Home haemodialysis : trends in technology

Self management and home-based dialysis therapies offer the prospect of improved patient experience and outcomes. To allow more patients to realize these benefits requires changes in technology which focus on maximizing the ease and minimizing the burdens of undertaking home dialysis. These developments are underway.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Trends in technology, trade and consumption likely to impact on microbial food safety

Current and potential future trends in technology, consumption and trade of food that may impact on food-borne disease are analysed and the key driving factors identified focusing on the European Union and, to a lesser extent, accounting for the United States and global issues. Understanding of factors is developed using system-based methods and their impact is discussed in relation to current events and predictions of future trends. These factors come from a wide range of spheres relevant to food and include political, economic, social, technological, regulatory and environmental drivers. The degree of certainty in assessing the impact of important driving factors is considered in relation to food-borne disease. The most important factors driving an increase in the burden of food-borne disease in the next few decades were found to be the anticipated doubling of the global demand for food and of the international trade in food next to a significantly increased consumption of certain high-value food commodities such as meat and poultry and fresh produce. A less important factor potentially increasing the food-borne disease burden would be the increased demand for convenience foods. Factors that may contribute to a reduction in the food-borne disease burden were identified as the ability of governments around the world to take effective regulatory measures as well as the development and use of new food safety technologies and detection methods. The most important factor in reducing the burden of food-borne disease was identified as our ability to first detect and investigate a food safety issue and then to develop effective control measures. Given the global scale of impact on food safety that current and potentially future trends have, either by potentially increasing or decreasing the food-borne disease burden, it is concluded that a key role is fulfilled by intergovernmental organisations and by international standard setting bodies in coordinating the establishment and rolling-out of effective measures that, on balance, help ensure long-term consumer protection and fair international trade. Keywords: Microbial food safety; Food technology; Globalizatio

Policies Improving Environment in North America, But New Challenges Such As Climate Change Need Attention

Environmental conditions in North America have improved due to policies, institutions, data collection and assessment, and regulatory frameworks. Air quality, in particular, continues to improve in response to concerted policy action and favorable trends in technology and energy markets. Drinking water quality is extremely good, although water scarcity is of increasing concern in the region. Meanwhile, a rich network of well-managed protected areas is in place and is helping to conserve biological diversity. However, in recent years environmental challenges have emerged, posing new risks to human wellbeing and ecosystems. Climate change is generating impacts across the region, and aggressive hydrocarbon extraction methods bring the possibility of increased emissions, water use and induced seismicity. However, ongoing trends in renewable energy, rising efficiencies, and energy storage technologies demonstrate the potential to achieve a sustainable energy system. The GEO-6 report looks at the state of play in key areas

TRENDS IN THE ORGANIZATION OF WORK IN THE UNITED STATES

Explored in this paper are the potential effects on the American capitalist system of the latest trends in technology and the division of labor.http://web.ku.edu/~starjrn

Publication trends in technology roadmapping

This study aims to identify the trends in technology roadmapping based on the bibliometric analysis of more than two decades of references. The analysis focused on the types of publications (e.g., journal and conference), contexts of publications (e.g., international and national), and key themes (e.g., NPD and R&D) extracted into six groups of five-year interval time-periods each.The analysis on 699 references has revealed the interest on technology roadmapping was only started to increase since 1996-2000 time-periods with 38 publications, and have reached the highest peak with 305 publications in 2006-2010 time-periods.In details, both journal and conference were almost equal in numbers of publications, in which Technological Forecasting and Social Change was found to be the top journal, while IEEE is the top organizer with PICMET as the leading conference. Despite of most of the articles were written with generic titles, 12 of them have been identified written on international context (e.g., Asia Pacific and Europe), 78 on national context (e.g., China and Japan), and 14 on organizational context (e.g., Siemens and Motorola).In addition, the analysis has also found 17 key themes of studies led by ICT, innovation, and energy. Although the analysis was based on a single source of database with some limitations, future studies should pay more attention on the importance of technology roadmapping on the international context, emphasis on developing countries on the national context, focus on SME on the organizational context, and explore the applications of technology roadmapping on the non-technological themes

The 100th meeting of NEC 10 since 1924

The Dutch standards committee NEC 10 follows the international IEC TC 10. During one hundred years, the topics and scope changed as they were developed. In this article, we highlight the trends in technology since its establishment in 1924