Study on food preservation materials based on nano-particle reagents

While nanotechnology is widely applied in diverse fields like agriculture, biochemistry, and medicine, it remains a rapidly advancing discipline that introduces more complex applications in food systems compared to traditional technologies. The rapid advancement of nanotechnology has brought significant changes to multiple aspects of food science, including processing, packaging, storage, transportation, functionality, and safety. Various nanostructured materials, ranging from inorganic metals, metal oxides, and their composites to bioactive agents incorporated into organic nanoparticles, have been employed within the food industry. Regardless of the substantial advantages of nanotechnology, there are growing concerns about its use, mainly related to the potential accumulation of nanostructured materials in the human body and the environment, leading to various health and safety risks. Therefore, it is crucial to consider safety and health concerns and adhere to regulatory policies while manufacturing, processing, intelligent packaging, and consuming nano-enhanced food products. This review aims to provide a fundamental understanding of nanotechnology applications in food packaging and processing industries while identifying prospects and potential risks associated with nanostructured materials. Additionally, it delves into the health, risk, and hazard aspects of nanoparticles in food and their role in food safety assessments, highlighting specific areas of concern.

Prospects of using nanotechnology for food preservation, safety, and security

With the development of the times, people are increasingly aware that food is safe for consumption. Throughout the food supply chain process, there are many risks of food safety from being safe to being unsafe. This study aims to analyze food safety and halal risk mitigation in the supply chain, which consists of identifying food safety risks throughout the supply chain process, measuring food safety risks in the supply chain, determining the most critical value for risks that arise in food safety, and determining food safety risk mitigation measures. The object used is the supply chain of fish cracker companies in the Buduran area, Sidoarjo. Data processing was performed using FMECA and AHP methods. The results showed that the most critical risk lies in the management of the meat grinding system with a value of 0.60494 where the influencing factors are the absence of halal certification on the product and not implementing food safety standards, so that mitigation measures are carried out, namely evaluating and fostering manpower planning and job analytic.

To evaluate the food safety and spoilage risks associated with psychrotrophic Bacillus cereus group bacteria for the egg product industry and to search for relevant risk markers. A collection of 68 psychrotrophic B. cereus group isolates, coming from pasteurized liquid whole egg products, was analysed through a principal component analysis (PCA) regarding their spoilage and food safety risk potentials. The principal component analysis showed a clear differentiation between two groups within the collection, one half of the isolates representing a safety risk and the other half a spoilage risk. Relevant risk markers were highlighted by PCA, that is (i) for the food safety risk, the presence of the specific 16S rDNA-1m genetic signature and the ability to grow at 43°C on solid medium and (ii) for the spoilage risk, the presence of the cspA genetic signature. This work represents a first step in the development of new diagnostic technologies for the assessment of the microbiological quality of foods likely to be contaminated with psychrotrophic B. cereus group bacteria.

