regression accuracy through an internal perception mechanism and scale-adaptive weighting. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that AD-DETR achieves strong performance, with 90.2% mean average precision at $IoU=0.5$ on the Crop Disease dataset and 97.4% on the PlantDoc dataset. It maintains high efficiency with 16.4 million parameters, 47.2 GFLOPs computational complexity, and inference speeds of 230–242 frames per second. These results indicate that AD-DETR is robust to domain shift and suitable for resource-constrained applications, such as real-time monitoring on mobile and edge platforms. Full article

Food security is increasingly threatened by climate change and population growth. Sweet potato has become a crucial crop for ensuring food security due to its adaptability to marginal lands and high yield potential. However, its sustainable production is severely limited by diverse biotic stresses (including fungi, viruses, nematodes, insect pests and bacteria), which cause substantial yield losses. Despite its considerable importance, the key bottlenecks in this field remain unresolved, including the incomplete elucidation of core resistance mechanisms, unclear molecular regulatory networks underlying defense responses, insufficient understanding of crosstalk among multiple stresses, and limited integration of emerging technologies into practical resistance breeding. This review synthesizes the latest advances over the past two years. We dissect sweet potato’s defense mechanisms from multiple dimensions and provide novel insights into biotic stress resistance gene regulatory networks. Given that sweet potato production faces the combined effects of multiple pests and biotic-abiotic stresses, we elaborate on the complex stress interactions in sweet potato. In addition, we propose biotic stress management strategies and a ten-year cultivar improvement roadmap that leverages the potential of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), gene editing, novel omics approaches and synthetic biology. Taken together, with continuous intensification of global biotic stress challenges, systematic multi-dimensional strategies are imperative to alleviate biotic stress-associated yield and quality impairment in sweet potato. On this basis, this review provides a valuable theoretical and practical reference for resistance breeding and the sustainable production of sweet potato. Full article

With increasing water scarcity and growing food demand, enhancing agricultural productivity has become a pressing necessity, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Maize is a strategic crop, yet under surface irrigation, modern technologies are required to optimize irrigation efficiency and reduce water losses. Two field trials were conducted during the summer seasons of 2024 and 2025 on a private farm in Banha, Qalyubia Governorate, Egypt, using a three-replication split-block design. This study evaluated three land slopes (0, 0.05, and 0.15%) and two furrow lengths (50 and 75 m) under furrow irrigation in clay loam soil, using the maize hybrid “Single Cross 2036.” The results demonstrated that both furrow length and land slope significantly affected all measured parameters. Shorter furrows (50 m) consistently outperformed longer ones (75 m), achieving better growth parameters, higher grain yield, improved harvest index, and enhanced irrigation water productivity. Regarding land slope, the 0.15% slope produced the best results, although it was not significantly different from the 0.05% slope in most cases. The interaction between furrow length and land slope was significant; the combination of 50 m furrows with 0.15% slope produced the highest values across all parameters. For longer furrows (75 m), the gentler 0.05% slope was more effective than the steeper 0.15% slope. Notably, 50 m furrows, even with 0% slope, performed better than 75 m furrows with the optimal 0.05% slope, indicating that furrow length is more critical than slope for maximizing maize productivity in clay loam soils. Economic analysis confirmed these findings, with the combination of 50 m furrows and 0.15% slope achieving the highest net return (29,565 EGP ha⁻¹) and revenue-to-cost ratio (1.38), representing a substantial increase in net profit compared to traditional practices. Therefore, a 0.15% slope is recommended for shorter furrows (50 m), while a gentler 0.05% slope is more suitable for longer furrows (75 m). These findings provide a practical pathway for policymakers and farmers to enhance resource efficiency and contribute to SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation). Full article

Food Loss and Waste (FLW) remain major challenges for global food security, environmental sustainability, and economic stability, with nearly one-third of food produced each year being lost or wasted. Although many technologies exist to mitigate FLW, they are often assessed separately, making it difficult for decision-makers to compare options and select solutions suited to specific contexts. This research introduces an explainable decision support system (XDSS) that helps prioritise FLW mitigation strategies while accounting for uncertainty in stakeholder preferences. The proposed framework combines the Best–Worst Method (BWM) with Stochastic Multi-criteria Acceptability Analysis for Group Decision-Making (SMAA-2) to produce transparent and uncertainty-aware rankings. It evaluates one hundred FLW mitigation strategies across five contextual criteria: geographic fit, product category, food supply-chain stage, stakeholder role, and technology type. Rather than producing a single fixed ranking, the system generates probabilistic rank-acceptability profiles that indicate the likelihood of each strategy performing well under different preference conditions. Illustrative scenarios demonstrate that the framework can translate qualitative user preferences into robust prioritisation outcomes, with leading alternatives achieving first-rank-acceptability levels between 62% and 74%. These results indicate that the system can support clearer and more flexible decision-making when preferences are incomplete, inconsistent, or uncertain. Although the current results are based on simulated structured cases, the proposed XDSS provides a transparent methodological foundation for future real-world validation and operational deployment. The framework offers practical value for selecting FLW technologies and for policy planning, contributing to more sustainable food systems and supporting progress toward SDG 12.3. Full article

