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Smallholder farmers in northern Punjab struggle to adopt sustainable practices like essential oil extraction, despite their potential to improve livelihoods. Core elements from theory of planned behavior, technology acceptance model, and innovation diffusion theory are amalgamated to develop an adoption model, which is subsequently analyzed using structural equation model. The results unveil significant mediating effects involving attitudes (perceived usefulness, easiness), normative concerns (social influence), and indicating maximum variation (R²) regarding by-product preparation (0.76) and steam distillation (0.65). The model successfully accounts moderating effects of socioeconomic variables, indicating a robust association among latent variables. Hence, improving the adoption behavior among smallholders necessitates a focus on socio-psychological and socioeconomic factors.

 

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 The effect of different extraction methods (soxtec apparatus, ultrasound, solvent and wet rendering) on yield, quality and fatty acids composition of oil extracted from the offal of common carp (Cyprinus carpio) was compared. For determination of the oil quality, PV, TBA, FFA, conjugated diene, non-enzymatic browning indexes and fatty acids composition were measured. Results showed that soxtec apparatus had the highest efficiency compared to other extraction methods. In addition, ultrasound extraction had higher yield in comparison to solvent methods. Moreover, the wet rendering method had lower oil yield. The quality indexes of oil extracted with ultrasound had significantly lower quality compared to other extraction methods. Hence, the oil extracted with wet rendering methods had better quality. Oil extracted with all of the methods contained high amounts of MUFA, also oil extracted by ultrasound method had the highest content of DHA and EPA as compared with other extraction methods.

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Sesame oil samples from cities of Mazandaran province were collected and analyzed for fatty acids composition, iodine value, saponification value, unsaponifiable matter, moisture and sedimentation contents, metal content, free fatty acids, peroxide value, anisidine value, as well as oxidative stability using Rancimat and Schaal oven tests and compared with national standards and international codex standards. Results of the authenticity tests (fatty acids composition, iodine value, saponification value and unsaponifiable matter) and some quality determination tests (iron and copper contents, free fatty acids and peroxide value) were in the ranges of the Codex standard and Iranian national standards for sesame oil. However, 78% of the samples had higher moisture content, 33% of the samples had higher sedimentation content and 11% of the samples had higher lead content than the standards. The average induction period of oxidation at 110 °C was 8.3 hours. The induction period of oxidation in the Schaal oven test was in the range of 21.9-31.9 days. 78% of samples had higher moisture content, 100% had higher free fatty acids content, and 100% showed lower oxidative stability than the national standards of frying and cooking. 22% of the samples showed peroxide value higher than that in national frying oil standard. Though the authenticity of the sesame oil samples from oil extraction stores was verified but the quality parameters of oils did not match the standards, completely. Because of incompatibility of the samples with standards and their low oxidative stability, they were not suitable for frying or long-term storage.

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In this research to model the process of extracting oil from Niger seeds using the combinational pretreatment of microwave-pulsed electric field three microwave time levels of (0, 100, and 200 seconds) and three electric field intensity levels of (0, 2.5 and 5 kV/cm) were used and after applying these pretreatments, the oil of seeds were extracted using the screw press with different speeds (11 to 57 rpm) and the efficiency of oil extraction process, density, color, oxidative stability, phenolic compounds and protein amount of meal were considered. The artificial neural network tool was used to predict the variations process. Through studying and examining various networks, the feed forward back propagation network with 6-9-3 topologies and with correlation coefficient of more than 0.995 and mean squared error less than 0.001 using logarithm sigmoid activation function, resilient learning pattern and learning process of 1000 were determined as the best neural method. On the other hand the results indicated that an increase in the microwave time and also in the electric field intensity at first led to increase in the efficiency of oil extraction process but with more increase in these two parameters the efficiency amount of oil extraction process was decreased. Also with increase in the microwave time, electric field intensity and the rotational speed of screw press the acidity amount of oils was increased too. The results obtained from selected optimized models were evaluated too and these models with high correlation coefficient (over 0.918) were able to predict the variation process of oil samples produced using microwave-pulsed electric field pretreatment.  

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