Drying is essential in lowering the water activity and increasing the shelf stability of perishables. Thus, this study investigated the effect of pretreatment on the retention of the antioxidant properties and color of four tomato varieties; that is, Anna F1, Kilele, Prostar F1, and Riogrande during drying. Prepared quarters were treated by spraying with 0.5% sodium metabisulfate, 0.5% calcium ...

Different heat-moisture levels were applied to native starches from different cultivars of sweet potatoes available in Sri Lanka (Wariyapola red, Wariyapola white, Pallepola variety, Malaysian variety and CARI 273) to study the digestibility level. Samples were treated with 20, 25, and 30% moisture at 85°C and 120°C for 6 h and in vitro starch digestibility was tested with porcine pancreatin en...

Pilot composting experiments of swine manure with corncob were conducted to evaluate the performance of the aerated static bin composting system. Effects of temperature control (60 and 70 degrees C) and moisture content (70% and 80%) were monitored on the composting by measuring physical and chemical indexes. The results showed that (1) the composting system could destroy pathogens, converted n...

Because of its long-term persistence, accurate initialization of land surface soil moisture in fully coupled global climate models has the potential to greatly increase the accuracy of climatological and hydrological prediction. To improve the initialization of soil moisture in the NASA Seasonal-to-Interannual Prediction Project (NSIPP), a onedimensional Kalman filter has been developed to assi...

Above-ground cosmic-ray neutron measurements provide an opportunity to infer soil moisture at the subkilometer scale. Initial efforts to assimilate those measurements have shown promise. This study expands such analysis by investigating (1) how the information from aboveground cosmic-ray neutrons can constrain the soil moisture at distinct depths simulated by a land surface model, and (2) how c...

Garri is a creamy white or yellow starchy grit produced by roasting to gelatinization and dryness of peeled, washed, mashed, and fermented dewatered cassava roots. It is the most important product of cassava in West and Central Africa. Mean moisture content of yellow and white garri was 11.11% and 10.81% within 24 hrs of sampling from the market, increasing to 17.27% and 16.14%, respectively, f...

Characteristics of microwave drying of wood strands with different initial moisture contents and geometries were investigated using a commercial 10 small microwave oven under different power inputs. Temperature and moisture changes along with the drying efficiency were examined at different drying scenar­ ios. Extractives were analyzed using gas chromatography=mass spectrometry (GC=MS). The res...

The lignocellulosic biomass (especially agricultural wastes) is known to be an excellent carbon source for microbial enzyme production. In this paper, the cellulase production from lignocellulosic materials under solid state fermentation (SSF) was investigated. The effects of fermentation conditions, such as moisture content, initial pH, temperature, and composition of mixed substrate (wheat st...