Food Leftover Practices among Consumers in Selected Countries in Europe, South and North America

Citation: Koppel, K., Higa, F., Godwin, S., Gutierrez, N., Shalimov, R., Cardinal, P., . . . Chambers, E. (2016). Food Leftover Practices among Consumers in Selected Countries in Europe, South and North America. Foods, 5(3), 14. doi:10.3390/foods5030066Foodborne illnesses may be related to many food production factors with home practices of consumers playing an important role in food safety. Consumer behavior for handling food leftovers has been studied, however little work on comparisons among countries has been published. The objective of this study was to investigate home food leftover practices of people from North American, South American, and European countries. Surveys were conducted with approximately 100 or more consumers in Argentina, Colombia, the United States, Estonia, Italy, Russia, and Spain. The participants responded to questions related to the length of time different types of food leftovers; such as meat, fresh salads, or restaurant dishes would be kept refrigerated or would be left at room temperature before refrigeration. Researchers also investigated how consumers would determine if the food was still safe for consumption. Potentially risky behaviors were observed in all seven countries. For instance, 55.8% of Estonians, 25% of Russians and 25.8% of Argentinean participants left food out at room temperature for several hours before storing in the refrigerator. Furthermore, 25%-29% of Colombian, Estonian, and Spanish consumers would look, smell, and taste leftovers to determine its probable safety. Correct handling of leftovers is an important aspect of consumer food safety. Although the surveys cannot be representative of all consumers in each country, they do provide an initial overview of comparative practices for handling leftovers among different countries. This provides government and educators with information on potential universal and unique consumer food safety issues related to handling leftover foods among various countries

Cosmic radio noise absorption events associated with equatorward drifting arcs during a substorm growth phase

Cosmic radio noise absorption (CNA) events associated with equatorward drifting arcs during a substorm growth phase are studied by using simultaneous optical auroral, IRIS imaging riometer and EISCAT incoherent scatter radar measurements. The CNA is generally attributed to energetic particle precipitation in the D-region. However, it has been argued that plasma irregularities or enhanced electron temperature (<i>T<sub>e</sub></i>) in the E-region could also produce CNA. Both of the latter mechanisms are related to intense electric fields in the ionosphere. We present two events which occur during a substorm growth phase in the evening MLT sector. In both of the events, an auroral arc is drifting equatorward, together with a region of CNA (auroral absorption bay) located on the equatorward side and outside of the arc. Both of the events are associated with enhanced D-region electron density on the equatorward side of the auroral arc, but in the second event, a region of intense electric field and enhanced electron temperature in the E-region is also located on the equatorward side of the arc. We show that in the studied events neither plasma instabilities nor enhanced <i>T<sub>e</sub></i> play a significant role in producing the measured CNA, but the CNA in the vicinity of the equatorward drifting arcs is produced by D-region energetic electron precipitation.<br><br><b> Key words.</b> Ionosphere (auroral ionosphere; particle precipitation; electric fields and currents

Program compaction for real-time applications

This paper presents a method of program compaction based on the frequency characteristics of program behavior. The proposed method keeps in the compiled form only frequently executed portions of programs and stores infrequently executed portions of programs in a compacted interpreted form, and dynamically unpacks and loads them into the memory for execution only when they are requested. Determination of infrequently executed code is done by estimating the execution frequency of the program's basic blocks based on the known distribution functions of its input parameters. It allows to control the growth of the compacted program execution time. The theoretical and experimental results of the research prove the possibility of using the proposed program compaction method in real-time systems

Polypodiodes simonsiana (Polypodiaceae), a new fern from North East India and Myanmar

Polypodiodes simonsiana Fraser-Jenk. et Shalimov, a new species of polypodiaceous fern from north eastern India and Myanmar, is described and illustrated. It is related to P. amoena (Wall. ex Mett.) Ching and P. niponica (Mett.) Ching, but is characterised by its prominently backward-deflexed, acutely pointed, elongatedtriangular lower and mid pinnae, tapering evenly from their wide bases to their narrow acute apices. Its IUCN conservation status is assessed as VU (Vulnerable).</p

Thermal and dynamical perturbations in the winter polar mesosphere-lower thermosphere region associated with sudden stratospheric warmings under conditions of low solar activity

The upper mesospheric neutral winds and temperatures have been derived from continuous meteor radar (MR) measurements over Sodankyla, Finland, in 2008-2014. Under conditions of low solar activity pronounced sudden mesospheric coolings linked to the major stratospheric warming (SSW) in 2009 and a medium SSW in 2010 are observed while there is no observed thermal signature of the major SSW in 2013 occurred during the solar maximum. Mesosphere-ionosphere anomalies observed simultaneously by the MR, the Aura satellite, and the rapid-run ionosonde during a period of major SSW include the following features. The mesospheric temperature minimum occurs 1day ahead of the stratospheric maximum, and the mesospheric cooling is almost of the same value as the stratospheric warming (~50K), the former decay faster than the latter. In the course of SSW, a strong mesospheric wind shear of ~70m/s/km occurs. The wind turns clockwise (anticlockwise) from north-eastward (south-eastward) to south-westward (north-westward) above (below) 90km. As the mesospheric temperature reaches its minimum, the gravity waves (GW) in the ionosphere with periods of 10-60min decay abruptly while the GWs with longer periods are not affected. The effect is explained by selective filtering and/or increased turbulence near the mesopause