Publications by authors named "A Ferragina"

An increasing consumer demand for plant-based and high-protein options, motivated by health and sustainability, has resulted in a surge of food innovation in this area. Incorporating alternative plant sources, such as pulses and pseudocereals, has been proven to enhance the nutritional profile of baked products. However, these can also negatively impact the yeasted bread acceptability.

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Owing to the inherent characteristics of ground beef, adulteration presents a substantial risk for suppliers and consumers alike. This study developed a robust and novel method for identifying replacement fraud in ground beef with beef liver, beef heart, and pork using Near Infrared-Hyperspectral Imaging (NIR-HSI) coupled with chemometric and other statistical methods. More specifically, NIR-HSI provided an efficient and accurate means of identifying each type of adulteration using the classification model Genetic Algorithm (GA) - Backpropagation Artificial Neural Network (BPANN), showing perfect sensitivity and specificity (a value of 1.

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Article Synopsis
  • Cheese exhibits a wide range of physical, chemical, and sensory traits based on different processing methods, with this study analyzing 1,050 cheeses from 107 producers across 37 categories to explore these interrelationships.
  • The study identified 15 traits (like ripening length, firmness, and color) and found 105 correlations among them, performing a multivariate analysis that revealed four main factors: Solids, Hue, Size, and Basicity.
  • These factors helped categorize the cheeses into 8 clusters, each with distinct characteristics, such as Grana Padano's high Size scores and blue cheeses' high Basicity scores, providing insights into how different cheeses relate to each other.
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The prediction of the cheese yield (%CY) traits for curd, solids, and retained water and the amount of fat, protein, solids, and energy recovered from the milk into the curd (%REC) by Bayesian models, using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), can be of significant economic interest to the dairy industry and can contribute to the improvement of the cheese process efficiency. The yields give a quantitative measure of the ratio between weights of the input and output of the process, whereas the nutrient recovery allows to assess the quantitative transfer of a component from milk to cheese (expressed in % of the initial weight). The aims of this study were: (1) to investigate the feasibility of using bulk milk spectra to predict %CY and %REC traits, and (2) to quantify the effect of the dairy industry and the contribution of single-spectrum wavelengths on the prediction accuracy of these traits using vat milk samples destined to the production of Grana Padano Protected Designation of Origin cheese.

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The objectives of this study were to explore the use of Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy on individual sheep milk samples for predicting cheese-making traits, and to test the effect of the farm variability on their prediction accuracy. For each of 121 ewes from 4 farms, a laboratory model cheese was produced, and 3 actual cheese yield traits (fresh cheese, cheese solids, and cheese water) and 4 milk nutrient recovery traits (fat, protein, total solids, and energy) in the curd were measured. Calibration equations were developed using a Bayesian approach with 2 different scenarios: (1) a random cross-validation (80% calibration; 20% validation set), and (2) a leave-one-out validation (3 farms used as calibration, and the remaining one as validation set) to assess the accuracy of prediction of samples from external farms, not included in calibration set.

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