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ThesisItem Open Access EFFECT OF PACKAGING MATERIAL ON SHELF LIFE AND QUALITY OF GRAPES (Vitis vinifera L.)(PAU Ludhiana, 2011) Landge Kishor Changdeo; Jarnail SinghThe effect of packaging material on shelf life and quality of grapes cv. Thomson seedless was studied. Material was packed with three different packaging materials viz. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) of 100 guage, Polypropylene (PP) of 90 guage and Laminated aluminum foil (LAF). These samples were stored at 5˚C and 90- 95 % RH in the cold chamber. Control group of grapes samples were stored at room temperature without packaging. During the study viscoelastic behavior, PLW, moisture content, colour , TSS, Ascorbic acid content and Titrable acidity were measured at an interval of 5 days. The grapes stored at refrigerated conditions have shelf life of four weeks as compared to the control samples which has seven days. The LDPE film showed the best performance in terms of maintaining the hardness of fruit. The thickness of loading for packaging containers of grapes was calculated to be 45 cm for samples stored with LDPE. The PLW, variation in moisture content (% db), change in L, a, b colour values was observed to be minimum with LDPE. The quality parameters like Ascorbic acid content, Titrable acidity were least affected with the LAF packaging. The PP was the most effective packaging material for maintaining TSS values of fresh grapes. All the parameters PLW, colour, TSS, Ascorbic acid etc. were observed to be decreased at a faster rate in samples stored at atmospheric conditions in comparison with the samples stored at refrigerated conditions.ThesisItem Restricted STUDIES ON THE PERFORMANCE OF C.I. ENGINE USING ETHYL ESTER AS AN ALTERNATIVE FUEL(PAU Ludhiana, 2011) Rajneesh Kumar; Anoop Kumar, DixitThe agriculture sector of the country is mainly dependent on diesel for its motive power and to a large extent for power applications. Increased farm mechanization in agriculture, further increases requirement of this depleting fuel source. To overcome the problems associated with the use of petroleum derived fuels, it becomes necessary to develop alternative fuels with properties comparable to petroleum based fuels. Among the alternative fuels, biodiesel fuel has received much attention in recent years for use in diesel engines and could be one alternative in the country to reduce petroleum diesel import. Research has been done in the country using methanol. But, methanol is toxic in nature. Ethanol is derived from biomass. Ethyl ester derived from plant oils by using ethanol brings extra carbon atoms through ethanol molecule which slightly increases the heat content and the cetane number. Ethyl esters have lower cloud and pour points than the methyl esters. This fact improves the cold start of engine. Jatropha plant oil is non edible oil so it was selected for preparation of ethyl ester. The available Jatropha oil had high free fatty acid therefore, a twostep transesterification process was used to prepare ester for the study. Fuel characteristics of different blends of ethyl ester and diesel were determined in terms of kinematic viscosity (cS), gross heating value (MJ/kg), density (g/cm3), flash point (ºC), cloud point (ºC) and pour point (ºC) and were compared with that of pure diesel fuel. Thereafter, five blends of ester and diesel were used as fuel at four levels of loads i.e. 0%, 25%, 50%, and 75% of the rated load for engine performance study at two different compression ratio (16.5:1 and 18.5:1) and compare the results with the results obtained in case of diesel fuel. Maximum recovery of ester was obtained by pretreating the oil with 5% H2SO4 and 20% ethanol and then its transesterification using 30% ethanol and 3% KOH. Kinematic viscosity (cS), density (g/cm3), flash point (ºC), cloud point (ºC) and pour point (ºC) of all blends of ethyl esters (B10, B20, B30 and B40) were higher than that of diesel and gross heating values (MJ/kg) of all biodiesel blends were less as compared to diesel. Nitric oxide (NOx) emissions in case of all biodiesel blends were more as compared to diesel. NOx concentration in exhaust gases was increased with increase of ester in blends and also increased with increase in compression ratio. Carbon monoxide (CO) emission for all biodiesel blends was less as compared to diesel. CO concentration in exhaust gases was decreased with increase in percentage of ester in the blend and also decreased with increase in compression ratio. Brake thermal efficiency for all biodiesel blends was more as compared to diesel. Brake thermal efficiency increased with increase in load and also increased with increase in compression ratio. Brake specific fuel consumption in case of blends was more as compared to diesel. Brake specific fuel consumption decreased with increase in load as well as with increase in compression ratio.ThesisItem Open Access PROCESS OPTIMIZATION FOR EXPRESSION OF OIL FROM DEHULLED SUNFLOWER (Helianthus annuus L.) SEEDS(PAU Ludhiana, 2013) Arul Selvam T; Tarsem ChandMechanical expression of oil from dehulled sunflower seed is highly desirable as it provides, at low cost, non-contaminated, nutritionally rich press cakes which can be processed into nutritious edible foods. Unfortunately, mechanical oil extraction process suffers from certain drawbacks. The dehulled sunflower seeds obstruct forward movement