Chemical Contaminants in Foods: Some Analytical Considerations

1985 ◽  
Vol 68 (6) ◽  
pp. 1069-1073
Author(s):  
Jerry A Burke

Abstract Data on the incidence and levels of chemical contaminants in foods are needed for continuous assessment of the safety of the food supply and to inform the public about the safety of food. A larger share of the total analytical resource—federal and state government, private sector, and academia—could profitably be directed to collection and publication of data on the occurrence of chemical contaminants in foods. The quest for more data must be accompanied by measures to ensure data reliability and comparability and to estimate the uncertainty of measurements. Research to improve the efficiency of analysis may be the top priority for future methods improvement studies. Analytical chemistry will continue to be an essential factor in assuring a safe food supply and in communicating to the public accurate information and conclusions about food safety.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehriban Yusifova ◽  
Gunash Nasrullayeva ◽  
Elza Omarova ◽  
Mehriban Magerramova ◽  
Aphila Kurbanova

Purpose The provision of safe food is a topic of increasing relevance worldwide. Several countries, including Azerbaijan, attempted to develop scientific, applied, social and economic solutions to the food supply and nutrition problems. However, Azerbaijan still faces important challenges, particularly providing appropriate, eco-friendly and microbiologically safe supplies and food. These issues occur in international export and import of raw food materials and food, provision of regional and municipal control in food supply and sales and teaching food culture to the public. This viewpoint paper aims to examine the challenges that impede the provision of safe food for Azerbaijan. Such information can facilitate policy implications for governments in developing solutions to the food supply. Design/methodology/approach Extensive literature review is done to base the discussions of this viewpoint paper. Findings Academic institutions and departments should take a more centralized and effective effort in scientific research concerning safety, hygiene and culture of nutrition. In conclusion, to ensure proper sustainment, it is necessary to provide strict microbiological, sanitary and hygienic control across the network of production and distribution of food and its import and export within regional and local food source provision systems and mechanisms. Originality/value To the authors’ best knowledge, there is no systematic study evaluating the challenges of ecologically and microbiological safety for food in Azerbaijan.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1223
Author(s):  
Ilianna Kollia ◽  
Jack Stevenson ◽  
Stefanos Kollias

This paper provides a review of an emerging field in the food processing sector, referring to efficient and safe food supply chains, ’from farm to fork’, as enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The field is of great significance from economic, food safety and public health points of views. The paper focuses on effective food production, food maintenance energy management and food retail packaging labeling control, using recent advances in machine learning. Appropriate deep neural architectures are adopted and used for this purpose, including Fully Convolutional Networks, Long Short-Term Memories and Recurrent Neural Networks, Auto-Encoders and Attention mechanisms, Latent Variable extraction and clustering, as well as Domain Adaptation. Three experimental studies are presented, illustrating the ability of these AI methodologies to produce state-of-the-art performance in the whole food supply chain. In particular, these concern: (i) predicting plant growth and tomato yield in greenhouses, thus matching food production to market needs and reducing food waste or food unavailability; (ii) optimizing energy consumption across large networks of food retail refrigeration systems, through optimal selection of systems that can be shut-down and through prediction of the respective food de-freezing times, during peaks of power demand load; (iii) optical recognition and verification of food consumption expiry date in automatic inspection of retail packaged food, thus ensuring safety of food and people’s health.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S1) ◽  
pp. s96-s97
Author(s):  
T.W. Graham

Liberia's 14 year civil war destroyed domestic agricultural production, veterinary and agricultural education, extension services and domestic food security. These losses severely limited domestic food production, and basic hygiene and sanitation: potable water, abattoirs, cold chain and food storage were greatly diminished. The average Liberian life expectancy fell from 45.8 in 1990 to 41.8 years presently. The population birth and death rate are two of the highest globally with a resulting population growth rate, of 2.7% per annum; this growth rate requires an immediate and concerted focus on domestic food production to alleviate nutritional inadequacy and hunger, trade imbalances and loss of foreign exchange credits. Food supply nationally is presumed adequate because of importation, though domestic production is inadequate. Unequal distribution precludes food security for all Liberians. Value chain augmentation, enhancing food availability across all sectors of Liberian society and ensuring distribution of a safe food supply needs critical development. Infant mortality remains one of the highest in the world (approximately 160/1000 births), much of which is attributed to food insecurity, food contamination and lack of uniformly available potable water. Recreation of Liberia's public health and food security requires redevelopment of disease monitoring and laboratory diagnostic capability to re-establish safe food production and handling practices across all sectors. This will allow determination of endemic disease burden for the principal livestock species: poultry, sheep, goats, cattle and swine. Creation of a national disease surveillance/monitoring system allows for targeted disease intervention, ensuring vaccination for correct serotypes and most critically prevalent diseases. Creation of community level training and support will target intervention of local diseases, but also allow for national prioritization of diseases. Targeting which are most prevalent or most likely to cause production limiting effects will require periodic surveillance, targeted vaccination, and chemotherapeutic intervention and evaluation of therapeutic success.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Che Ku Hisam Che Ku Kassim ◽  
Noor Liza Adnan ◽  
Roziani Ali

Purpose Because of the heightened environmental awareness of the public, local governments (LGs) are being pressured to improve on the extent and quality of environmental disclosures (EDs) provided in an array of reporting media. The lack of an accounting tool to identify, measure and report EDs has propelled the infusion of environmental management accounting (EMA) to support the reporting practices. This paper aims to examine the institutional pressures influencing EMA adoption by Malaysian LGs. Design/methodology/approach Using the consensus approach, a self-administered questionnaire survey is conducted on accountants in LGs in Peninsular Malaysia. The items in the questionnaire are based on the findings of prior studies on EMA adoption. Findings The results suggest that coercive isomorphism from the state government is perceived to be the influential institutional factor placing intense pressures on LGs to adopt EMA. Research limitations/implications The results solidify the potential role of the state government in any public policy changes which could further stimulate and promote the adoption of EMA. Originality/value Insufficient empirical evidence on the adoption of EMA in LGs within a developing country’s perspective contributes to a limited understanding on the development of environmental-related practices in different economic stages and environment as well as within the public sector’s perspective.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kosukhina K.V.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the development of public initiatives in Ukraine, as well as their role in building a dialogue between the government and civil society. The connection of the public initiative with the provision of social services is considered. The interaction of civil society institutions with public authorities is determined.


