Metals play a crucial role in the metabolic pathways during the growth of vegetable plants. The presence of heavy metals or trace metals also takes a vital role in the nutrient quality of a vegetable. The vegetables are an inevitable part of the human diet and provide essential nutrients to maintain the normal functioning of human health and growth. The application of fertilizers and pesticides facilitates the accumulation of heavy metals by the vegetables grown in the fields. Consumption of heavy metals beyond the permissible limit along with vegetables may impact human health. Moreover, the production of nutritious food and its safety is an important aspect of the measure of any nation’s economy. Considering all these points, the present work was undertaken to analyze the heavy metal contents in the six mostly produced and consumed vegetables grown in Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), a tribal-dominated region of the state Assam, India. The vegetables analyzed were fern leaves (Diplazium esculentum), jute leaves (Corchorus olitorius), green arum leaves (Colocasia esculenta), pointed gourd (Trichosanthes dioica), yard long bean (Vigna unguiculata ssp. Sesquipedalis) and spiny gourd (Momordica dioica). The metals analyzed were Cu, Fe, Ni, and Zn. The presence of heavy metals was detected in all the vegetable samples.

The present study was designed to evaluate the amino acid profiles and anti-nutritional contents of six wild vegetables viz. Cardamine hirsuta, Melothria perpusilla, Cryptolepis sinensis, Persicaria chinensis, Lippia javanica and Polygonum perfoliatum from Assam, India. The total amino acid detected was found the highest in P. chinensis as 25.92 mg/g dry weight (DW) followed by P. perfoliatum (19.68 mg/g DW) and M. perpusilla (14.57 mg/g DW), and the lowest amino acid was observed in L. javanica (0.62 mg/g DW). However, the highest non-essential amino acids (NEAA) were detected in P. perfoliatum (3.89 mg/g DW). Among the NEAA, aspartic acid and glutamic acid were detected in all the six plant species which ranged from 0.01 to 0.33 mg/g DW and 0.02 to o.75 mg/g DW, respectively. In this study, the highest concentration of essential amino acids (EAA) was detected in C. hirsuta (1.72 mg/g DW) followed by M. perpusilla (0.95 mg/g DW) and P. chinensis (0.67 mg/g DW). Besides EAA and NEAA, some other amino acids such as phosphoserine, OH-proline, amino adipic acid, phosphoenolamine, and taurine are the most common which were detected. In the study, variable amounts of anti-nutritional contents were found and discussed herein.

Transportation is one of the most important functions of logistics management because of its impact on both the level of customer service provision and the organization’s cost structure. The study explores the transportation cost optimization strategies and how they affect the supply chain performance of Shea nuts in the Agro-processing industries in Ghana. The quantitative study design was adopted and utilized to solicit data. With a sample size of 204 respondents. Data was analyzed using multiple linear regression in Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS v20). The results revealed interesting findings in the supply chain within the institution as it seeks to assert that transportation is seen to be effective and contribute highly to firms output when Agro companies use outsourcing and pooling as means of transport. From the results, the supply chain correlated positively and significantly with outsourcing and pooling as transport optimization practices in Agro firms supply chain. This paper adds to the existing literature on the supply chain systems of Agro processing firms but departs from previous studies which seek to concentrate not on the transport optimization of the Agro processing firms but rather on the challenges, production, and profit maximization of these firms. Our study is unique unlike any otheIn this research, a heterogeneous tricomposite catalyst was developed to facilitate biodiesel synthesis reaction. The Musa ABB (Kachkal) banana trunk was explored as the biowaste for the preparation of the catalyst. The trunk of the plant was cut into pieces, dried and burnt into ashes, and underwent heat treatment at 550 ℃ for 2 h. The calcined trunk was treated with potassium carbonate and CuO and the final composite was named a calcined banana trunk-K2CO3-CuO (CTKC) catalyst. The CTKC catalyst was employed in the production of rice bran pongamia oil methyl ester (RPOME) from rice bran and Pongamia pinnata (RP) oil blend in 1:1 ratio. The CTKC catalyst was characterized via XRD, and FT-IR analytical tools. Similarly, FT-IR and 1H NMR were employed to examine RP oil blend and RPOME. Under the optimized condition of 7 wt.% catalyst amount, 9:1 methanol to oil molar ratio (MTOMR), and 65 ℃ reaction temperature, the highest biodiesel yield was found to be 94.07 %. The density of RPOME was found to be 0.8811 g/cm3 which fits into the specified limit of EN 14214 and the kinematic viscosity of RPOME was found to be 3.5403 mm2/s which falls under both ASTM D6751 and EN 14214 standards. In brief, the CTKC catalyst functions as an effective heterogeneous catalyst for the synthesis of biodiesel from a binary blend of edible oil (rice bran) and non-edible oil (Pongamia pinnata). This represents an innovative strategy to tackle the rising pollution caused by diesel and petroleum-derived from fossil fuels used in vehicles. r research previously authored as it seeks to reveal the option of transport optimization that is cost effective and efficiently productive for Agro processing firms to adopt.