Approaches to Inactivating Aflatoxins—A Review and Challenges

According to the World Health Organization, the contamination of crops with aflatoxins poses a significant economic burden, estimated to affect 25% of global food crops. In the event that the contaminated food is processed, aflatoxins enter the general food supply and can cause serious diseases. Aflatoxins are distributed unevenly in food or feedstock, making eradicating them both a scientific and a technological challenge. Cooking, freezing, or pressurizing have little effect on aflatoxins. While chemical methods degrade toxins on the surface of contaminated food, the destruction inside entails a slow process. Physical techniques, such as irradiation with ultraviolet photons, pulses of extensive white radiation, and gaseous plasma, are promising; yet, the exact mechanisms concerning how these techniques degrade aflatoxins require further study. Correlations between the efficiency of such degradation and the processing parameters used by various authors are presented in this review. The lack of appropriate guidance while interpreting the observed results is a huge scientific challenge.

Effective Technology to Fix Horizontal Wells with a Liner for Subsequent Development by the P&P Method

Summary One of the priority directions of technological development of RUE "Production Association" Belorusneft "is the involvement in the development of unconventional oil reserves and enhanced oil recovery. Achievement of this goal was hampered by such a technological challenge in the field of well construction, as providing reliable support for a well with an extended horizontal completion during development by the P&P method. The essence of the challenge was that when performing a cluster or multi-stage hydraulic fracturing, increased loads are created on the well support, which can violate its isolation. The complexity of the geological and technical conditions in the Pripyat trough lies in the large length of horizontal ends in salinized carbonate reservoirs and high hydraulic fracturing pressures during well development. The article discusses solutions for the design and creation of a reliable cement sheath for the given geological and technical conditions. To overcome the technological challenge, a cementing technology was developed, including a plugging slurry formulation with elastic properties of a cement stone and a casing rotation technology during the cementing process. The plugging slurry formulation was developed with the elastic properties of a cement stone with cement mixing in salt water, adapted to the conditions of the salinized rocks of the Pripyat trough. To develop the formulation, the simulation of the pressure effect during the development by the P&P method on the cement stone behind the casing was used, as well as the simulation of the process of displacement of the drilling mud by the plugging slurry. The technology was successfully tested at five sites when horizontal wellbores were fastened with 114 mm tie-back casings, while high cementing quality indicators were achieved. The lengths of the tie-back casings ranged from 509 to 1000 m. The article presents the results of assessing the quality of cementing using acoustic cementometry and assessing the density of the medium behind the casing by gamma-gamma cementometry, as well as comparing the quality of cementing with casing rotation and without rotation, before and after the impact of P&P development. In RUE "Production Association" Belorusneft "it was decided to use the developed technology in default for attaching 114 mm liners with subsequent development using the P&P method.

Chocolate as Carrier to Deliver Bioactive Ingredients: Current Advances and Future Perspectives

Consumer demand for healthier foods with improved taste and convenience has urged the food industry to develop functional foods added with bioactive ingredients that can supplement basic nutrition (food supplement) or exert a pharmacological effect (nutraceuticals). Chocolate could be used as an ideal carrier to deliver bioactive ingredients, mainly due to its high acceptability by consumers. However, a drawback of using chocolate as functional food is its high sugar content, which impedes its commercialization with the diabetic population. Therefore, there is need to develop sugar-free chocolate formulations added with bioactive ingredients. Nevertheless, sugar replacement and bioactive ingredients addition is a major technological challenge that affects texture, rheology, and sensory properties of chocolate. This review is designed as a practical guide for researchers and food industries to develop the next generation of functional chocolates. Different functional chocolate formulations, including sugar-free, are reviewed as potential carriers for the delivery of bioactive compounds. The physicochemical properties and sensory acceptability of the functional chocolates presented are also highlighted. Finally, future perspectives, such as the use of nanotechnology to improve the bioaccessibility and bioavailability of active ingredients, as well as the need for clinical trials to validate the pharmacological effect of functional chocolates, are also discussed.

Using Adjuvants to Drive T Cell Responses for Next-Generation Infectious Disease Vaccines

Using adjuvants to drive features of T cell responses to vaccine antigens is an important technological challenge in the design of new and improved vaccines against infections. Properties such as T helper cell function, T cell memory, and CD8+ T cell cytotoxicity may play critical roles in optimal and long-lived immunity through vaccination. Directly manipulating specific immune activation or antigen delivery pathways with adjuvants may selectively augment desired T cell responses in vaccination and may improve the effectiveness and durability of vaccine responses in humans. In this review we outline recently studied adjuvants in their potential for antigen presenting cell and T cell programming during vaccination, with an emphasis on what has been observed in studies in humans as available.