Background: The cotton boll weevil, Anthonomus grandis grandis Boheman (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), is a major pest of cotton that causes significant yield losses and costly control measures. As a cotton-specialized species, its population dynamics are heavily influenced by environmental conditions and management practices during the off-season. This study examined the effects of off-season food sources on adult survival, reproductive capacity, and susceptibility to malathion in the last generation before the off-season and in the generation entering the next planting season. Methods: Females were fed diets representing off-season conditions (cotton terminals and pollen) and the standard diet (flower buds), and then evaluated for survival, copulation, sperm viability, and egg production. Concentration–mortality bioassays determined malathion susceptibility before and after the off-season. Results: Female survival was lowest in those fed cotton terminals, while pollen and flower buds supported higher survival rates. The likelihood of copulation and sperm viability remained similar among diets after 60 days, or up to 100 days in surviving females; however, females fed flower buds had more eggs in their oviducts. Females that mated early maintained viable sperm up to the end of the 100-day assessment period. Populations collected after the off-season were more susceptible to malathion than those collected at the end of the growing season. Conclusions: Food restrictions and reduced malathion exposure during the off-season may contribute to a reversion toward boll weevils’ susceptibility to malathion. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of the fallow period and proper management of residual off-season populations for effective long-term boll weevil control, confirming malathion’s continued viability as a management tool. Full article

The application of lignin-based films is often restricted by traditional processing methods that rely on toxic organic solvents and harsh chemical reagents, which result in poor compatibility with the polymer matrix and difficulty balancing transparency, barrier, and toughness. Here, lignin was green-modified by ternary deep eutectic solvent (choline chloride-lactic acid-ethanol), and ZnO hybrids with cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) as anchor points were introduced to realize the stability and uniform dispersion of ZnO in the polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) matrix. The prepared composite film maintains a transmittance of about 78% at 800 nm while achieving a wide spectrum of ultraviolet shielding. The barrier properties of the film were markedly improved: the water vapor permeability (WVP) decreased to 0.24 × 10⁻⁷ g·m⁻¹·h⁻¹·Pa⁻¹, and the oxygen permeability (OTR) to 6.98 cm³·m⁻²·24 h⁻¹·0.1 MPa⁻¹. In addition, the mechanical flexibility and durability of the material were significantly improved, as evidenced by a tensile strain of 109%. In the insurance experiment, compared with the blank film, the browning degree and weight loss of the composite film were relatively low. The scalable and low-solvent consumption route provides a practical idea for the application of lignin in food preservation. Full article

Tomato leaf diseases represent a persistent threat to global food security, causing annual crop losses of 20% to 40%. Although deep learning models achieve accuracies exceeding 95% in centralized settings, their deployment across distributed farms is constrained by data privacy concerns, communication bottlenecks, and heterogeneous data quality. This paper proposes Personalized, Clustered, and Communication-Efficient Federated Learning (PCE-FL), a framework that integrates three synergistic components: (1) server-side client clustering to group farms with similar data distributions for personalized model training; (2) federated knowledge distillation to reduce communication overhead by over 91%; and (3) reputation-based aggregation to ensure robustness against unreliable contributions. Extensive experiments on realistic non-IID simulations of the PlantVillage tomato dataset Dirichlet($\alpha \in \{1.0,0.5,0.1\}$) demonstrate that PCE-FL achieves 89.1% accuracy under extreme heterogeneity ($\alpha =0.1$), surpassing FedAvg by 10.9 and IFCA by 4.8 percentage points, while maintaining a 91% reduction in communication cost. All improvements are statistically significant ($p<0.001$). These results advance the practical deployment of privacy-preserving collaborative AI in resource-constrained agricultural environments. Full article

The growing demand for food production has increased the pressure on soil and fertilizer use, often leading to nutrient losses, soil degradation, and environmental pollution. Green chemistry offers practical solutions to these challenges by encouraging cleaner, safer, and more efficient ways of producing and using fertilizers. This review summarizes recent advances in multi-nutrient sustainable fertilizers developed through green chemistry principles, including renewable raw materials, low-toxicity synthesis methods, and environmentally friendly delivery systems. Different approaches, such as controlled-release carriers, nano-enabled formulations, chelated nutrients, and bio-based coatings, are discussed with a focus on how they reduce nutrient losses and improve soil and plant health. The review also highlights the benefits and limitations of these technologies, gaps in current research, and the need for long-term field studies to assess their safety and effectiveness. Overall, green chemistry-guided fertilizer development shows strong potential to support sustainable agriculture by improving nutrient efficiency while reducing environmental impacts. Full article