2007 ◽  
Vol 122 (5) ◽  
pp. 573-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Levin ◽  
Eric N. Gebbie ◽  
Kristine Qureshi

The federal pandemic influenza plan predicts that 30% of the population could be infected. The impact of this pandemic would quickly overwhelm the public health and health-care delivery systems in the U.S. and throughout the world. Surge capacity for staffing, availability of drugs and supplies, and alternate means to provide care must be included in detailed plans that are tested and drilled ahead of time. Accurate information on the disease must be made available to health-care staff and the public to reduce fear. Spokespersons must provide clear, consistent messages about the disease, including actions to be taken to contain its spread and treat the afflicted. Home care will be especially important, as hospitals will be quickly overwhelmed. Staff must be prepared ahead of time to assure their ability and willingness to report to work, and public health must plan ahead to adequately confront ethical issues that will arise concerning the availability of treatment resources. The entire community must work together to meet the challenges posed by an epidemic. Identification and resolution of these challenges and issues are essential to achieve adequate public health preparedness.


Author(s):  
William Barwick Hodge

To ascertain with precision the loss of life occasioned by war is an object of so much importance in every point of view, whether national or social, that whatever apology may be required for the manner in which the present subject is treated, none can be necessary for bringing it forward.That so little should have been done towards the elucidation of the question, is no doubt partly attributable to the difficulty of obtaining accurate information with respect to it, but in a greater degree, perhaps, to the reluctance to dwell upon it felt by the public.


1987 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent S. Steel ◽  
Nicholas P. Lovrich

The issue of comparable worth arose as a result of the discovery of serious gender inequities in the operation of the compensation system of Washington State government. Subsequent developments elsewhere have further added to the salience of the pay equity issue. In the context of this highly charged political context, what attitudes toward pay and compensation do women in the public service tend to hold? On the basis of employee surveys conducted in both the State of Washington and among the U.S. federal workforce, findings are reported that suggest that women are less likely to be dissatisfied with their pay than men. The implications of these findings are discussed, both with respect to the future politicization of the comparable worth issue and the proper assumptions to be made in conceptualizing the motivational basis of public employee behavior.


Food Research ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
M.A. Abd Razak ◽  
M.A. Ramli ◽  
M.A. Jamaludin

The approaching of megatrend 2050, challenges have emerged in the food sector and it is predicted that main issues would be the shortage of food supply and food contamination. In parallel to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), that by 2050, with the increasing human population, the food supply would be affected as the sources are inadequate to cater. This crisis requires a comprehensive solution – necessitate a better food security policy, food safety and food defence. In other words, a focused policy that deals with safe food ecosystem must be implemented and strengthen by relevant authorities. In the Malaysian context, the National Safety Policy (2017) outlined the security assurance for the nation’s food supply under Strategy 17. However, the focus of the policy is only on the preparedness of rice commodity that needs to be adequate, whereas, newer threats is making their way beyond that scope. Therefore, this review will discuss the potential of food terrorism, its concept and implication within the halal ecosystem. To achieve this objective, this study is qualitatively carried out by utilizing fully library research relating to food terrorism. The data is being analysed to conclude the findings. Based on the study, we found that food terrorism is indeed a real threat jeopardizing consumer safety, and moreover, causing negative implications towards the local, regional and global halal ecosystem. Therefore, proactive measures needed to be taken to ensure the security of food and this aligned with the objective of sharia to preserve human’s life by having adequate, nutritious, halal and safe food.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 269-276
Author(s):  
P. Thakur ◽  
J. Monk ◽  
J. L. Conca

Abstract The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a US Department of Energy (DOE) facility, is a deep geologic transuranic waste disposal site designed for the safe disposal of transuranic (TRU) wastes generated from the US defense program. Monitoring is a key component of the development and operation of any nuclear repository and is important to the WIPP performance assessment. Initial concerns over the release of radioactive and chemical contaminants from the WIPP led to various monitoring programs, including the independent, academic-based WIPP environmental monitoring (WIPP-EM) program conducted by the New Mexico State University (NMSU) Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center (CEMRC) located in Carlsbad, NM. The mission of CEMRC is to develop and implement an independent health and environmental monitoring program in the vicinity of WIPP and make the results easily accessible to the public and all interested parties. Under the WIPP-EM program constituents monitored include: (1) selected radionuclides, elements, and ions of interest in air, soil, vegetation, drinking water, surface water and sediment from within a 100-mile radius of WIPP as well as in the air exiting the WIPP exhaust shaft, and (2) internally deposited radionuclides in the citizenry living within a 100-mile radius of WIPP. This article presents an evaluation of more than tens years of environmental monitoring data that informed the public that there is no evidence of increases in radiological contaminants in the region that could be attributed to releases from the WIPP. Such an extensive monitoring program and constant public engagement is an ideal model for all nuclear waste repositories anywhere in the world.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document