Roumiana Tsenkova

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• Dr. Eng. , Dr. Agr.
• Professor (Full) at Kobe University

Oxidation‐reduction (Redox) reactions are crucial for many biological processes, yet there is no method available to evaluate redox states in a non‐invasive, continuous manner. Here we introduce a novel approach to distinguish between reduced and oxidized states of glutathione (GSH and GSSG, respectively) using aquaphotomics near‐infrared (NIR) spe...

This review describes the potentials of a new omics science in the dairy sector, particularly regarding the improvement of animal health and welfare. The three-dimensional network of water hydrogen bonds is a dynamic entity, subject to the influence of its components and properties of the environment. For this reason, it is sensitive to any chemica...

Currently, the majority of methods to monitor cancer treatment through the analysis of body fluids are based on a highly selective detection of single molecules or cells. In this study, we are considering the analysis of the aqueous medium of liquid samples, that is, water, itself, using aquaphotomics and near‐infrared spectroscopy (NIR) for spectr...

We investigate Quantum Electrodynamics corresponding to the holographic brain theory introduced by Pribram to describe memory in the human brain. First, we derive a super-radiance solution in Quantum Electrodynamics with non-relativistic charged bosons (a model of molecular conformational states of water) for coherent light sources of holograms. Ne...

Report about The 3rd Aquaphotomics European Conference, organized in Rome, 2023 by the Italian Society of near-infrared Spectroscopy (SISNIR https://www.sisnir.org/ ) and The Aquaphotomics International Society

Water, a major component of numerous bio-systems and food matrices, was proven to have a crucial role in conferring different functionalities as a result of different molecular structure. This dynamic behavior was long considered a limiting factor until a novel scientific discipline – aquaphotomics showed that it can be utilized as a unique tool in...

Experiments demonstrated that visible and near-infrared (Vis-NIR) spectroscopy is a highly reliable tool for determining the nutritional status of plants. Although numerous studies on various kinds of plants have been conducted, there are only a few summaries of the research findings regarding the absorbance bands in the visible and near-infrared r...

Since its birth in 2005, when introduced by Prof [...]

Fresh-cut leafy vegetables are one of the most perishable products because they readily deteriorate in quality even during cold storage and have a relatively short shelf life. Since these products are in high demand, methods for rigorous quality control and estimation of freshness that are rapid and non-destructive would be highly desirable. The ob...

The objective of this study was to use aquaphotomics and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to follow the changes in strawberries during cold storage in the refrigerator with an electric field generator (supercooling fridge, SCF) and without it (control fridge, CF). The NIR spectra of strawberries stored in these refrigerators were collected over the...

The mixing water used for cement concrete has a significant effect on the physical properties of the material after hardening; however, other than the upper limit for the mixed impurities, not enough consideration has been given to the functions and characteristics of water at the molecular level. In this study, we investigated the effect of four d...

Sound affects the medium it propagates through and studies on biological systems have shown various properties arising from this phenomenon. As a compressible media and a “collective mirror”, water is influenced by all internal and external influences, changing its molecular structure accordingly. The water molecular structure and its changes can b...

This study aims to evaluate the ability of absorbance spectra in the near-infrared (NIR) region to predict the number of cells for different cell lines. The cancerous cell lines were human cervix adenocarcinoma (HeLa) and human prostate carcinoma (DU145), and L929 was a normal mouse skin fibroblast. The number of cells varied from 50,000 to 275,000...

This research study developed milk spectral data-driven approach, called Adaptive Spectral Model for Abnormality Detection - ASMAD, for detection of physiological abnormalities of individual dairy cows. The algorithm is based on the logic that milk spectra of each individual cow is highly animal-specific, which means it could be used as a respectiv...

Double-filtration plasmapheresis (DFPP) is a blood cleaning technique that enables the removal of unwanted substances from the blood. In our case study, we performed near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy measurements on the human hand tissue before and after a specific DFPP treatment (INUSpheresis with a TKM58 filter), along with NIR measurements of the...

Presently, mammalian cell lines are the most utilized hosts for the production of biopharmaceuticals. Optical spectroscopy is extensively used for the physical or physiological measurements of cellular features to study the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of different cancers. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and aquaphotomics are ubiquitous te...

Water spectrum of any aqueous system contains information about OH covalent and hydrogen bonds that are highly influenced by the environment and the rest of the molecules in the system. When aquaphotomics is used to analyze the water near infrared (NIR) spectra, the information about the water molecular structure can be obtained as a function of in...

