Climate-Conscious Food Preserving Technologies for Food Waste Prevention

Global food production is responsible for around 26% of greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities. Notably, 6% of these emissions are caused by unconsumed food. Both traditional and current climate-conscious technologies for food preservatives that assure food waste reduction are discussed. This review investigates the potential of smart packaging biosensors and natural antimicrobial agents in fostering environmentally friendly, cutting-edge food systems. Specifically, it highlights the studies that explore the use of natural antimicrobial agents of calcined corals in active packaging systems for storing milk. The finding revealed that this method had a significant impact on maximizing the shelf life of fresh food. Furthermore, this review discusses the concept of smart packaging of food, focusing on biopolymer-based nanocomposites and biosensors, which have gained increasing attention in the food industry due to concerns about food safety and quality. The review also examines the efforts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to combat food waste through the initiatives such as UAE Food Bank, Winnow, and Ne’ma which is the national food loss and waste project. These technologies and practices have the potential to guarantee food safety, preserve quality, and reduce waste, but there are still issues with cost, biocompatibility, and consumer acceptance

A study of mega mergers of accounting firms.

This research aims to analyse the impact of mega mergers on the accounting industry in Singapore through data gathered from personal interviews with partners of various accounting firms. As most information on mega mergers in the accounting industry are more related to countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, it is felt that there is a need to determine the applicability of those international reports in Singapore

Climate-Conscious Food Preserving Technologies for Food Waste Prevention

Global food production is responsible for around 26% of greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities. Notably, 6% of these emissions are caused by unconsumed food. Both traditional and current climate-conscious technologies for food preservatives that assure food waste reduction are discussed. This review investigates the potential of smart packaging biosensors and natural antimicrobial agents in fostering environmentally friendly, cutting-edge food systems. Specifically, it highlights the studies that explore the use of natural antimicrobial agents of calcined corals in active packaging systems for storing milk. The finding revealed that this method had a significant impact on maximizing the shelf life of fresh food. Furthermore, this review discusses the concept of smart packaging of food, focusing on biopolymer-based nanocomposites and biosensors, which have gained increasing attention in the food industry due to concerns about food safety and quality. The review also examines the efforts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to combat food waste through the initiatives such as UAE Food Bank, Winnow, and Ne’ma which is the national food loss and waste project. These technologies and practices have the potential to guarantee food safety, preserve quality, and reduce waste, but there are still issues with cost, biocompatibility, and consumer acceptance

Regional clustering of Asia-Pacific countries.

Evaluating all markets in the Asia-Pacific region is mentally and physically exhaustive, thus we propose ‘regional clustering’ to ease information overload and expedite decision-making. The twenty countries in the region are clustered into four groups using Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, based on ten posited environmental and resource-based variables. Multiple Discriminant Analysis is further used to identify the significant discriminatory variables between clusters

Safety control of waste cooking oil: transforming hazard into multifarious products with available pre-treatment processes

The increase in worldwide vegetable oil consumption has produced a large increase in hazardous waste cooking oil (WCO) production. The improper disposal of WCO has been a significant problem from both an environmental and economic perspective. Therefore, it is advantageous to transform WCOs into valuable products efficiently and effectively in order to contribute towards the establishment of a circular economy. In this review, the current state of WCO is discussed in relation to WCO production and valorisation. The valorisation rate of each country can be categorised into three groups related to the consumption of vegetable oil, production and valorisation of WCO, as well as the production, conversion and valorisation factors. Before any valorisation and processing of WCO can be carried out, pretreatments are crucially needed in refining and upgrading WCOs, specifically to reduce their free fatty acid (FFA) contents. This could help to produce refined WCOs with appropriate feedstock properties suitable for value-added applications in oleochemical industries. Hence, several pretreatment methods (e.g., solid impurities removal, FFA reduction, moisture removal) have been summarized and evaluated in depth. The transformation of WCO into valuable products including alkyd resin, green solvent, soap, plastics and plasticizer are also reviewed. Recent technological advances have made WCO feasible as sustainable feedstocks for oleochemical production, but not limited to biofuel production which in turn maximizes the value of this hazardous waste and turns WCO into a sustainable source

