Can farmers change micro-climates around their crops as an adaptation to climate change? We present a novel adaptation technique for pistachio growers in California, meant to deal with warm winters. A kaolin clay mud is sprayed on dormant trees, blocking sunlight and lowering tree bud temperatures, preventing adverse yield effects of low chill. Climate predictions for California suggest that wi...

Automated processing and classiication of real-time X-ray images of randomly oriented touching pistachio nuts is discussed. The ultimate objective is the development of a system for automated non-invasive detection of defective product items on a conveyor belt. This approach involves two main steps: preprocessing and classiication. Preprocessing locates individual items and segments ones that t...

The effect of different air temperatures (40, 50, 60 and 70°C), air velocities (1 and 2 m/s) and bed depth (monolayer, 3 and 5 cm) on drying kinetics and lipid quality (peroxide value and free fatty acids) of a variety of Persian Pistachio nuts (Abasali variety) were studied. Additionally, effective diffusivity (D ) was determined eff by using Fick’s second law varied from 7.061×10 to 2.105×10 ...

The essential oils of the fruits and the leaves of pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) were analyzed by GC and GC/MS. Fresh unripe pistachio fruits were richer in essential oil (0.5%, w/w) than the leaves (0.1%, w/w). Twenty one compounds were identified in the essential oil of the fruits and the major components were (+)-alpha-pinene (54.6%) and terpinolene (31.2%). The enantiomeric ratio of the majo...

Several agro-industrial wastes (as chestnut and pistachio shells, grass, leaf fruit, vine leaf, and, red and white grape stems) were evaluated to ferulic acid extraction. The chemical analysis of these raw materials shows a high content of xylan in pistachio shells (33%), following the biorefinery concept, this fraction can be used in xylitol manufacture. The lignocellulosic materials were subm...

This paper highlights the capability of artificial neural networks for predicting shelf life of milky white dessert jeweled with pistachio. Linear layer (train) and generalized regression models were developed and compared with each other. Neurons in each hidden layers varied from 1 to 30. Data samples were divided into two sets, i.e., 80% of data samples were used for training and 20% for vali...

Roasting of whole-kernels is an important step in the production of pistachio paste. The effect of hot air roasting temperatures (90-190°C) and times (5-65 min) on the hardness, moisture content and colour attributes (‘L’, ‘a’ and ‘b’ values and yellowness index) of both whole-kernel and ground-state were investigated using response surface methodology (RSM). Increases in roasting temperature a...

BACKGROUND Jojoba butter is cyanogenic and has gained attention among herbal supplement consumers due to claims that it may aid in weight loss. Jojoba butter is extracted from the seeds of jojoba shrubs found in the Sonoran Desert. The seeds have long been recognized as inedible, however clinical symptoms following ingestion are not well documented. CASE REPORT This report describes a patient...

BACKGROUND It is hypothesized that household exposure to allergenic proteins via an impaired skin barrier, such as atopic dermatitis, may contribute to the development of IgE sensitization. Household presence of peanut is a risk factor for the development of peanut allergy in children. Sunflower seed butter is a peanut-free alternative to peanut butter, and sunflower seed allergy is an uncommon...

Introduction The multiple melting points of triglycerides have been known and studied for more than a century by numerous workers. The ability of fat to undergo polymorphic changes is important mainly due to its effect on product texture and appearance. Polymorphic resolidification during storage of cocoa butter into higher melting forms can destroy the smooth glossy appearance of a confectione...