Publications by authors named "Hicham Zaroual"

The consumption of fish in food may contain mercury, a harmful element and dangerous chemical detrimental to human health. The purpose of this study was to determine the mercury level in the hair of pregnant women with different fish intakes in their diets. The concentration of total mercury in hair was determined using an atomic absorption spectrometer.

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This study examines the ability of fluorescence spectroscopy for monitoring the quality of 70 Moroccan virgin olive oils belonging to three varieties and originating from three regions of Morocco. By applying principal component analysis and factorial discriminant analysis to the emission spectra acquired after excitation wavelengths set at 270, 290, and 430 nm, a clear differentiation between samples according to their storage time was observed. The obtained results were confirmed following the application of four multivariate classification methods: partial least squares regression, principal component regression, support vector machine, and multiple linear regression on the emission spectra.

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The determination of the quality and authenticity of olive oil becomes more and more required by producers, consumers, and authorities to thwarter falsification. Several analytical techniques including chemical, sensory, chromatography, and so on, are used for the determination of the quality and authenticity of olive oil. Although these methods are considered as the reference ones, they are cumbersome, time-consuming and destructive.

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This study examines the feasibility of using front face fluorescence spectroscopy (FFFS) to authenticate 41 virgin olive oil (VOO) specimens collected from 5 regions in Morocco (Fez/Meknes, Eastern, Northern, Beni-Mellal/Khenifra, and Marrakech/Safi) during 2 consecutive crop seasons (2015-2016 and 2016-2017). By jointly applying factorial discriminant analysis (FDA) to the emission spectra acquired after excitation at 270, 290, and 430 nm, clear discrimination between VOOs according to their geographic origin (96.72% correct classification) and variety (95.

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Background: Olive oil provides a wide range of health-promoting compounds. The quality of olive oil is an even more complex concept as it is affected by several factors, such as variety, season, stage of maturation, extraction processing, and so on. The main objective of this study was to determine the potential of chemical and mid-infrared spectroscopy techniques to determine the quality and authenticity of virgin olive oil (VOO).

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