Public concern regarding food safety has emerged as a major policy issue. Chemicals and biotechnological processes are perceived as risks of food safety despite their contribution to an efficient, low cost agriculture and food industry. Increases in uses of biotechnological processes for foods are expected to be a major potential source of productivity improvements for Alberta and Canadian agriculture in future years. However, the demand for food safety involves increasing awareness and concern by consumers of chemical inputs and biotechnological processes in the agriculture and food industries. Nonetheless, there is a lack of basic economic and agricultural economic theory and methodology to analyze these issues and a need for policy, socioeconomics and marketing research on biotechnology and other environmental risk situations in the agricultural and food industry. This project was directed at developing and applying economic theory and methodology to help fill this gap. A major contribution of the project is the identification and verification of methodologies of stated choice to analyse tradeoffs arising from food safety perceptions of concerns by consumers. One component of the research project involved assessment of Alberta consumers' stated preferences and purchase behaviour for foods exhibiting a range of environmental risks, including perceptions of pesticide residues and hormonal treatments derived from biotechnological processes. The results of this survey indicated that Albertans were more concerned about pesticide use in food production than about the use of hormones. In contingent valuation questions developed for the study, more Albertans wish to restrict pesticide use (relative to a base case of not restricting either hormones or pesticides). They tended to persist in these choices in the face of potential increases in food costs, reflecting a higher level of concern with pesticides than hormones. Increasing education increased this concern. Increasing food cost decreased the probability of choosing to restrict pesticide or hormone use. Women appeared to perceive pesticide use in food production as a greater food safety risk than was perceived by men. The inferred average willingness to pay to restrict pesticide and growth hormone use in food production amounted to about 25% and 13% respectively of the average Albertan's food expenditures respectively. In the second survey of consumers' food/environmental risk perceptions undertaken relative to this project, the responses of a random sample of consumers to the use of recombinant bovine somatotrophin (rBST) in milk production were elicited using a stated preference methodology. A conditional logit model of consumer choice was developed and tested to analyse consumers' choices of milk with varying characteristics of fat content, price, freshness and treatment. Awareness of presence or otherwise is implied by labelling. The approach attempts to simulate market conditions with and without labelled milk and to predict consumers' responses to variations in these conditions. Welfare calculations for a representative consumer indicate welfare losses with the introduction of rBST. These were slightly less for a male than a female household food purchaser and were less for food purchasers with higher levels of income and education. There was a small welfare gain when the representative food purchaser was offered a full range of rBST and non-rBST milks. The results suggest that making appropriately labelled rBST-free milk available to consumers could decrease consumer welfare losses associated with any introduction of rBST. The outcomes from application of these methodologies were related to the evidence of consumers' purchasing behaviour after licensing of the technology of for use in the United States; this introduction did not require labelling. The assessment suggests a critical impact of product labelling policies and strategies on potential market impacts. An assessment is also made of Canada's food safety regulatory framework. The need for increased transparency and greater public participation in regulatory processes as means to increase public confidence in such food safety regulatory processes, specifically relating to biotechnology, is also identified.

Construction safety and health management has improved significantly following the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. In response to this legislation, contractors began implementing safety programs to reduce occupational safety and health hazards on construction sites. Researchers recently found that the current process of selecting specific elements for a safety program is informal. This paper describes the results of a recent study designed to determine the relative effectiveness of safety program elements by quantifying their individual ability to mitigate construction safety and health risks. In order to determine the effectiveness of individual safety program elements, the following research activities were performed: (1) an appropriate safety risk classification system was created using an aggregation of relevant literature; (2) highly effective safety program elements were identified in literature; and (3) the ability of each safety program element to mitigate a portion of each of the safety risk classes was quantified using the Delphi method. The results of the research indicate that the most effective safety program elements are upper management support and commitment and strategic subcontractor selection and management and the least effective elements are recordkeeping and accident analyses and emergency response planning. It is expected that the data presented in this paper can be used to strategically select elements for a safety program, target specific safety and health risks, and influence resource allocation when funds are limited.

Laboratory workers have potential health and safety risks, health risks in laboratories are potential health and safety risks, and health risks in laboratories are related to exposure to hazardous chemicals. Chemicals often used in laboratory testing are organic solvents such as benzene, toluene, and xylene which have risks to workers' health. Chemical health risk assessments are important for assessing the potential health and safety hazards of workers using the approach cross-sectional which refers to the method Chemical Health Risk Assessment DOSH, Malaysia. Data collection was carried out qualitatively starting with identifying dangerous chemicals, then observing the use of chemicals, followed by assessing the level of health risks, and determining the adequacy of control action priority for inhalation and dermal exposures respectively. The research results at the PT show that the risk level for inhalation exposure is 12 (moderate risk) and the risk level for dermal exposure is 2 (moderate), but still requires improvement in existing risk controls.

Food quality and safety risk diagnosis in the food cold chain through failure mode and effect analysis

Currently, nanotechnology is widely applied in various industrial fields and is rapidly emerging as a promising future technology. In food industries, nanotechnology is used to enhance food quality and safety. Numerous cutting-edge studies on the advantages of nanotechnology have been conducted in the fields of food processing, food ingredients and additives, food packaging, and food engineering for optimal health. The market for these areas of research has grown steadily, and is expected to continue to do so. Because of this, R&D for nanotechnology that can be used effectively in food industries is being performed by several companies, as well as in academic research institutions around the world. This review describes the recent global R&D trends that have been in progress for two key areas: food processing and food packaging.