Investigation and screening of mixed microalgae species for lipase production and recovery using liquid biphasic flotation approach

Background: Lipase is mainly extracted from animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria. The difficulty in extracting lipase from these organisms has led to the discovery of sustainable sources producing lipase. This study is the first to document the existence of lipase in the microalgae species from Umeå. Methods: Lipase in microalgae was extracted using liquid biphasic flotation as the protein homogenate from the extracts was found to contain lipase activity. The lipase activity was evaluated using colorimetric method with p-nitrophenyl palmitate as the substrate. The types, volumes, and concentrations of solvents as well as flotation kinetics, and the biomass weight were optimized. The experiment was conducted at optimal temperature and pH 7. Significant Findings: The optimized conditions for maximum lipase production were 400 mg of biomass, 10 min flotation time with flotation rate of 100 cc/min as well as 99.8% ethanol and 300 g/L ammonium sulphate concentration with volume ratio of 1: 0.83. Lipase recovery yield of the optimal LBF system was 70.3% with the separation efficiency of 82.0% and purification factor of 7.45. The findings revealed that the microalgae can be an ideal candidate for producing lipase and LBF serves as the platform for the development of large-scale extraction system.This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, Malaysia [FRGS/1/2019/STG05/UNIM/02/2] and MyPAIRPHC—Hibiscus Grant [MyPAIR/1/2020/STG05/UNIM/1]. This research was also supported in full or in part with Kurita Asia Research Grant “21Pmy004–21R” provided by Kurita Water and Environment Foundation

Method for determining resin curing areas in an optical stereolithography process

US6652797Granted Paten

Investigation of carriage and antibiotic susceptibility of pathogenic bacteria in the nose and oropharynx among students of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman Kampar Campus

Some members of the normal microbiota of the human upper respiratory tract can be potentially pathogenic when they overgrow or translocate to other body sites; the latter could lead to pneumonia and meningitis. The presence of these pathogens can be investigated via respiratory carriage studies, which have been recognised as a pragmatic solution to gaining large real-time epidemiological data on their carriage at the population level. This study aimed to investigate the upper respiratory carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Neisseria meningitidis, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa among the students of UTAR Kampar Campus. Nasal and oropharyngeal swabs from 100 students aged 18-28 years were collected and cultured onto various media, which include the chocolate agar, Columbia blood agar, MacConkey agar, mannitol salt agar, and King’s A medium. Identification of the S. aureus, K. pneumoniae, and P. aeruginosa isolates obtained was done through assessment of their growth characteristics, Gram stain, biochemical tests, and 16S rDNA sequencing. They were isolated from 39%, 12%, and 1% of subjects in this study, respectively. In the Kirby-Bauer assay, 19 S. aureus isolates were resistant to penicillin while 11 were intermediately resistant to quinupristin-dalfopristin. All the K. pneumoniae isolates were resistant to ampicillin as expected. Two S. aureus isolates were mecA-positive but only one showed methicillin resistance and was determined to be methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Nine and two K. pneumoniae isolates were blaSHV- and blaTEM-positive in the multiplex extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) PCR, respectively; however, these did not correspond to the findings of the combination disc test. In this study, the presence of S. pneumoniae, H. influenzae, and N. meningitidis was assessed via multiplex PCR on total DNA extracts from the chocolate agar sweeps. Among the 44 subjects screened, 9.1%, 20.5%, and 2.3% were positive for these target bacteria, respectively. All these were from the oropharyngeal swabs except for the sole N. meningitidis-positive sample, which was of nasal origin. The outcomes of this study contributed to better understanding of the respiratory carriage of bacterial pathogens, which will be of value to help inform the immunisation and antibiotic prescription policies

"It Will Lead You to Make Better Decisions about Your Health"-A Focus Group and Survey Study on Women's Attitudes towards Risk-Based Breast Cancer Screening and Personalised Risk Assessments

10.3390/curroncol29120719CURRENT ONCOLOGY29129181-919