The development of non-destructive methods for early detection of cold stress of plants and the identification of cold-tolerant cultivars is highly needed in crop breeding programs. Current methods are either destructive, time-consuming or imprecise. In this study, soybean leaves’ spectra were acquired in the near infrared (NIR) range (588–1025 nm)...

In this chapter, a method for the determination of milk urea nitrogen (MUN) using short wavelength near-infrared (NIR) analysis of non-homogenized raw milk will be presented. NIR spectra of 183 non-homogenized milk samples from seven early lactation cows with different health statuses (healthy and diagnosed with mastitis) were measured at 40 °C, in...

Mastitis is one of the most common and costly diseases in dairy cows. Early diagnosis of this disease using non-destructive methods which would be easy to implement in automatic milking systems is a matter of pressing concern. In this chapter, the potential of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for realizing this purpose will be investigated. In tot...

In this chapter, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) will be presented as a core technology for precision dairy farming, based on the characteristics of NIRS through which it provides information at the molecular level for each dairy animal. For this purpose, NIR spectral acquisition of milk samples was organized to be performed for 25 cows with diff...

Two-dimensional (2D) correlation analysis of non-homogenized milk near-infrared (NIR) spectra in the 700–1,100 nm wavelength region was performed with the objective to assess the changes in milk composition which occur when somatic cell count (SCC) levels vary. According to the 2D synchronous correlation map, increases in SCC levels are synchronous...

The composition of biological fluids such as milk, blood and urine reflects the health status of living organisms. This chapter explores the possibility of utilizing near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to obtain information about the health status of dairy animals using milk, urine and blood. The study followed the health status of four Holstein cows...

Acquiring information about the fatty acids profile in cow milk is an important feedback for managing feed at the level of individual cows and improving the milk’s nutritional value. This chapter explores the feasibility of using near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy for measuring some of the most common dietary fatty acids (FA) in liquid, thawed cow mi...

In this chapter, short wavelength near-infrared (SW-NIR) spectroscopy was utilized to collect spectra in the region 700–1,100 nm for non-homogenized milk with the purpose of somatic cell count (SCC) determination using partial least squares regression (PLSR) analysis. Near-infrared (NIR) spectra were acquired using milk samples from 14 cows, with t...

Water is one of the dominant contributors to the milk near-infrared (NIR) spectra due to the strong absorption bands of the OH group. It is often considered a major obstacle in the NIR spectroscopy of milk, because the strong absorbance bands of water hide much weaker absorbance bands of its minor constituents, making the detection and measurements...

The objective of this investigation was to examine the relationship between the milk composition and the near-infrared spectra of rumen juice and blood plasma and between the milk spectra and rumen juice and blood plasma constituents. Samples of these body fluids were acquired simultaneously from 16 Holstein cows and their transmittance spectra mea...

The research work presented in this book started with the simple question, “What is needed to produce a good yoghurt?” and with the apparently simple answer that “Good yoghurt comes from good milk coming from healthy, adequately-nourished cows.”

This chapter explores the feasibility of near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy for the diagnosis of mastitis in dairy cows. The experiment was performed by collecting milk and urine samples from 7 Holstein cows during a period of 28 days, starting from the 7th day after calving, resulting in total of 196 milk and urine samples. Milk samples were analyze...

In this chapter, two-dimensional (2D) correlation analysis has been applied to analyze the near-infrared (NIR) spectra of non-homogenized milk samples in relation to concentration of milk constituents and to analyze concentration variations between the constituents themselves. NIR spectra were acquired in the wavelength region of 700–1,100 nm. As a...

The potential of near-infrared spectroscopy for measuring the lactose content of non-homogenized milk and the influence of the spectral region, sample thickness and spectral preprocessing on the accuracy of determination were studied. Transmittance (T) spectra of milk samples were obtained in the wavelength range from 400 to 2,500 nm with sample th...

This chapter will present a novel approach for estrus detection in dairy cows using near-infrared (NIR) spectra of raw milk and blood serum. The aquaphotomics approach focuses analysis on changes in the spectral pattern of water in milk, based on the understanding that water in body fluids or tissues is an intrinsic matrix which changes in response...

This chapter will show the results of applying short wavelength near-infrared spectroscopy (SW-NIRS) for measuring the somatic cell count (SCC) in non-homogenized, raw milk using the multiple linear regression method. Near-infrared (NIR) spectra of individual samples of non-homogenized milk from seven cows were measured daily using test tubes, in t...

