Saffron is the commercial name of the dried stigmas of Crocus sativus L. flower. Due to the high cost of saffron, adulteration sometimes occurs in the local market. In this study, the aroma fingerprints of saffron, saffron with yellow styles, safflower, and dyed corn stigma were detected by an electronic nose system. The features of the obtained signals from electronic nose system were extracted and used for data analysis. In this work, principal component analysis was used and the results were confirmed by back propagation artificial neural networks. The results revealed that the system can recognize the saffron adulteration satisfactorily. As a conclusion, it was found that the electronic nose could provide good separation of the saffron and adulterated one (safflower and other adulteration) as 100 and 86.87% classification accuracy, respectively, by means of artificial neural networks. The electronic nose was able to differentiate non-adulterated and adulterated saffron at higher than 10% adulteration level successfully.

Physical properties often required for designing the equipments for planting, harvesting and postharvesting operations of seeds. Several physical properties of three popular wheat varieties (Shiraz, Karoun and Shiroudy) were determined and compared for moisture content in 8, 12 and 18% w.b in 2007 in University of Tehran. The average length, width and thickness were 6.75, 3.26 and 2.77 mm at a moisture content of 8% w.b., respectively. studies on rewetted wheat seeds showed that the thousand-kernel weight increased from 18.38 to 22.43g. The geometric and equivalent mean diameter, surface area, sphericity and aspect ratio at a moisture content of 8% w.b were 3.93, 3.94 mm, 48.68 mm2, 0.58, 0.48, respectively. The porosity increased from 0.43 to 0.45 %. Whereas the bulk density decreased from 0.72 to 0.66kg m-3 and the true density from 1.25 to 1.19 kg m-3, with an increasing in the moisture content range of 8B18% w.b. The static and dynamic angle of repose varied from 37.28 to 47.33 and 29.89 to 36.5o. The mean of static friction coefficient of three wheat varieties increased the linearly against surfaces of three structural materials, namely, compressed plastic (0.43 - 0.53), galvanized iron (0.33 - 0.53) and plywood (0.35 - 0.41) as the moisture content increased from 8 to 18% w.b.

In Iran, more than 30% of agricultural products turn into waste at different stages from harvesting to consumption. Thus, main factors for performing of this present study are including of: (a) the importance of tomato as an agricultural product and (b) lack of information about reducing waste during tomato processing. In this study, some physical, nutritional, mechanical, and hydrodynamic properties of tomato were measured under standard conditions. Physical properties included the length, width, thickness, mean diameter (geometric and arithmetic), mass, volume, density, sphericity, surface area, and aspect ratio. Also, nutritional properties, moisture, dry matter, pH, total soluble solid (TSS), and titration acidity (TA) of tomato were evaluated. The mechanical properties of tomato (compression and shear) were measured using Instron instrument. The hydrodynamic properties were measured with water in transportation, separation, and sorting of tomatoes. The physical properties were including of length, width, thickness, mass, volume, and geometric and arithmetic mean diameters showed a direct relationship with the size of tomatoes. Also, volumetric mass (density) had an inverse relation with tomato size. Yield point and shear force were obtained 51.27 and 22.20 N, respectively. The nutritional properties such as pH value, TSS, and TA were equal to 4.22, 22.23^οBrix, and 2%, respectively. The hydrodynamic properties of tomatoes such as the terminal velocity, the tomatoes' rise time in the water column, the buoyancy force, and the drag force were obtained to be equal to 0.05 m/s, 10.11 S, 0.52 N, and 0.17 N, respectively.

In this study, a portable electronic tongue was developed and successfully used to distinguish and to discriminate quality of saffron samples. The proposed system consisted of an array of voltammetric sensors based on screen-printed electrodes (SPE), where the working electrodes were of different chemical natures (e.g. carbon, gold and modified carbon electrode). Moreover, the carbon electrodes were chemically modified by electrocatalytic copper phthalocyanine derivatives. The electrodes were immersed in saffron infusions to produce complex voltammetric curves that were characterised for each saffron sample. The electrochemical signals provided by the array showed good correlations with the data obtained from traditional chemical analysis, in particular with the kaempferol, a flavonol with antioxidant activity. The calibration model was optimised using more meaningful description of factors. Finally, discriminant analysis showed that the proposed e-tongue based on SPEs modified with phthalocyanine is usef...