Trakia Journal of Sciences, Vol. 15, Suppl. 1, 2017 413 Trakia Journal of Sciences, Vol. 15, Suppl. 1, pp 413-418, 2017 Copyright © 2017 Trakia University Available online at: http://www.uni-sz.bg ISSN 1313-7069 (print) ISSN 1313-3551 (online) doi:10.15547/tjs.2017.s.01.069 АDVANCED COMPUTER-BASED APPROACHES FOR FOOD QUALITY EVALUATION: UPDATED REVIEW P. Veleva-Doneva* Department of Informatics and Mathematics, Faculty of Economics Trakia University, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria ABSTRACT From the point of view of their usage biological resources must be managed in a sustainable manner in order to uphold the social, economic and environmental functions and to contribute to the peoples’ livelihoods. Within the food production and processing industry requirements are focused on improvement of quality control of technologies by incorporating them into precise, computer-based, low-cost methods. The present work is a review of different approaches and tools for computer aided methods for food quality evaluation. Powerful techniques based on Near Infrared Spectroscopy and Aquaphotomics are presented. Key words: Aquaphotomics, NIR Spectroscopy, multivariate data analysis, quality control, food safety INTRODUCTION Lately the good level of public health has become one of the major tasks for improving the quality of human life. The public interest referring to good-quality and production methods of food and food control has significantly enhanced in the last decades. The strategies of many countries are targeted to determine regulatory standards against food fraud, low quality, bacterial control, etc. Their rules are related to hygienic production, storage and transportation. In the meantime, recent researches showed numerous cases of poisoning with ready-to-consumption products dangerous to their users. [8, 9, 13, 16, 29]. The classical techniques for food control are objective and precise but require enormous effort. They are time-consuming, expensive and destructive. The requirement for building innovative engineering methodology for food quality control used directly in farms, on food production lines, is growing. Quick responses are particularly significant in industry, where a solution of some problems is required within minutes. That might allow for appropriate corrective actions, directed toward protecting people’s health to be taken in a timely manner [4, 6, 32, 40]. ___________________________________ *Correspondence to: Petya Veleva-Doneva, Department of Informatics and Mathematics, Faculty of Economics Trakia University, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, tel: 042 699 439; 042 699 438, E-mail: pveleva@uni-sz.bg Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy opens an innovative area in food science, biotechnology, and engineering by examining and describing biological systems via a quick non-destructive monitoring of their interaction with NIR light. This technique is based on the absorption of C–H, N–H, O–H, and S–H molecular bonds that are contained in most raw materials and products and uses the diapason from 780 to 2500 nm of the electromagnetic spectrum [28, 31]. Near-infrared spectroscopy is a flexible technology and has lots of advantages. It allows samples in various physical phases – solids, liquids, pasty and gases, to be measured directly with no pre-treatment. Water has less absorbance in the NIR region compared to absorbance in the mid-infrared one. Thus, aqueous solutions, food or biological samples, which generally contain lots of water, might be measured directly without complicated sample preparation procedures and waste materials such as toxic solvents. Samples could be measured directly through the glass cuvettes, glass vials or even through transparent packaging. Remote measurements using quartz fiber optics are possible and could be used for on-line process monitoring. Due to the non- destructive nature of the analysis, the samples can be used for additional tests. An extra advantage of NIR spectroscopy is that spectra often contain information regarding physical