The food industry will be impacted by the acceleration of nanotechnology, its creative applications and constant advancements. Nanostructured materials are utilized to encapsulate food components, packaging and nanosensors. These materials make the compound more soluble, bioavailable and increase its delivery speed, while also keeping the active components safe throughout production and storage. The review outlines the effects of nanotechnology on food systems and describes the outcomes of antimicrobial nanostructural materials on bacteria. It also highlights the characteristics of food‐nanotechnology along with its existing and possible future applications in food science. The potential for nanoparticles to be used in the food industry to supply customers with safe, contaminant‐free food and to increase the acceptance of the food due to its enhanced functional characteristics has been summarized as well.

The construction industry is starting to gain momentum as Malaysia is becoming a fully industrialised country by the year 2020. Due to the complexity and dynamic nature of a construction project, specifically on high rise building, various hazards and risks are already in place at any stage of a project lifecycle. Safety and health risk assessment is the core of any safety practices in any industry. Risk at the construction site should be assessed prior to manage or mitigate it. Therefore, this paper intends to recognize the theoretical aspects of the likelihood and severity of the hazards in the high rise building construction project and to recognize a theoretical aspects in formulating a high rise building construction safety and health risk model. The methodology employed f or this paper includes the secondary data collection from journals, articles and government statistics. The successful investigations will lead to the development of safety and health risk model in the construction industry particularly for high rise building construction. This model has prospect to be commercialized through the intellectual property (IP). The health and safety risk model will promote safety climate in the construction site and hence, enhancing the performance of human capital.

Micro(nano)plastics in plant-derived food: Source, contamination pathways and human exposure risks

Water deficiency is one of the main factors for limiting sustainable agricultural development in most arid and semi-arid regions. There is a gradual decline in the availability of fresh water to be used for irrigation in developing countries like India. Sewage farming is quite common in all urban areas in India. The effect of its direct and long-term use for irrigation needs a thorough study. However, there is increasing concern about food safety and health risks, hence, a case study was undertaken to understand the long-term effect of domestic sewage wastewater irrigation on heavy metal concentrations in soil and plants. The study reveals the mineral and heavy metal composition of irrigated domestic sewage wastewater and it has been compared with the well water irrigated in the rural area, soil parameters and also the mineral and heavy metal composition of a cultivated plant, Amaranthus tricolor L. Transfer factor (TF) was calculated to understand the extent of risk and associated hazard due to wastewater irrigation and the consequence of heavy metals accumulation in the edible portion of experimented vegetables. The present study was carried out to assess the potential toxicity of acetone extract of A. tricolor with some essential parameters such as haematological and biochemical parameters, liver and kidney weight and their histopathological study. After conducting in vivo acute and subchronic toxicity experiments using the rat model, there was no toxicity or mortality observed between domestic sewage water and well water irrigated to red amaranth, A. tricolor.

The unequal distribution of occupational health and safety risks among immigrants to Canada compared to Canadian-born labour market participants: 1993–2005

This article presents an exploratory study of how the social construction of risk, including stereotypes of migrant home care workers, as well as the character of official workplace health and safety regulation, may influence the ways in which occupational health risks are identified and managed by doctors. We focus our analysis upon migrant home care workers (HCWs) in Italy, who are exposed to multiple risks of developing physical and mental health problems. We begin by considering the reasons for the relative invisibility of HCWs’ health and safety risks, including wider constructions of women’s work as well as the ways these workers are treated by mainstream health and safety regulation. While Italian law requires employers to deploy occupational health doctors to monitor workers’ health and safety, work in domestic premises is excluded, so a HCW seeking certification of a workplace injury or illness would most likely approach her general practitioner (GP). However, little is known about GPs’ and other doctors’ awareness of the occupational origins of their patients’ illnesses and injuries. Our analysis starts to answer these questions through qualitative interviews with 16 doctors (mainly GPs) in Veneto regarding their understandings of migrant women’s health risks conducted between 2019 and 2020.