Tutorial on physiologically based kinetic modeling in molecular nutrition and food research

Studies in the field of molecular nutrition and food research often aim at identifying effects of bioactive ingredients on living organisms. When data from human studies are difficult to obtain, effects are often studied in relevant animal or cellular in vitro models. This poses the need for adequate extrapolation from the in vitro to the in vivo situation, from high-dose levels to realistic low-dose levels and from experimental animals to humans. Furthermore, effects of genetic polymorphisms or lifestyle factors may have to be taken into account. Physiologically based kinetic (PBK) modeling provides a means to support these kinds of extrapolations. The present paper illustrates the basic concepts of PBK modeling. PBK modeling includes six steps: (i) definition of the conceptual model, (ii) translation into a mathematical model, (iii) defining parameter values, (iv) solving the equations, (v) evaluation of model performance and (vi) making predictions. The paper provides an overview of these basic steps and presents examples to illustrate how PBK modeling can be applied. This reveals that PBK modeling provides an important tool in the field of the 3Rs aiming at Replacement, Reduction and Refinement of animal studies and may also be a useful tool for risk assessment.     

Scientific integrity resource guide: Efforts by federal agencies,foundations, nonprofit organizations,professional societies,and academia in the United States

Scientific integrity is at the forefront of the scientific research enterprise. This paper provides an overview of key existing efforts on scientific integrity by federal agencies, foundations, nonprofit organizations, professional societies, and academia from 1989 to April 2016. It serves as a resource for the scientific community on scientific integrity work and helps to identify areas in which more action is needed. Overall, there is tremendous activity in this area and there are clear linkages among the efforts of the five sectors. All the same, scientific integrity needs to remain visible in the scientific community and evolve along with new research paradigms. High priority in instilling these values falls upon all stakeholders.     

Elevating dairy research and extension through partnership: Outcomes from the United States Department of Agriculture and National Dairy Council collaborative meeting to develop a coordination roadmap

Dairy foods provide a significant portion of the recommended daily nutrition for much of the US population. Improving the availability of safe and nutritious dairy products and decreasing the environmental impact of the dairy community continue to be high priorities for both industry and the public sector. In recognition of these shared priorities, scientists and other specialists from the USDA, National Dairy Council, industry, academia, and nongovernmental organizations participated in the “Elevating Dairy Research and Extension Through Partnership” meeting on June 19, 2018. The purpose of the meeting was to strengthen partnerships and identify dairy-related research and extension needs in human nutrition, environmental sustainability, food safety, and product innovation that would benefit from enhanced coordination and collaboration across the dairy community, academia, and government. To catalyze further progress on these topics, the meeting organizers agreed to leverage the content and expertise that emerged from the meeting to develop a dairy research and extension coordination roadmap. The roadmap will establish and articulate a vision for coordinated collaboration between USDA researchers, the National Dairy Council, university researchers, extension specialists, and other dairy community stakeholders in the private and public sectors. This article represents the proceedings of the meeting and is intended to broadly communicate the dairy research and extension discussion and next steps to the dairy research and extension communities and other stakeholders in industry, academic, and government sectors.     

Empowerment evaluation in redesigning a public health unit nutrition program.

This article illustrates how empowerment evaluation was used in Toronto Public Health's (TPH) nutrition programming redesign to consult with staff about how roles, responsibilities, and organisational structure could be changed to improve how nutrition programs are delivered. One of three moderators facilitated the ten two-hour focus group sessions in TPH. TPH staff, namely 71 front-line staff and 13 managers who were responsible for providing community nutrition services, participated in the study. Focus group participants included Public Health Dietitians, Public Health Nutritionists, Public Health Nurses (PHNs), and paraprofessionals (i.e., community nutrition assistants). Participants' preferred roles, responsibilities, and organisational structure in TPH, which they believe would improve nutrition service delivery in the community, were examined. A constant comparison approach was used to develop themes inductively. It was found that participants wanted Dietitians and Nutritionists to provide current nutrition-related information to them. They felt that nutrition programs should be promoted better and made more accessible to the public. They suggested that Dietitians and Nutritionists and other staff should share information with each other better. They suggested that Dietitians and Nutritionists should provide nutrition services directly to the public and provide support to other staff, mainly PHNs, who deliver nutrition programs. In conclusion, this empowerment evaluation produced results that were used to assist in decision making about nutrition programming.     

