The three main monotheistic religions and gm food technology: an overview of perspectives

Abstract Background Public acceptance of genetically modified crops is partly rooted in religious views. However, the views of different religions and their potential influence on consumers' decisions have not been systematically examined and summarized in a brief overview. We review the positions of the Judaism, Islam and Christianity – the three major monotheistic religions to which more than 55% of humanity adheres to – on the controversies aroused by GM technology. Discussion The article establishes that there is no overarching consensus within the three religions. Overall, however, it appears that mainstream theology in all three religions increasingly tends towards acceptance of GM technology per se, on performing GM research, and on consumption of GM foods. These more liberal approaches, however, are predicated on there being rigorous scientific, ethical and regulatory scrutiny of research and development of such products, and that these products are properly labeled. Summary We conclude that there are several other interests competing with the influence exerted on consumers by religion. These include the media, environmental activists, scientists and the food industry, all of which function as sources of information and shapers of perception for consumers

Vegetable waste treatment: Comparison and critical presentation of methodologies

Vegetable industries have been considered responsible for a great amount of pollution; hence, there has been a strong need for the optimization of vegetable waste treatment systems. The currently employed systems are numerous and fall in the following large categories; thermal processes, evaporation, membrane processes, anaerobic digestion, anaerobic codigestion, biodiesel spraying, combustion, transesterification, coagulation, and composting. Respective methodologies in conjunction with waste treatment methods were presented per waste treatment method. The comparative presentation of the various vegetable waste treatment methodologies showed that though anaerobic digestion stands for the most enviromentally friendly technique; its required longer treatment time in conjuction with its weakness to deal with elemental contaminants makes imperative the employment of a second alternative technique which could either be a membrane process (low energy cost, reliability, reduced capital cost) or a coagulation/flocculation method because of its low cost and high effectiveness. Biogas production appears to be another promising and energy effective waste treatment method. On the other hand, methods like distillation and ozonation (high cost) and electrolysis (experimental level) have not been employed in the field. Finally, new waste management technologies have been described

A conjoint study of quantitative and semi-quantitative assessment of failure in a strudel manufacturing plant by means of FMEA and HACCP, Cause and Effect and Pareto diagram

Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) model was applied for the risk assessment of strudel manufacturing. A tentative approach of FMEA application to the strudel industry was attempted in order to identify the potential failures in the flow diagram and to compare them with the critical control points in the strudel processing. Preliminary Hazard Analysis was employed towards analysing and predicting the occurring failure modes in a food chain system (strudel processing plant), based on the functions, characteristics and/or interactions of the ingredients or the processes, upon which the system depends. Critical control points were identified and implemented in the Cause and Effect diagram (also known as Ishikawa, tree diagram and fishbone diagram) in order to reveal the underlying causes of failures. Finally, Pareto diagrams were employed in an attempt to optimise the detection potential of FMEA

Reliability and maintainability analysis of cheese (feta) production line in a Greek medium-size company: A case study

Reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) analysis of the cheese production line over a period of 17 months was investigated. The best fit of the failure and repair data between the common theoretical distributions was found and the respective parameters were computed. The reliability and hazard rate modes at the entire production line were calculated as well. The models are anticipated to be a useful tool to assess the current conditions, and to predict the reliability for upgrading the maintenance strategies of the production line. It was found out that (a) the availability of the cheese production line is 91.20% and went down to 87.03%. (b) the dominant four failure modes have the 62.2% of all the failures of the cheese production line, and (c) the average of a failure is every 12.5 operation hours and the mean time to repair is 66 min. This analysis will be very useful in terms of identifying both the occurring and latent problems in cheese manufacturing process of and, eventually, solve them. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Reliability and maintainability analysis of strudel production line with experimental data - A case study

The strudel production line consists of several workstations and machines in series supplied with a common transfer mechanism and control system that have different failure modes. When a random failure occurs, the failed machine stops and forces most of the line upstream of the failure to operate without processing whereas the material (raw, intermediate or end-product) of the line downstream may have to be scrapped due to quality deterioration during the stoppage. The failure impact is the drop of line reliability and production rate. A reliability and maintainability analysis of strudel production line at machine, workstation and entire line level was developed. Descriptive statistics of the failure and repair data was carried out and the best fitness index parameters were determined. Data collection from production line and their analysis were valid for a period of sixteen months. Furthermore, the reliability and hazard rate modes for all workstations and the entire production line were calculated. The proposed models could be a useful tool towards (a) assessing the current conditions, and (b) predicting reliability for improving the production line maintenance policy. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved