Risk Assessment and Prediction of Aflatoxin in Agro-Products

Aflatoxin (AFT), highly toxic and carcinogenic to humans, seriously threatens consumption safety of agro-products. It is necessary to conduct risk assessment of aflatoxin contamination in agro-food products to find out critical control points (CCPs) and develop prediction, prevention and control theories and technologies. In this chapter, risk assessment and prediction of aflatoxin contamination in peanut were taken as an example. The values under the limit of detection (LOD) were replaced by zero, 1/2 LOD or LOD according to their respective proportion, and the distribution of values higher than the LOD was fitted by @RISK software. AFB1 dietary exposure was evaluated based on non-parametric probability risk assessment and margin of exposure (MOE). A risk ranking method was adopted for mycotoxins based on food risk expectation ranking. Spatial analysis of AFB1 contamination was conducted using geographic information system (GIS). Average climatic conditions were calculated by Thiessen polygon method and the relationship between AFB1 concentration and average pre-harvest climatic conditions was obtained through multiple regression. To fulfill the purposes of reducing cost, increasing efficiency, maximizing the role of risk assessment and prediction, and improving the quality and safety of agricultural products, we will continuously focus on developing advanced and integrated technologies and solutions

An Enhanced Erasure Code-Based Security Mechanism for Cloud Storage

Cloud computing offers a wide range of luxuries, such as high performance, rapid elasticity, on-demand self-service, and low cost. However, data security continues to be a significant impediment in the promotion and popularization of cloud computing. To address the problem of data leakage caused by unreliable service providers and external cyber attacks, an enhanced erasure code-based security mechanism is proposed and elaborated in terms of four aspects: data encoding, data transmission, data placement, and data reconstruction, which ensure data security throughout the whole traversing into cloud storage. Based on the mechanism, we implement a secure cloud storage system (SCSS). The key design issues, including data division, construction of generator matrix, data encoding, fragment naming, and data decoding, are also described in detail. Finally, we conduct an analysis of data availability and security and performance evaluation. Experimental results and analysis demonstrate that SCSS achieves high availability, strong security, and excellent performance

Object Detection for Caries or Pit and Fissure Sealing Requirement in Children's First Permanent Molars

Dental caries is one of the most common oral diseases that, if left untreated, can lead to a variety of oral problems. It mainly occurs inside the pits and fissures on the occlusal/buccal/palatal surfaces of molars and children are a high-risk group for pit and fissure caries in permanent molars. Pit and fissure sealing is one of the most effective methods that is widely used in prevention of pit and fissure caries. However, current detection of pits and fissures or caries depends primarily on the experienced dentists, which ordinary parents do not have, and children may miss the remedial treatment without timely detection. To address this issue, we present a method to autodetect caries and pit and fissure sealing requirements using oral photos taken by smartphones. We use the YOLOv5 and YOLOX models and adopt a tiling strategy to reduce information loss during image pre-processing. The best result for YOLOXs model with tiling strategy is 72.3 mAP.5, while the best result without tiling strategy is 71.2. YOLOv5s6 model with/without tiling attains 70.9/67.9 mAP.5, respectively. We deploy the pre-trained network to mobile devices as a WeChat applet, allowing in-home detection by parents or children guardian

The mycotox charter: Increasing awareness of, and concerted action for, minimizing mycotoxin exposure worldwide

Mycotoxins are major food contaminants affecting global food security, especially in low and middle-income countries. The European Union (EU) funded project, MycoKey, focuses on “Integrated and innovative key actions for mycotoxin management in the food and feed chains” and the right to safe food through mycotoxin management strategies and regulation, which are fundamental to minimizing the unequal access to safe and sufficient food worldwide. As part of the MycoKey project, a Mycotoxin Charter (charter.mycokey.eu) was launched to share the need for global harmonization of mycotoxin legislation and policies and to minimize human and animal exposure worldwide, with particular attention to less developed countries that lack effective legislation. This document is in response to a demand that has built through previous European Framework Projects—MycoGlobe and MycoRed—in the previous decade to control and reduce mycotoxin contamination worldwide. All suppliers, participants and beneficiaries of the food supply chain, for example, farmers, consumers, stakeholders, researchers, members of civil society and government and so forth, are invited to sign this charter and to support this initiative

Protective effect of nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 overexpression against acute pancreatitis in rats

Objective To investigate the protective effect of nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) overexpression against acute pancreatitis (AP) in rats and the possible mechanism. Methods Thirty-two male SD rats were randomized into negative control group (NC), AP group, Nrf2 overexpression group (Nrf2+/+) and Nrf2+/++AP group. Nrf2 overexpression was induced by injection of a lentiviral vector carrying Nrf2 gene through the tail vein, and the empty viral vector was injected as the control in NC group and AP group. At 48 h after the lentivirus injection, rat models of AP were established in all but the NC group by intraperitoneal injections of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and cerulein. At 24 h after successful modeling, the rats were sacrificed for detecting serum amylase activity and the expressions of Nrf2, heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) in the pancreas using RT-PCR and Western blotting. The histopathological changes of the pancreas were observed using HE staining and scored. Results Serum amylase levels were significantly higher in AP group (200.72±14.56 U/dL) and Nrf2+/++AP group (184.60±11.75 U/dL) than in the NC group (162.48±13.19 U/dL) and Nrf2+/+group (170.34±11.75 U/dL; P < 0.01), and was significantly lower in Nrf2+/++AP group than in AP group (P < 0.05). Nrf2, HO-1 and NQO1 mRNA expressions in the pancreas were significantly increased in Nrf2+/++AP group as compared with those in NC group (P < 0.05). The expression level of Nrf2 mRNA was significantly higher in Nrf2+/++AP group than in AP group (P < 0.05). Similarly, the protein expressions of Nrf2, HO-1 and NQO1 in the pancreas were significantly higher in Nrf2+/++AP group than in NC group, and the expressions of Nrf2 and NQO1 were significantly higher in Nrf2+/++AP group than in AP group (P < 0.05). In NC group and Nrf2+/+ group, HE staining revealed evident pathological changes typical of AP in the pancreas, where a few infiltrating inflammatory cells could be seen in the perivascular and pancreatic stroma. Such changes were alleviated in Nrf2+/++AP group, which also had a significantly reduced score of pancreatic pathology as compared with that in AP group. Conclusion In the rat models of LPS- and cerulean-induced AP, overexpression of Nrf2 gene can alleviate the pancreatic injuries possibly by up-regulating the expressions of HO-1 and NQO1 in the pancreas

Protective effects of epifriedelinol in a rat model of traumatic brain injury assessed with histological and hematological markers

This study evaluated the protective effects of epifriedelinol (EFD) in a rat model of traumatic brain injury (TBI)