Crop losses driven by fungal pathogens remain a major constraint to global food production, reinforcing agriculture’s dependence on fungicide-based disease control. Soil acts as a long-term reservoir and key hotspot for the evolution and persistence of antifungal-resistant Fusarium. The intensive, prolonged use of overlapping single-site fungicides in agriculture strongly selects for both intrinsic and acquired resistance in soilborne Fusarium populations, contributing to major crop losses, food insecurity, and One Health concerns. This review synthesizes current knowledge on (i) target-site (CYP51, β-tubulin, cytochrome b, SDH, myosin-5) and non-target-site (ABC/MFS efflux, multidrug resistance, epigenetic regulation) resistance mechanisms across the genus Fusarium; (ii) the influence of management practices and fungicide characteristics and behaviour in soil in reshaping microbial communities and selecting for resistant Fusarium; (iii) the consequences for plant disease management and the limitations of practices like cultural and biological control; and (iv) innovative strategies for plant disease management, as well as the monitoring and detection of antifungal resistance in soils. These aspects show that soil reservoirs of antifungal-resistant Fusarium are compromising fungicide-based control and increasing risks across sectors, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable, multi-layered, integrated pest management strategies combined with robust, molecularly informed resistance monitoring. Full article

Across Africa, drought seldom occurs alone. Rainfall deficits often coincide with heat, rapid soil moisture loss and reduced streamflow, producing compound events whose impacts exceed those of any single driver. This review synthesises station observations, satellite and reanalysis products, and climate model simulations to clarify where such events are most common, how they form, how they affect societies and ecosystems, and how risks are changing. A practical tiered definition tailored to African conditions is outlined and applied to identify five recurrent hotspots: the Sahel, the Greater Horn of Africa, southern Africa, the margins of the Congo Basin and the Guinea Coast. The review sets out a physically consistent sequence that links basin-scale sea surface temperature anomalies to shifts in monsoon circulation, and then to land processes that amplify and prolong heat and dryness through reduced evapotranspiration and soil-moisture memory. Documented impacts include lower crop and pasture productivity, pressure on rivers, reservoirs and groundwater, stress on hydropower and wider consequences for food and energy security. Compound drought frequency across these hotspots has risen by 18–55% since 1980, with the probability of the most severe events roughly doubling at 1.5 °C of global warming and tripling at 3 °C. The review highlights near-term priorities, including compound-aware monitoring, sub-seasonal-to-seasonal early warning and conjunctive water management. Full article

The efficient on-demand generation of ClO₂ is critical for disinfection and food preservation. However, the development of safe and efficient strategies for gaseous ClO₂ production remains challenging. Herein, we report a stable and efficient electrochemical system for ClO₂ production based on rutile TiO₂ nanorod arrays (TiO₂ NAs). Electrochemical optimization suggests that a cathodic potential of −0.10 V (vs. Ag/AgCl) in an electrolyte solution of 1 M NaClO₃ with 5 M H₂SO₄ achieves the highest ClO₂ production efficiency. Mechanistic studies reveal that ClO₂ generation proceeds via an O₂-induced pathway, in which electrochemically generated H₂O₂ from 2-e⁻ O₂ reduction reacts in situ with ClO₃⁻ to form ClO₂, eliminating the need for external H₂O₂ storage and significantly improving operational safety. Furthermore, when decorated with RuO_x nanoparticles, TiO₂ NA cathodes achieve enhanced catalytic performance and excellent stability. In addition, the generated ClO₂ in the electrolyte solution can be delivered via gas pumping. This ClO₂ atmosphere exhibits antibacterial efficiencies exceeding 99% against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, and significantly reduced weight loss and preserved fruit hardness in longan samples during 8 days of storage. Overall, this work presents a safe, efficient approach for ClO₂ generation with strong potential for practical disinfection in the food preservation field. Full article

