• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.173-177
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• 2012

Whole apples were cut with a sharp or dull knife, and whole cabbages and crisp lettuce heads were cut into salad or thin strips with a knife or by hand. The fresh-cut apples, cabbages, and lettuce were packed in low-density polyethylene bags and kept at $4^{\circ}C$, and their qualities were investigated. Browning and softening of the apples that were cut with a sharp knife were more delayed than those of the apples that were cut with a dull knife. The soluble solids and pH of the fresh-cut apples were not affected by the sharpness of the cutting blade. The browning indexes of the fresh-cut cabbages and lettuce were significantly lower in the samples that were cut with a knife than by hand and in the samples that were cut into large pieces. The results suggest that the cutting blade sharpness, cutting tools, and cut types affected the quality of the fresh-cut apples and leafy vegetables, and that the cutting methods which minimized the cutting damage should be used to retard the browning and softening of the produce.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.80-85
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• 2017

Purpose: In this study, we attempted to analyze, by using a high-speed camera, the cutting shape as a function of cutting speed and feed rate. We compared the differences in cutting shape between domestic and foreign combines. Methods: Experiments were performed using plastic straws, and the results of two combine cutting blades, one from the Daedong Industry and one from Kuboda, were compared. The quality and performances of cutting were measured at three cutting positions: center and 68 cm to the left and right of the center. The feed rates were 0.6 m/s, 1.1 m/s, 1.6 m/s, and the cutting speeds were 600 RPM, 990 RPM, 1,380 RPM. For each speed, the cutting shape was measured three times, and the entire procedure was also repeated three times. Results: In the experiments, the domestic cutting blade achieved better results than the Japanese cutting blade. These results were obtained by studying the combination of feed rate and cutting speed, with the domestic combine attaining approximately 80% performance of the Japanese combine. We believe that additional data analysis is required, obtained from field experiments. Conclusions: The domestic cutting knives achieved better results than the Japanese cutting knives. These results are estimated from experiments conducted with different feed rates and cutting speeds; an in-depth analysis will require experiments in the real field with actual combines and a combination of multiple variables. Repeating the investigation on the length differences, broken and cut angle with various combinations of feed rate and cutting speed, will surely help to find the optimal cutting speed.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.8
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• pp.51-58
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• 1990

The study was carried out to investigate the viability of mouse embryos bisected at the stages of 8-cell, morula and blastocyst and, also, to find out the feasibility of offspring production by transfer of the bisected blastocysts with Quick-splitting. The results obtained are summarized as follows: 1. The mouse embryos were bisected with bio-cut blade at the stages of 8-cell and morula, and cultured in Medium 2. The bisected embryos were developed to blastocyst stage by 64% and 81%. respectively. 2. The blastocyts which were cultured in Medium 2 after being bisected at the stages of 8-cell and morula were observed normal outgrowth in Ham's F-10 medium by 86% and 90%, respectively. 3. The blastocyts which were Quick-splitted in Medium 2 were observed normal outgrowth by 97%. however, no offspring was obtained by transfer of Quick-splitted blastocysts.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.215-220
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• 2017

This study was conducted to improve the insufficiency of fruit vegetable grafting system developed by National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Rural Development Administration. When the rotary blade cut the stem of scions and rootstocks, the grafting failure at curved cutting surfaces happened. The cutting depth of a tomato seedling by a rotated cutter was calculated 0.11 mm even when the cutting arm length and the maximum stem diameter were 50 mm and 5 mm, respectively. Mathematical analysis and high-speed photography showed that there was no problem by cutting in straight the stem of scions and rootstocks. The compression test of seedling stems to design the optimal shape of gripper showed that stems were not completely restored when they were compressed above 0.8 mm and 0.6 mm in case of rootstocks and scion, respectively. This study found that the bending angle of stem of tomato seedlings at the grafting period was 10 degree on average. The optimal gripper finger was the edge finger type which could be precisely set center point by adjusting the distance between fingers. In addition, it was found that most of seedling could be grasped without damage when the finger-to-finger distances is set to 2.5 mm for scion and 3.0 mm for rootstocks and finger are coated by 1 mm-thick flexible material.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.322-327
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• 2019

This study was conducted to improve the performance of automatic grafting robot using image recognition technique. The stem diameters of tomatoes and cucumber at the time of grafting were $2.5{\pm}0.3mm$ and $2.2{\pm}0.2mm$ for scions and $3.1{\pm}0.7mm$ and $3.6{\pm}0.3mm$ for rootstocks, respectively. The grafting failure was occurred when the different height between scions and rootstocks were over 4 mm and below 2 mm due to the small contact area of both cutting surface. Therefore, it was found that the height difference at the cutting surface of 3 mm is appropriate. This study also found that grafting failure was occurred when the stem diameters of both scions and rootstocks were thin. Therefore, it was suggested to use at least one stem with thicker than the average stem diameter. Field survey on the cutting angle of stems by hand were ranged from 13 to 55 degree for scions and 15 to 67 degree for rootstocks, respectively, which indicates that this could cause the grafting failure problem. However, the automatic grafting robot developed in this study rotates the seedlings 90 degree and then the stems are cut using a cutting blade. The control part of robot use all images taken from grafting process to determine the distance between a center of both ends of stem and a gripper center and then control the rotation angle of a gripper. Overall, this study found that The performance of automatic grafting robot using image recognition technique was superior with the grafting success rates of cucumber and tomato as $96{\pm}3.2%$ and $95{\pm}4%$, respectively.