Active Thermal Regulation Systems for Footwear: Development of New Innovative Technologies

This work aims to develop safety shoes, with thermal regulation systems, namely innovative heating and cooling systems. Heating system was developed using printing techniques; and cooling system was developed using the integration of Peltier modules in the shoe structure. These materials are based on the Peltier effect, in which, when an electric current is applied, the heat moves from one face to the other, being subsequently removed using thermal dissipation methods. This effect allows an active cooling. Given the high technological challenge of integrating cooling systems into footwear, this paper will present only developments related to cooling system.

'Major Technological Challenge'

While archival description has been standardized in North America since the 1990s, the online environment has introduced new challenges in preserving the hierarchical nature of archival description. Many archival databases, in an attempt to mimic library discovery layers and web search engines, have collapsed the archival aggregation into item-level records, which can erase the context and structure of the content described. This article examines the communication breakdown that happens between the archivist and end user via online archival description and proposes solutions to improve multi-level description including the use of predicates in links, increased online instructional support, and the inclusion of digitized assets in archival description databases.

Ultrasonic welding of folding boxboards

Today’s environmental concerns are pressuring industries to substitute paper-based materials in place of plastics in many sectors including packaging. However, assembling papers and paperboards using environmentally friendly solutions remains a technological challenge. In this context, ultrasonic (US) welding is an alternative to adhesives. In this work, the potential of US welding to assemble folding boxboards was investigated. Folding boxboards are commonly coated to enhance printability. This coating is generally composed of mineral pigments (85 to 90%) and polymer binders (10 to 12%). This study evaluated whether the presence of the coating layer allows the assembly of paperboards by US welding. Results indicated that welding coated folding boxboards is possible provided that coating weight and binder content are high enough. The mechanical performances of the welded boards met the requirements of most packaging applications. Adhesion in the welded joint resulted from a combination of thermoplastic (melting and flowing of the binder) and thermoset (degradation reactions) effects. However, it was not possible to assemble coated folding boxboards without degrading the welding zone. While the materials and process need to be optimized, this work represents a big step forward toward the adhesive-free assembling of paper-based materials.

Steam Turbine Overspeed Scenarios: Comparison Between API Energy Method and Dynamic Simulation

In turbomachinery applications the possibility to reduce size and costs of main flow-path components, by increasing shaft rotating speed, has always been appealing. The technological challenge in increasing this power density capability is typically related to performance prediction, to operating stress in blades and shafts, as well as to the need for a more accurate rotor-dynamic analysis. Yet another aspect, often reduced to standard assessments in less demanding applications, is related to the analysis of overspeed scenarios where, following a sudden loss of load and/or driven inertia, the turbomachine shall maintain its mechanical integrity. Especially in steam turbines applications, where the behavior of the machine is strongly affected by the plant conditions, valves intervention time and connected volumes, the reduction of the rotor inertia, against comparable power, may produce overspeed scenarios that can become a primary design constraint and, if overlooked, may have both availability and safety implications. In this paper several approaches to the analysis of overspeed scenarios are discussed, with increasing level of detail. The energy-based overspeed analysis method, as required by API612, is first discussed against practical design cases. A more accurate dynamic model is then presented, and its results compared with those of the energy-based approach. Finally, the sensitivity analysis of the overspeed peak value with respect to critical design parameters is discussed. With respect to previous works, mostly based on load rejection scenarios, the main focus is on the scenario of sudden coupling loss.

Introduction to Plastics Engineering

Industrial and consumer products made of plastics are ubiquitous in our daily lives. Converting raw plastics into useful parts is a scientific and technological challenge that has been progressively overcome in the past several decades. This expansive monograph authored by one of the leading experts with vast experience as an academic at IIT-Kanpur and a practitioner while at GE Corporate R&D tackles this huge subject by expounding aspects of transforming modern plastics into useful day-to-day items based on principles of mechanical engineering and engineering mechanics. It weaves together complex issues related to the mechanics, mechanical design, fabrication, and assembly of engineered plastics. In doing so, the book distinguishes itself from others by emphasizing not just the material science and ‘build-and-test’ approach embraced by the plastics industry, but by adopting approaches from engineering science and materials science synergistically to address practical issues of part design, size, cost, development cycle, and assembly, among others.

The Protestant Homiletics Approach toward Preaching on the Internet

The presence of the sermon in cyberspace requires an in-depth theological interpretation and an appropriate classification. Evangelicals maintain that traditional homiletics is not able to meet this new technological challenge, thereby they call for creating a new homiletics, i.e. the one crafted for the Internet. This article outlines the proposal of such homiletics and discusses it thoroughly. This new approach toward Gospel preaching stems from the paradigm which perceives the sermon as an ‘open work of art’, adopted from Gerhard M. Martin’s aesthetic homiletics. Its supporters claim that the current situation allows for considering the Internet not only as a medium, but also a place where the Church is realized. Thus, the community gathered online around the sermon is treated as an ecclesial community. However, the Catholic Church does not accept such an understanding of both the Church and the sermon. In their view, in a virtual space the authentic preaching of the Church cannot be performed. Therefore, all forms of preaching on the Internet should not be researched by homiletics, but media theology.