inside the expeller barrel due to the absence of hull portion and less friction. The main focus of the present study was to maximize the oil recovery and obtain nutritionally rich press cakes from dehulled sunflower seeds using mechanical oil expression. Physical and mechanical properties were studied under four different moisture content ranged from 6-18 % (d.b.). The results showed that the geometric mean diameter, surface area, volume, sphericity and aspect ratio, thousand seed/kernel weight, true density, porosity, the angle of repose, static coefficient of friction and rupture energy were found to be increasing linearly for seed and kernel. Whereas bulk density, initial cracking force and mean rupture force decreased linearly with the increase of moisture content for both seed and kernel under study. Pre treatments in the form of steaming and addition of bio-based friction materials such as rice bran and wheat bran at different levels were employed. Central composite rotatable design was used to generate a set of experiment at different pretreatment levels during oil expression. A statistical model predicted the maximum oil yield efficiency, maximum protein, minimum fibre, minimum residual oil, minimum chlorogenic acid, minimum free fatty acid and minimum peroxide value of dehulled sunflower oil and press cakes at these optimized variable conditions for rice bran incorporation: steaming time of 10 min, steaming pressure of 0.5 kg cm-2 and rice bran incorporation of 13.88g 100g-1 of dehulled sunflower seed. For wheat bran incorporation it was at steaming time of 15 min, steaming pressure of 1.00 kg cm-2 and wheat bran incorporation of 15g 100g-1 of dehulled sunflower seed. Using these variables results are validated under experimental condition in three independent replicates. Rice bran incorporated oil expression gave best results with high desirability value.ThesisItem Restricted Studies on effect of blade shape and rotor speed of rotavator on pulverization and mixing quality(PAU Ludhiana, 2013) Shiva Bhambota; G S, ManesA study was conducted at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana to evaluate the performance of commercially available rotavator blade shapes to find out the best combination of blade shape and rotary speed of rotavator for tillage and mixing operations. Experiments were conducted on three blade shapes (L, C and J) at three rotor speeds (180, 215 and 250 rpm) in two types of soils S1 (sand 75.5%, silt 12.4% and clay 12.1 %) and S2 (sand 24.2%, silt 34.8% and clay 41%) to study the effect of blade shape and rotor speed on pulverization index, mixing index, percent reduction in bulk density and fuel consumption. These treatment combinations were compared with control (Pulverization with single pass of disc harrow followed by single pass of cultivator). For measuring pulverization index, soil samples were taken after single pass of rotavator. Standard sieve analysis method was used to find the mean mass diameter (MMD) of sample soil particles for mixing of crop mass after the operation of rotavator, the pieces of the crop which were exposed to 1/3rd of their length or more were collected and weighed to find mixing index. Percent reduction in bulk density before and after treatment by rotavator was calculated using core sampler method for pulverization and mixing operation. For measuring the fuel consumption; fuel flow meter was installed in the fuel line of the tractor. The results for each dependent parameter (pulverization index, mixing index, percent reduction in bulk density and fuel consumption) were analyzed on the basis of Completely Randomized Design (CRD) test using software “CPCS 1”. J shape blades gave minimum pulverization index (3.06 and 8.57 mm) and maximum mixing index (80.72 and 91.43 %) at 250 rpm rotor speed as compared to L and C shaped blades and control for both soils S1 and S2 respectively. The average fuel consumption was maximum for J shape blades followed by L and C shape blades respectively for both pulverization and mixing in both soil types. C shape blades have minimum fuel consumption as compared to other two blade shapes for both types of soil for pulverization and mixing operation respectively. So, J shape blade at 250 rpm rotor speed can be considered as the best combination for pulverization and mixing.ThesisItem Restricted Optimization of Osmo-Cum-Microwave Dehydration Process for Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus sajor-caju)(Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, 2014) Ramya, HG; Satish KumarInvestigations were carried out on “Optimization of Osmo-Cum-Microwave Dehydration Process for Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus sajor-caju)”. The effect of various independent process parameters on mass transfer kinetics (water loss and solute gain) was studied. These process variables include solution concentration (salt: 10–20%; salt-sugar: 15 – (45- 65) °B), solution temperature (30–60° C) immersion time (15–240 min) and solution to fruit ratio (4:1 to 8:1). Water loss and solute gain increased with solution temperature, solution concentration, duration of osmosis over the entire osmotic dehydration process. The moisture content reduced from 90.3 to 45 - 48 % (wb). Effective water diffusivity varied between 1.13 - 2.58 x 10-9 m2/s and 1.59 - 3.0x 10-9 m2/s, solute diffusivity between 3.92 - 9.9 x 10-10 m2/s and 9.44 x 10-10 - 1.02 x 10-9 m2/s