33 crucian carp (Carassiusauratus) with an average fork length of 20 cm and weight of 250 g were purchased from a local supermarket (Chengdu, China) on September 20, 2019. The fish were transported to the laboratory of the institute of urban agriculture, Chinese academy of agricultural sciences alive and immediately slaughtered by cutting the neck bone. They were stored in a container of room temperature (22˚C ± 2˚C) and 70% humidity for 24 hours. We divided the samples into two groups: the first group of 6 for scanning with UV light at 365 nm. The second group of 27 was stored for the detection of aerobic plate count (APC; a standard freshness evaluation parameter) every 3 hours since the beginning of storage.

Monitoring the count of micro-organisms has been suggested to measure fish freshness [18], in this study we used aerobic plate count (APC) in fish meat as the standard indicator of fish freshness. We detected the APC according to the method described by China National Standard GB 4789.2 (2016). 25 g meat from the dorsal part of the fish samples was weighed aseptically and mixed with 225 mL sterile saline solution, and next homogenized with a Blender (JYL-A100, Joyoung Co., Ltd., China) for 120 s at 10,000 rpm. The resulting meat homogenate was serially diluted in sterile saline solution. Three appropriate portions (1 mL) of serial dilutions were all repeated twice spreading in the Petri dishes, and then mixed well with plate count agar (plate count agar: 5.0 g tryptone, 2.5 g yeast extract, 1.0 g glucose and 15.0 g agar add to distilled 1000 mL water, then adjusted pH at 7.0 ± 0.2, sterilized at 121˚C for 15 min). After the agar solidification, dishes were incubated at 36˚C ± 1˚C for 48 ± 2 h to detect the APC of the samples. The bacterial counts were recorded as colony-forming units (CFU/g). Aerobic plate counts were performed at fish which were stored for 0 h, 3 h, 6 h, 9 h, 12 h, 15 h, 18 h, 21 h, 24 h at room temperature.

We used a machine vision system as referred to in Xu and Sun (2017) [19]. It is shown and described in Figure 1.

This machine vision system includes three main components: a high-resolution camera (Canon 80D digital camera equipped with a Canon EF 18 - 135 nm macro lens (Canon, Tokyo, Japan), with a CPL filter); A UV illumination system (Rsee Corp., Guangdong, China): the light source with excitation wavelength was of 365 nm, by which the fish surface could be strongly excited [17], the lighting was activated only when an image was being taken, a computer (Dell Computer Corp., USA) with a remote capture software installed (version Canon, Japan) to acquire and analyze the images. All images were taken in a dark box to avoid interference from other light sources. For calibrating the camera, the white balance adjustment was manually applied. All images were taken with the same camera specifications (exposure time: 1 s, ISO: 400, f-value: 8, resolution: 1280 × 1024, image type: PNG, no flash). After setting the best illumination, images of fish during 24-hour storage were automatically taken every 10 min by the digital camera and saved in the computer.

Fish images were treated as follows. First, the region of interest (i.e., the whole surface including head and tail) was selected automatically by using an image-processing program written in Python 3. Second, the low-frequency background noise was removed, the intensity of the individual particle images was normalized, the geometric distortions and gray level were corrected, and blurring and reflections were removed from the images. Finally, the color parameters (R value, G value, B value, H value, S value, V value, L* value, a* value, and b* value) in the region of interest were calculated by converting RGB to different color formats [20].

Microbial evaluation of crucian carp samples during storage over a 24 h period at room temperature is shown in Figure 2. The initial microbial load of crucian carp dorsal muscle samples was 12 CFU/g and increased slowly to 405 CFU/g after 15 h storage. It increased sharply after 18 h (2410 CFU/g) of storage onwards, reaching 5655 CFU/g after 24 h in storage. The rapid increase in the APC value began at 18 h storage. This indicates that it is to be recommended that fish, when stored longer than 18 h at room temperature, be well cooked, or it should be stated that they are not fit for human consumption. This result agrees with K value (which is extracted as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) concentration and its breakdown products) as an indicator of freshness to evaluate the various fish types [21]. Furthermore, the direct and exponential relationship (R² = 0.97) between storage time and APC value in crucian carp indicates that the APC value is an effective indicator for expressing freshness.

Images of crucian carp reveal changes in color under UV light from 0 h to 24 h of storage at room temperature (Figure 3). The fish surface initially displayed weak fluorescence and increased with longer storage. The fish surface is covered mainly by scales, which contain 41% - 81% organic protein, including 24% ichthylepidin and 76% collagen. These proteins, which are mostly fluorescence,

could be excited by UV light and express the obvious fluorescence signal [22]. Moreover, the mucus (and epidermis), which is a complex jelly-like fluid formed predominantly by macromolecules and made mainly of proteins [23], covers the surface of the fish, to some extent, to the fluorescence signal on the fish surface. Therefore, the fish surface exhibited fluorescence under UV light. During storage, the micro-organisms are expected to multiply rapidly and consume the proteins into tyrosine in the mucus, which will significantly increase total fluorescence intensity levels [17]. As a result, fluorescence in the image under UV light increased as the time in storage increased.

Figure 4 shows the changes in color parameter on the surface of crucian carp under UV light during storage at room temperature as represented by three color models: RGB, HSV, and L*a*b*. In the RGB color model, R, G, and B in the UV-light image decreased during the first 6 h (B decreased first at 12 h), and then increased until the end of storage. The result of concomitant proportional change in the values of R, G, and B may change the lightness of the fish surface [24]. The HSV color space is like HSI, which is closely related to the physiology of the human eye [25], and the three components (H, S, and V) are relatively

independent. In the HSV color space, H is the color portion of the model, extracted as a number from 0˚ to 360˚. The H value was range in 100˚ to 180˚ (green to cyan) from UV-light image. The S value describes the amount of gray in a color. The V value works in conjunction with saturation and describes the brightness or intensity of the color. In the UV-light image, the S and V values decreased initially until the third hour, after which they increased, with value ranges of 0.15 to 0.3 and 0.16 to 0.23, respectively. The L*a*b* color space is a global color model in which colors are assigned numeric values across different channels. In the UV-light image, L* fluctuated during storage. The a* value decreased during storage under UV light. The b* value decreased in the UV-light image. Possibly, the changes in the L*, a*, and b* values on the fish surface in the UV images were caused by chemical and biochemical reactions owing to exposure to air during long-term storage, causing the darker color and lower reflectance of the fish surface [26] [27].

Furthermore, In the UV-light images, the color parameters R, G, B, H, S, V, and L decreased during the first storage period then increased as storage time increased. Values a* (R² = 0.93) and b* (R² = 0.95) decreased linearly with increased storage time and exhibited a good correlation with storage time. These results indicate that changes in fish-surface color with different lighting methods, in parallel with storage time, can be used as indices for the evaluation of the freshness of crucian carp.

The a* and b* values of the UV-light image, change regularly with the length of storage, indicating that fish-surface color could reliably indicate changes in fish freshness. We plotted the selected color parameters against the standard fish freshness indicator of the APC value, as shown in Figure 5. The APC value in

muscle decreased exponentially with the a* value (R² = 0.97) and b* value (R² = 0.85) in the UV-light image. The APC value and a* value from the UV-light image have a strong exponential relationship, indicating that the a* value from the UV-light image can be used to accurately predict fish freshness. This suggests great potential as a fast and simple method for assessing fish freshness.