Stefania Caparrotta

Use of volatile organic compounds and physicochemical parameters for monitoring the post-harvest ripening of imported tropical fruits

The trade of fresh fruits from tropical countries has steadily increased over the past decades, but limited familiarity of consumers with these products has limited their introduction in worldwide markets. The increasing competition in European and international fruit markets is generating the need for improved ripeness evaluation techniques to assess fruit quality standards. As tropical fruits produce a wide range of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), PTR-ToF-MS was used to fingerprint the volatile profile of four tropical fruits (avocado, banana, mango and mangosteen) and determine whether this instrument could be used to assess fruit ripening stages, which was measured with traditional methods. Data were subsequently subjected to partial least squares discriminant analysis. By pooling the entire dataset together, it emerges that VOCs and chemical analyses enabled the separation of the two different ripening stages of all fruits, while skin color and fruit firmness did not always enable that separation. For avocado, banana and mangosteen, it was possible to observe the process of maturation during the shelf life, via physicochemical parameters and VOC analysis, whereas for mango, the constant production of methanol and acetaldehyde detected at both stages, together with the unchanged of evolution of the physicochemical parameters (TSS, pH and color), indicated a lack of maturation. Given the rapidity and the potential to use this analysis method on a large scale, the PTR-ToF-MS has a high potential to become a commercial standard tool for monitoring food quality from entering the storage chain up to the ‘ready to eat’ labeling.

Gold biosorption by exopolysaccharide producing cyanobacteria and purple nonsulphur bacteria

This study was aimed at investigating the possible exploitation of phototrophic micro‐organisms for the removal and the recovery of Au from Au‐containing wastewaters deriving from a plating industry.

Zn2+-induced changes at the root level account for the increased tolerance of acclimated tobacco plants

Summary Exposing plants to non-toxic metal concentrations elicits specific detoxification mechanisms in tobacco roots that improve root membrane functionality and leaf stomatal regulation with toxic zinc in the growing medium.

Sometimes a Little Mango Goes a Long Way: a Rapid Approach to Assess How Different Shipping Systems Affect Fruit Commercial Quality

Mangoes are climacteric and highly perishable fruits and represent the most appreciated tropical fruits in the world for their special taste and aroma. Depending on the structure of the supply chain and on general environmental and technical factors, fruit picking may be anticipated or postponed within the frame time of fruit maturation stage. Hence, mangoes may be collected for long distance sea freight at the unripe green stage, while pre-ripened fruits, usually transported by air to shorten storage time, are harvested later and must be eaten within few days. In the present study, we assess the potential of an evaluation technique that combines conventional ripening measures with the new detection system of volatile compounds using the PTR-ToF-MS to obtain information on the fruit “eating” quality state. Fruits from the same mango cultivar and shipped from the same country with two alternative shipping systems were compared by analysing the evolution of their physicochemical characteristics and volatile organic compound (VOCs) profiles in time. By pooling the entire dataset together, it emerges that VOCs and physicochemical parameters can be used to separate the two types of transport and the two different ripening stages for the air-freighted fruits, while the sea-freighted fruits showed a rather static behaviour between the two sampling time. The two combined methods may provide a simple and fast tool to assess the presence of characters strongly attractive to mango consumers and in a broader context can be helpful in giving a better idea about the eating qualities of the commercialized products.

EmotiPlant: Human-Plant Interaction for Older Adults

This paper presents EmotiPlant, a system that aims to facilitate the nurturing of indoor plants for older adults. The proposed concept exploits the idea of a plant that is able to express emotions and display its status in relation to the environmental conditions. Thanks to the humanized behavior and the possibility to interact through the touch, the augmented plant can be seen as a companion for older adults. In this article, we present a first prototype of the system and we discuss the challenges to obtain a final product that older adults could use easily at home.

Multi-sensory EmotiPlant: multimodal interaction with augmented plants

Plants are live beings with often underestimated sensory and communicative abilities. In this paper, we sensitize to these natural abilities and we show how they can be extended through technology. To these purpose, we propose a framework for multisensory augmented plants and we present the design of three different augmented plants that are able to communicate with humans through different modalities. The three systems aim at bridging the communication gap between plants and humans, with a particular focus on cognitive or sensory impaired people.