Near-infrared (NIR) spectra in the short wavelength region were collected from the dairy cows’ udder tissue during a two-year experimental period with the purpose of mastitis diagnosis based on the somatic cell count in milk (SCC). The spectra were collected in vivo, from each udder quarter. Soft independent modeling of class analogies (SIMCA) anal...

Contemporary management of dairy farms involves automated milking systems that control the production process and are opening the way for the development of precision dairy farming on a worldwide level. Such trend makes it clear that methods for milk quality control for the near future will need to be easily incorporated into the existing automated...

This chapter reports the results of evaluation of near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy for measurements of fat content in the raw milk and the influences of spectral region, sample thickness and different spectral preprocessing techniques on the measurement accuracy. Transmittance (T) spectra of 260 milk samples were acquired in the wavelength range fr...

This chapter will present near-infrared aquaphotomics as a tool for disease diagnosis. Near-infrared (NIR) spectra of non-homogenized milk was acquired in the region 1,100–2,500 nm with the objective to measure somatic cell count (SCC) (Tsenkova et al. in J Anim Sci 79:2550–2557, 2001). Over a period of 28 days, milk from seven Holstein cows was co...

Mastitis is a widespread disease causing substantial economic loses to dairy industry. This chapter reports the results of the investigation performed with an aim to use the wavelet transformation of the near-infrared (NIR) spectra of milk for rapid screening and early diagnosis of mastitis infection in dairy cows. The experiment was performed over...

In this chapter, the influence of animal health status on the accuracy of protein measurement in raw cow milk using near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy will be investigated. A novel analysis method for measurement of protein content based on the short-wavelength NIR spectra of non-homogenized, raw milk was developed. The NIR spectra of non-homogenized...

This chapter explores the influence of different factors on the performance of near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy for measurement of somatic cell count (SCC). Two different experimental studies were designed in order to investigate the influence of spectral region, sample thickness and measurement mode (at-line and on-line). In the first experiment,...

The quality of raw milk influences all subsequent steps in production of dairy products, and it directly affects food safety and human health. Ensuring quality testing of the raw milk presents an essential requirement of the contemporary dairy farming. Compositional changes of milk can be used for the precise monitoring of not only milk quality, bu...

The objective of this chapter was examination of how mastitis affects the accuracy of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) measurements of standard milk constituents in non-homogenized milk. For this purpose, transmittance spectra of milk were acquired in the 1,100–2,400 nm region and quantitative analysis performed using partial least squares regress...

The feasibility of using near-infrared spectroscopy for measurements of the total protein in non-homogenized milk and the influences of spectral region, sample thickness and spectral preprocessing technique was examined. Transmittance (T) spectra of raw milk samples were acquired in the wavelength range from 400 to 2,500 nm using quartz sample cell...

This chapter investigates the hypothesis that near-infrared (NIR) spectra of milk are sensitive to changes in various conditions or states the dairy animal experiences. For this purpose, an artificial neural network (ANN) was used to find the relationship between the type of feed administrated to the animal and the respective NIR milk spectra. Sixt...

This chapter will explore the influence of two factors—sample thickness and individuality of each animal—on the accuracy of milk composition prediction by near-infrared spectroscopy in the region from 700 to 1,100 nm. Samples of unhomogenized milk, 260 in total, were collected from three different dairy cows during the process of milking. Transmitt...

This chapter seeks to answer two questions: What is the potential of near-infrared spectroscopy in the 1,100–2,400 nm region for measuring the fat, total protein and lactose content of unhomogenized, raw milk; and How do the characteristics of each individual animal influence the accuracy of prediction of milk composition (Tsenkova et al. in J Anim...

This book is the result of more than 20 years of experience in working with near-infrared spectroscopy for raw milk analysis. The totality of this work presents extensive possibilities for milk spectral measurements that can be carried out in dairy. Moving beyond the standard milk components such as fat, protein, or lactose, this book presents near...

Current approaches to the quality control of water are unsatisfying due to either a high cost or the inability to capture all of the relevant information. In this study, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) with aquaphotomics as a novel approach was assessed for the discrimination of natural, processed and aged water samples. Temperature perturbation...

Common practice in curve fitting of overlapped spectral features often imparts overextending the number of optimized parameters, resulting in increased model complexity and exacerbated sensitivity to initial conditions, that ultimately leads to inflated uncertainty in values of optimized parameters. We introduce a lightweight operator that unifies...

In vivo monitoring of rice (Oryza sativa L.) seed germination and seedling growth under general conditions in closed Petri dishes containing agar base medium at room temperature (temperature = 24.5 ± 1 °C, relative humidity = 76 ± 7% (average ± standard deviation)), and induced degenerated callus formation with plant growth regulator, were performe...