respectively for mushrooms treated with salt and salt-sugar respectively. Power and Page models showed the highest adequacy of fit for osmotic dehydration of mushrooms treated with salt and salt-sugar solutions respectively. Optimum operating conditions found were: solution temperature – 45o C, immersion time – 53.54 min, salt concentration – 14.09% and solution to fruit ratio 6.08:1. Corresponding optimum values for mushrooms treated with salt solution were, 38.13, 2.1 and 36.02 (g/100 g initial mass) for water loss, solute gain and weight reduction respectively. Optimum operating conditions for mushrooms treated with salt-sugar were, solution temperature – 42.3° C, immersion time – 44.21 min, salt-sugar concentration – 15 %: 52.57° B and solution to fruit ratio 4.99:1. At these optimum values, water loss, solute gain and weight reduction was 41, 2.15 and 38.6 (g/100 g initial mass). Microwave dehydration of pre-osmosed mushroom was carried out at three power levels of 540, 810 and 1080 W. Moisture content of dehydrated mushroom reduced from 45 - 48 to 5.7 – 6 % (wb). Effective moisture diffusivities varied between 1.18 - 2.027x10-9 m2 /s and 1.29 - 2.65x10-9 m2 /s for mushrooms treated with salt and salt-sugar respectively. Logarithmic model showed the highest adequacy of fit for microwave dehydration in the both the cases. The quality of dehydrated mushrooms viz. colour, texture, rehydration ratio, shrinkage ratio and overall acceptability were analyzed for optimization of drying process variables. The optimum condition of microwave drying found were; microwave power level - 810W, L - 48.77, a - 4.41, b - 10.91, ∆E - 10.24, hardness - 1639.56 g-f, chewiness - 429.05 g/cm2, RR - 1.94, SR - 0.93, aw - 0.461, ascorbic acid - 1.8 with an overall acceptability of 80.5 %, for dehydrated mushrooms treated with salt. For mushroom treated with salt-sugar, optimum conditions of microwave drying found were; microwave power level - 810 W, L - 46.66, a - 5.8, b - 15.74, ∆E - 14.15, hardness - 1342.05 g-f, chewiness - 1270.97 g/cm2, RR - 1.89, SR - 0.93, aw - 0.453, ascorbic acid - 1.87 with an overall acceptability of 83 %. The best dried product obtained through optimization was packed in three materials viz; LDPE, HDPE and LAP and stored under refrigerated and ambient conditions for 3 months. The quality attributes of stored product like colour, texture, rehydration ratio, moisture content, water activity, ascorbic acid and overall acceptability were evaluated at 15 days interval. The dried mushrooms packed in laminated aluminium were found to be highly acceptable up to 3 months of storage.ThesisItem Open Access Design and Development of Software for the Implementation of Image Processing Approach for Leaf Area Measurement(Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, 2014) Gurjot Kaur; Salam DinSeveral commercial softwares are available for plant leaf area measurement. But no freeware is available for leaf area calculation. This study proposes a freeware for calculating the plant leaf area. It is hypothesized that if the error between the calculated leaf area and the actual leaf area is low then it could be used for agronomical research. Leaves of Brassica species, turmeric, soybean and wheat with different size and shape are selected for the study. The platform used for image processing and leaf area calculation is DOTNET framework at the front end and SQL server at the back end. A digital scanner is utilized to obtain leaf images. The user can browse the scanned image of a leaf in any image format and the freeware automatically convert it into web compatible image format. For color tonal distribution the histogram of images is computed. The colored image is converted into monochrome image by setting the threshold value in the color matrix. In image processing method leaf area is calculated through pixel number statistic. The results are compared with the results of Leaf Area Meter by Disha Infoway India Private Limited and concluded that the error rate between them is less than ∓2% for Brassica species, turmeric, soybean and wheat leaves.ThesisItem Open Access Implementation and Performance Analysis of ClustalW Algorithm using Parallel and Distributed Computing(Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, 2014) Jasrotia, Swati; Din, SalamParallel version of bioinformatics applications can speed up the analysis of large scale sequence data, specially sequence alignment. sharing of distributed computing resources and data with the use of parallel version softwares on high performance computing is an emerging step. Clusters provide an excellent platform for solving a range of parallel and distributed applications in both scientific and commercial areas. Personal computer clusters are replacing the mainframe systems / super computers because of its cost effectiveness. In this paper, the performance result of parallel version ClustalW software is recorded on personal computer cluster with the help of an open source rocks toolkit. An easy to deploy, contract/expand, manage and scalable distributed environment is proposed and built for bioinformatics applications. The experimental results show that multiple sequence alignment of protein sequences with ClustalW software on rocks distributed environment gives high efficiency and speed up. It also shows cluster platforms are excellent alternative to access to super computing due to its price to performance ratio