Towards connectionist models of food consumer attitudes

This paper is in keeping with a long term research program in the field of marketing and particularly in the study of consumer behaviour. In continuation with the cognitivist paradigm, a connectionist approach to attitude modelling is proposed and the theoretical and metatheoretical bases of this research are presented. This orientation consists of studying how the recourse to the neural networks should be constituting an interesting and innovative decision support in this field. This research is particularly based on Beckwith and Lehmann's (1975) model which is inspired by Fishbein's (1963) linear and additive representation of the attitude concept and Bass and Talarzyk's (1972) model. It is demonstrated how a basic automata network can improve knowledge of attitude dynamics by showing different attractors (fixed points and limit cycles). This work opens a new research axis in the food marketing area.     

纹理贴图在装潢设计中的应用

根据映射的基本原理，将由计算机设计制作的图案应用于产品的装潢设计，能产生极佳的装饰效果．映射函数是将平面图形转换到立体产品上的具体算法，选取正确的映射函数是实现纹理贴图的关键．根据常见产品的几何形状，给出了正方体、圆柱体、球体表面的映射函数，通过微机绘图的通用程序，能实现装潢效果图的输出．     

Chemometrical analysis of proteolytic profiles during cheese ripening

This research note gives a presentation of chemometrical analysis of proteolytic profiles obtained by electrophoresis and chromatography. An explanation of how the proteolytic profiles can be transformed to a multivariate data set and some basic information about multivariate statistical techniques as principal component analysis and discriminant analysis are provided. Some of the recent and most relevant research is presented to illustrate how this technique can be used in research on proteolysis during cheese ripening.     

Health,Wellbeing and Social Sciences

For social interventions aimed at improving nutrition behavior evidence from randomized trials is essential but cannot be the only approach of research activities. Interventions on dietary habits require considerations on food security, economic and environmental sustainability, and a broad meaning of wellbeing which includes, but also goes beyond, health effects. The model of research in nutrition requires a new consideration of observational studies, mainly through different analytical models. Nutrition and food studies need research programs where medical (nutrition and health), psychology (how we behave), economics (how resources are used and their impact on wellbeing) and sociology (how social determinant shape behavior) collaborate.     

Effectiveness and challenges of participatory governance: the case of agricultural and rural management councils in the Western Democratic Republic of the Congo

Local management councils and multi-stakeholder forums are institutional arrangements used for policy dialogue, priority-setting and program monitoring but are rarely evaluated. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of 55 local-level Agricultural and Rural Management Councils (CARGs) in 23 randomly-selected territories in the western Democratic Republic of the Congo. These CARGs are similar to the farmers’ forums in Uganda and research-extension linkages committees in Ghana and Nigeria in terms of their multi-level structures that aggregate inputs from villages up to the provincial and national levels, and are similar to Uganda’s barazas at the sub-county level on participatory monitoring of programs and public service delivery. CARGs also play a major role in sharing innovations and providing advice to farmers by brokering knowledge and linking various experts and stakeholders, such as forming innovation platforms in various countries. However, CARGs are wider in the breadth of activities and are more generic in the thematic scope and coverage than other platforms. This paper identifies several problems and challenges in CARG implementation and the overall weaknesses in CARG formation. Our review suggests that only half of the surveyed CARGs achieved results consistent with at least one of their main goals, while the rest have not achieved any tangible outputs consistent with their objectives. Although the majority of stakeholders interviewed were aware of CARGs, only 33 % attended CARG meetings and perceived CARGs to be useful; and only 11 % reported having benefitted or knowing someone who had benefitted from CARGs. However, CARGs differ in performance and exhibit different financial capacity, coordination capacity, coordination commitment of its leaders, and representation of government officials, which are all significantly correlated to how well CARGs fulfill their objectives, link to other actors, and are perceived by stakeholders.     