This study investigated the bactericidal effect and examined the associated cellular damage of low temperature plasma (LTP) combined with slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) against Listeria monocytogenes. Single-factor experiments were conducted to assess the bactericidal efficacy under individual treatment conditions, followed by the evaluation of three different combination sequences. An orthogonal experimental design was performed to optimize the key parameters, and the optimal treatment conditions were determined as LTP at 45 W with an electrode spacing of 1 mm for 2 min, combined with SAEW at an available chlorine concentration (ACC) of 30 mg/L. Under these conditions, confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) with SYTO 9/PI staining confirmed that the combined treatment caused cell death, as indicated by loss of membrane integrity in treated cells. A resuscitation assay further ruled out the viable but non-culturable (VBNC) state, as no bacterial growth was detected after 48 h of enrichment. The leakage of intracellular proteins and nucleic acids was measured using the Coomassie Brilliant Blue method combined with a microplate reader, and changes in cellular morphology were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results demonstrated that SAEW+LTP treatment exerted a distinct effect, significantly disrupting bacterial cell membrane integrity, inducing the leakage of intracellular contents, and causing obvious morphological damage to the bacterial cells. In conclusion, the combined treatment of LTP and SAEW significantly improved the bactericidal efficiency against L. monocytogenes, which may be due to the combined disruptive effects on membrane integrity and subsequent structural and functional damage to the cells. Future investigations are needed to unravel the precise mechanisms, establish the efficacy against a wider panel of strains, and explore the potential for practical application in food matrices. Full article

Background: Tirzepatide is a novel therapeutic option for the management of metabolic disorders which has started to be implemented in routine practice. The study aimed to analyze the effectiveness of tirzepatide use and patient education in the field of healthy eating and weight loss, based on real-life data from the practice of a primary care physician, in metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) patients during a one-year follow-up period. Methods: This is a retrospective study based on real-life data of 118 MetSyn patients who were under the supervision of a general practitioner (GP). Analysis was conducted on 62 patients supported by trizepatide (2.5 mg for 4 weeks, then 5 mg for 4 weeks and 7 mg for 46 weeks) with dietary education and 56 patients that underwent dietary education with motivation only. Lipid profile, glucose level and blood pressure were assessed. Body Mass Index (BMI), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), A Body Shape Index (ABSI), Lipid Accumulation Product (LAP), Visceral Adiposity Index (VAI) and Body Roundness Index (BRI) were calculated. The KomPAN^® questionnaire was used for dietary assessment and WHO Quality of Life-BREF for the quality of life assessment at 52 weeks. Results: Patients from both groups significantly reduced their body weight and WC and the values of the following indices: BMI, WHtR, ABSI, LAP and BRI. A significant increase in LDL cholesterol and triglyceride values was observed in both groups and a significant decrease in glucose level only in the group with tirzepatide combined with dietary modification. Energy value, energy density of food and nutrient intake did not differ between groups, while the intensity of beneficial nutritional features (pHDI-10) was low. Significant differences in patients’ QoL were observed, especially in the domain related to mental health (higher in trizepatide + diet group). Conclusions: Support in primary care by a physician was successful from a long-term perspective in the group using tirzepatide in combination with diet modification as well as in the group based on dietary modification only. The data do not indicate a significant advantage of any one approach for patients, prioritizing an individualized approach to treatment. Full article

The transition toward sustainable food systems requires innovative approaches to managing perishable products, where inefficient inventory practices contribute significantly to global food loss and environmental degradation. This study develops a circular-economy-oriented inventory optimisation framework for dairy supply chains that integrates environmental externalities and waste valorisation pathways into operational decision-making. Departing from traditional linear “produce–consume–dispose” models, this study embeds three core sustainability mechanisms into a stochastic dynamic-programming framework: (1) progressive environmental cost internalisation aligned with EU Emissions-Trading System carbon pricing, capturing both waste-related emissions and cold-chain energy footprints; (2) circular-economy value-recovery channels that redirect near-expiry products to secondary applications (animal feed, biogas production, industrial processing) rather than disposal; and (3) deterioration-aware demand management that minimises resource throughput while maintaining service levels. Empirical calibration using Ukrainian dairy industry data demonstrates that sustainability-integrated inventory policies reduce waste generation by 4.8–10% relative to conventional approaches, with high-deterioration products showing the greatest potential for improvement. The authors identify a critical threshold in the circular economy: when salvage recovery rates exceed 35%, waste becomes an economic and ecological asset, fundamentally altering the sustainability calculus of inventory decisions. Environmental costs account for 4.6% of total operating expenses at current carbon prices, a share projected to increase substantially as climate regulations tighten. The findings provide actionable guidance for dairy supply chain stakeholders pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 2, 12, 13): processors should establish circular-economy partnerships that achieve salvage rates above 35%, implement product-specific policies for high-deterioration items, and proactively integrate carbon pricing into inventory optimisation. The framework bridges sustainable operations theory and circular economy practice, offering a replicable model for transitioning perishable food supply chains toward closed-loop, low-waste configurations that simultaneously reduce environmental impact and enhance economic performance. Full article