Water activity is an important phenomenon not yet explained in the terms of water molecular structure. This paper aims to find the relationship between the water activity and water molecular structure of the rice germ, based on its spectral pattern which can be measured using non-destructive technology. Aquaphotomics near-infrared spectroscopy was...

A brief report outlining what was the most interesting at the latest Aquaphotomics Conference, and why you should attend next time

In near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), the linear relationship between absorbance and an absorbing compound concentration has been strictly defined by the Bouguer-Beer-Lambert law only for the case of transmission measurements of nonscattering media. However, various quantitative calibrations have been successfully built both on reflectance measurem...

This study was aimed at two objectives: 1) explore the possibility of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to determine the content of common dietary fatty acids (FAs) and fat content in cow's liquid milk for better individual cow's feed management; 2) using aquaphotomics obtain better understanding of interaction between water molecular structure and...

Automated quality control could have a substantial economic impact on the dairy industry. At present, monitoring of yogurt production is performed by sampling for microbiological and physicochemical measurements. In this study, Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) is proposed for non-invasive automated control of yogurt production and better understan...

Isosbestic (equal absorption) points in the IR and NIR spectra of liquid water are a well known feature and they witness the existence of two populations of oscillators in the probed system. Despite it is a well known experimental fact, in the mainstream molecular dynamics approach the proposed theoretical explanations for it are not able to elucid...

Glucose is not only widely used as an energy source, glycosylation of protein, and drought tolerance in living organisms, but its polymerization and degradation are also important in the industrial and agricultural fields. Understanding the interaction between carbohydrate and water molecules is desirable because most of these reactions occur in an...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Aquaphotomics utilizes water-light interaction for in-depth exploration of water, its structure and role in aqueous and biologic systems. The aquagram, a major analytical tool of aquaphotomics, allows comparison of water molecular structures of different samples by comparing their respective absorbance spectral patterns. Temperature is the stronges...

Currently, the water quality assessment is based on determination of a range of physico-chemical, and microbiological parameters, which is costly, time-consuming and requires multiple tests. Aquaphotomics strategy for water monitoring is based on the principle that the spectra of water are sensitive to all the chemical and physical perturbations, a...

Aquaphotomics is a young scientific discipline based on innovative knowledge of water molecular network, which as an intrinsic part of every aqueous system is being shaped by all of its components and the properties of the environment. With a high capacity for hydrogen bonding, water molecules are extremely sensitive to any changes the system under...

Background Isosbestic (equal absorption) points in the IR and NIR spectra of liquid water are a well-known feature and they witness the existence of two populations of oscillators in the probed system. Despite it is a well-known experimental fact, in the mainstream molecular dynamics approach the proposed theoretical explanations for it are not abl...

The research team of Kobe University’s Graduate School of Agriculture Science, led by Professor Dr Roumiana Tsenkova and a research group from Agrobioinstitute in Sofia, Bulgaria led by Professor Dr Dimitar Djilianov, recently made a significant step forward in understanding the “drying without dying” phenomenon in resurrection plants – a small gro...

Plant stress responses are complex phenomena encompassing an array of changes at molecular and cellular level. They leave imprint on the molecular structure of water in the plant tissues which can be measured in vivo , in a completely non-destructive and reagent-free way, using aquaphotomics near infrared spectroscopy. Analysis of the near infrared...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0960336018824307

Haberlea rhodopensis is a resurrection plant with an extremely high desiccation tolerance. Even after long periods of almost full desiccation, its physiological functions are recovered shortly upon re-watering. In order to identify physiological strategies which contribute to its remarkable drought stress tolerance we used near infrared spectroscop...

Aquaphotomics is a novel scientific discipline involving the study of water and aqueous systems. Using light-water interaction, it aims to extract information about the structure of water, composed of many different water molecular conformations using their absorbance bands. In aquaphotomics analysis, specific water structures (presented as water a...

Glucose is the most abundant carbohydrate found in living organisms. It exists as two anomers: α-D-glucose and β-D-glucose, which differ in how the hydroxyl group on the C1 carbon is directed. In solutions, the ratio between α- and β-D-glucose is typically 4:6 but can vary depending on the surrounding ions or temperature. In this study, we obtained...

Nowadays a quick and inexpensive method, which allows rapid, in vivo comprehensive probiotic bacteria identification, is needed. To elucidate a new concept to evaluate probiotic bacteria, near infrared spectroscopy with aquaphotomics were applied to monitor the growth of eight Lactobacillus bulgaricus and one Lactobacillus gasseri bacteria strains....