Research Needs to Supply Milk Protein in the Human Diet

Emergence of government action to define a national policy on food and nutrition implies increased emphasis on programs for food production and marketing. Optimal policy will rely upon information from targeted basic and applied research. Dairy cattle are discussed in the context of their comparative advantage among livestock species for providing high quality protein in the human diet Research needs are suggested to supply economical milk protein by improving biomass efficiency, economic efficiency, milk pricing, and aggregate analyses of systems of dairy production.     

Applications of artificial neural networks (ANNs) in food science

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been applied in almost every aspect of food science over the past two decades, although most applications are in the development stage. ANNs are useful tools for food safety and quality analyses, which include modeling of microbial growth and from this predicting food safety, interpreting spectroscopic data, and predicting physical, chemical, functional and sensory properties of various food products during processing and distribution. ANNs hold a great deal of promise for modeling complex tasks in process control and simulation and in applications of machine perception including machine vision and electronic nose for food safety and quality control. This review discusses the basic theory of the ANN technology and its applications in food science, providing food scientists and the research community an overview of the current research and future trend of the applications of ANN technology in the field.     

我国食品科学类开放获取资源建设现状与建议*

开放获取资源是一种基于网络平台可免费获取的学术期刊资源,可以便利学术成果传播,提高科研成果影响力。食品科学研究领域以化学、生物学、工程学为基础,基础研究与应用研究并重,交叉学科广泛,如何将食品科学类专有平台有效涵盖各专业和学科,为科研人员服务,已经成为一种迫切的要求。本文选取了北大图书馆《中文核心期刊要目总览》(2014版)TS2(食品工业类)和06(化学类)下的46种期刊,同时选取了中国科学技术信息研究所《中国科技核心期刊目录》(2014版)中与食品科学相关的期刊12种,对我国食品科学类58种期刊自建平台的开放获取情况进行了统计,同时还选取了中国科技期刊开放获取平台、中国科技论文在线等5个开放获取资源综合平台,对其食品科学类开放获取资源进行了统计。研究发现,仅有37.93%的期刊自建网站可实现全文开放获取,综合开放获取平台则存在涵盖面小、质量和数量上都有待进一步提高的问题。文中最后提出了建立优质高效的食品科学类开放获取资源的建议与对策。     

合成微生物群落及在发酵食品中应用研究进展

合成微生物群落是指在明确培养基质的条件下,人工将两种或两种以上遗传背景完全解析的微生物通过共同培养而形成的微生物群体,其可通过微生物间的相互作用实现特定的功能,具有复杂度低、可控性强、稳定性好等优点。该文对合成微生物群落的特征、微生物之间的相互作用和调控机制以及其在发酵食品酱油、白酒、食醋和酸奶中的应用进行了概述,并对如何构建稳定、高效的发酵微生物群落进行了展望,旨在为合成微生物群落在发酵食品行业的进一步深入研究及开发应用提供参考。     

Metaproteomics insights into traditional fermented foods and beverages

Traditional fermented foods and beverages (TFFB) are important dietary components. Multi‐omics techniques have been applied to all aspects of TFFB research to clarify the composition and nutritional value of TFFB, and to reveal the microbial community, microbial interactions, fermentative kinetics, and metabolic profiles during the fermentation process of TFFB. Because of the advantages of metaproteomics in providing functional information, this technology has increasingly been used in research to assess the functional diversity of microbial communities. Metaproteomics is gradually gaining attention in the field of TFFB research because it can reveal the nature of microorganism function at the protein level. This paper reviews the common methods of metaproteomics applied in TFFB research; systematically summarizes the results of metaproteomics research on TFFB, such as sauces, wines, fermented tea, cheese, and fermented fish; and compares the differences in conclusions reached through metaproteomics versus other omics methods. Metaproteomics has great advantages in revealing the microbial functions in TFFB and the interaction between the materials and microbial community. In the future, metaproteomics should be further applied to the study of functional protein markers and protein interaction in TFFB; multi‐omics technology requires further integration to reveal the molecular nature of TFFB fermentation.     

Testing guidelines for evaluation of the immunotoxic potential of direct food additives.