Cadmium (Cd) is a common industrial pollutant with long biological half-life, which makes it as a cumulative toxicant. Near-infrared spectroscopy has been successfully used for quick and accurate assessment of Cd content in agricultural materials, but the development of a quick detection method for ground and drinking water samples is equal importa...

In what appears to be a trivial operation in which the averaged spectrum of solvent is subtracted from the spectra of solutions, can be a misleading step in improving reproducibility of vibrational spectra. Near-infrared spectra of pure water and glycine solutions were used to quantify instrumental and spectral variations, and examine its influence...

Since the precision and accuracy level of a chemometric model is highly influenced by the quality of the raw spectral data, it is very important to evaluate the recorded spectra and describe the erroneous regions before qualitative and quantitative analyses or detailed band assignment. This paper provides a collection of basic spectral analytical p...

Raw spectral data used for the evaluations presented in this study. Additional data sets and short “read me” files with explanations are provided to show results of repeated tests supporting the statement on the instrument flaw. (ZIP)

Carbohydrate is one of the most abundant biological molecules on the earth. Monosaccharide is the minimal unit of all carbohydrates; thus knowledge of monosaccharide is useful for other sugar complexes. In human body, most of monosaccharide solvate in water. Therefore, the molecular behavior of monosaccharide and water molecules in hydration shell...

For promoting in situ conservation, it is important to estimate the density distribution of fertile individuals, and there is a need for developing an easy monitoring method to discriminate between physiological states. To date, physiological state has generally been determined by measuring hormone concentration using radioimmunoassay or enzyme imm...

Near infrared spectroscopy is an overtone spectroscopy regarded as a quick and non-destructive method that provides analytical solutions for components that represent approximately 1% or more of the total mass of the investigated composite samples. Aquaphotomics offers the possibility for disentanglement of information remaining hidden in the spect...

Currently, more than 20% of extant mammal species are on the verge of extinction. 1 For most of them, in situ conservation is difficult, mainly due to the destruction of their habitat. Therefore, instead of in situ conservation, the demand for ex situ conservation is rapidly increasing. To maintain a certain number of individuals of a given species...

Development of efficient screening method coupled with cell functionality evaluation is highly needed in contemporary microbiology. The presented novel concept and fast non-destructive method brings in to play the water spectral pattern of the solution as a molecular fingerprint of the cell culture system. To elucidate the concept, NIR spectroscopy...

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation causes cellular DNA damage, among which cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) are responsible for a variety of genetic mutations. Although several approaches have been developed for detection of CPDs, conventional methods require time-consuming steps. Aquaphotomics, a new approach based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS)...

The poor of the world depends directly on water and other natural resources for their livelihoods. Water resources must therefore be managed in a sustainable manner in order to maintain the economic, social and environmental functions and to contribute to the livelihoods of people. 2 - Advancements in sensor technologies and processing algorithms h...

The purpose of this research was to develop rapid and cost-effective method for oestrus detection in dairy cows by means of near infrared spectroscopy and aquaphotomics, using raw milk from individual cows. We found that aquaphotomics approach showed consistent specific water spectral pattern of milk at the oestrus periods of the investigated Holst...

Summary: The samples provided (especially the oil-water mixture) were physically analysed in two ways. On the one hand, a viscosity measurement was carried out and, based on this, supplemented with a dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurement. Motivation: An oil-water mixture is characterised by its homogeneity. Based on the assumption that it sh...

The paper presents the approaches, methods and tools for assessment of main quality features of grain samples which are based on color image and spectra analyses. Visible features like grain color, shape, and dimensions are extracted from the object images. Information about object color and surface texture is obtained from the object spectral char...

Aquaphotomics is a new discipline that provides a framework for understanding changes in water molecular system presented as a water spectral pattern, to mirror the rest of the solution and to give a holistic description related to system functionality. One of its main purposes is to identify water bands as main coordinates of future absorbance pat...

Interionic distances are shorter in concentrated ionic solutions, thus instigating the interaction and overlap of hydration shells, as ions become separated by only one or two layers of water molecules. The simultaneous interaction of water with two oppositely charged ions has, so far, only been investigated by computer simulation studies, because...

The formation of amyloid fibrils proceeds via a nucleation-dependent mechanism in which nucleation phase is generally associated with a high free energy resulting in the rate-limiting step. On the basis of this kinetic feature, the nucleation is one of the most crucial phases controlling the pathogenesis of amyloidoses, but little is known about th...