Immunotoxicity testing is a new addition to the safety assessment guidelines for direct food and color additives. The approaches and philosophy for this area of specialized testing are consistent with the case-by-case strategy applied in the regulatory approval process, which is based on structure-activity relationships, preexisting knowledge, and projected exposure estimates. Specialized testing such as immunotoxicity is not part of the basic testing requirements, but would be applied when indicators are positive. Concepts for immunotoxicity testing have evolved, in part, from research for evaluating various testing methods as well as specific study designs. This research, conducted over the last decade, has focused mainly on the rat as the rodent species of choice. The miniature swine was evaluated as a nonrodent model. Testing is defined by type 1 and type 2 tests, which differ in that type 1 tests are performed on the same animals used in the core study design. Sets of type 1 and type 2 tests, with reference to the indicators, define various testing levels. Retrospective testing, expansion of basic testing (such as histopathology and serum chemistry profiles), and alternative study designs, which include satellite groups for evaluation of the functional capacity of the immune system, can be considered in the evaluation of immunotoxic potential.     

Extracting additional risk managers information from a risk assessment of Listeria monocytogenes in deli meats

The risk assessment study of Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat foods conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is an example of an extensive quantitative microbiological risk assessment that could be used by risk analysts and other scientists to obtain information and by managers and stakeholders to make decisions on food safety management. The present study was conducted to investigate how detailed sensitivity analysis can be used by assessors to extract more information on risk factors and how results can be communicated to managers and stakeholders in an understandable way. The extended sensitivity analysis revealed that the extremes at the right side of the dose distribution (at consumption, 9 to 11.5 log CFU per serving) were responsible for most of the cases of listeriosis simulated. For concentration at retail, values below the detection limit of 0.04 CFU/g and the often used limit for L. monocytogenes of 100 CFU/g (also at retail) were associated with a high number of annual cases of listeriosis (about 29 and 82%, respectively). This association can be explained by growth of L. monocytogenes at both average and extreme values of temperature and time, indicating that a wide distribution can lead to high risk levels. Another finding is the importance of the maximal population density (i.e., the maximum concentration of L. monocytogenes assumed at a certain temperature) for accurately estimating the risk of infection by opportunistic pathogens such as L. monocytogenes. According to the obtained results, mainly concentrations corresponding to the highest maximal population densities caused risk in the simulation. However, sensitivity analysis applied to the uncertainty parameters revealed that prevalence at retail was the most important source of uncertainty in the model.     

Big data in food safety: An overview

Technology is now being developed that is able to handle vast amounts of structured and unstructured data from diverse sources and origins. These technologies are often referred to as big data, and open new areas of research and applications that will have an increasing impact in all sectors of our society. In this paper we assessed to which extent big data is being applied in the food safety domain and identified several promising trends. In several parts of the world, governments stimulate the publication on internet of all data generated in public funded research projects. This policy opens new opportunities for stakeholders dealing with food safety to address issues which were not possible before. Application of mobile phones as detection devices for food safety and the use of social media as early warning of food safety problems are a few examples of the new developments that are possible due to big data.     

Delivery of oral doses of vitamin a to prevent vitamin a deficiency and nutritional blindness

Abstract

Approximately 8 to 10 million new cases of xerophthalmia due to vitamin A deficiency occur each year, with as many as ½ to 1 million children developing potentially blinding corneal disease. While vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of blindness among children in developing countries, even milder states of deficiency carry an increased risk of morbidity and mortality, making its prevention a major public health priority. Three basic preventive strategies exist: (1) dietary modification through a variety of horticultural and nutrition education techniques to increase the routine availability and consumption of food sources of vitamin A, (2) fortification of a centrally processed, locally available and consumed food “vehicle” with vitamin A, and (3) periodic administration of a large dose of vitamin A to specific target groups in the community. This paper provides a critical review of the effectiveness of and challenges to management in implementing periodic, large‐dose vitamin A delivery. Current evidence indicates that programs that are well supervised and sustain at least 65% coverage of their “at risk” populations can expect to have a measurable impact on the occurrence of xerophthahnia among children in the community.     

Use of computers in studying the actual nutritional and health status of children

The authors have devised a pack of applied programs for statistic data treatment, which can be used for studying problems of nutrition and the health status of children, for design of rational diets by the research institutes and childhood establishments sponsored by the public health and education systems, as well as by trade unions.