Effect of a post-packaging pasteurization process on inactivation of a Listeria innocua surrogate in meat products

Effects of surface pasteurization on inactivation of Listeria innocua were investigated. Surface temperature, monitored during post-packaging pasteurization, was used to predict the lethality of L. monocytogenes. Temperatures reached 70°C for lean and fat sausages within 9 min of treatment. An inoculation study validated the efficacy of post-processing and the thermal lethality of L. monocytogenes. Pre-cooked sausage and ham, inoculated with approximately 10⁷ CFU/cm² of L. innocua, were heated to a surface temperature of 70°C. Numbers of L. innocua were reduced by 7 log on surface-inoculated sausage. Guidelines for safe, ready-to-eat meat products are provided for small scale meat processors.     

From outpost to outback: project career paths in Australia

With the growth in project management as a form of work organisation in many sectors of the economy has come the significant rise in the number of project managers and project team members. This change in work organisation brings issues in forging career paths and determining career support in work situations that are often dynamic, short lived and intense. In the relatively small but substantially robust Australian economy, a unique labour market and the tyranny of distance bring their own difficulties. Innovative and collaborative project structures and increasing prevalence of contract work provide both challenges and opportunities for new career pathways in many industries. A growing percentage of Australia's workforce is employed in project-based or project-oriented organisations, leading to the claim that Australia is a project-based economy. This provided a context for our research into the career paths and the issues of career management for project managers working in a project based economy. Using in-depth interviews with project managers from three industry areas we found generational and gender differences in experiences of work, workplace support and mentoring for career development. For a continued strong performance in this economy, organisations that employ project personnel will need to consider how they will ensure the supply of high quality project professionals into the future.     

Similarity evaluation of sets of linguistic summaries

Creating linguistic summaries of data has been a goal of the artificial and computational intelligence communities for many years. Summaries of written text have garnered the most attention. More recently, creating summaries of imagery and other sensed data has become important as a means of compressing large amounts of data and communicating with humans. In this paper, we consider the question of comparing sets of summaries generated from sensed data. In an earlier work, we developed a metric between individual protoform‐based summaries; and here, as a next step, we propose aggregation methods to fuse these individual distances. We provide a case study from eldercare where the goal is to compare different nighttime patterns for change detection. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Band-gap tuning of pendant polymers for organic light-emitting devices and photovoltaic applications

The preparation of a series of novel polymers comprising pendant electro-active “push–pull” chromophores and their performance in solution-processed organic electronic devices is described. The design of the electro-active pendant chromophores was based on the well-known motif of cyano-substituted poly(p-phenylenevinylene). Optical band-gap engineering within this series of polymers was achieved by varying the conjugation length and the electron donor/acceptor functionalities of the pendant chromophores. The introduction of a cyanoimine group into the electro-active pendant module resulted in a marked narrowing of the optical band-gap compared with the other electro-active pendant chromophores investigated in this work. Bulk heterojunction solar cell devices comprising these polymers were prepared by solution processing blends of each polymer with [6,6]-phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester, and their performance was evaluated by measuring power conversion efficiencies. The best-performing solar cell in this series exhibited a power conversion efficiency of 0.29% and a maximum incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency of 22% and was produced using the polymer in which the electro-active chromophore comprised the cyanoimine group.     

The effects of expressive writing following first myocardial infarction: A randomized controlled trial.

Objective: To assess the effects of expressive writing on health care utilization, clinical variables and subjective quality of life following first myocardial infarction (MI). Methods: One-hundred and seventy-nine first MI patients were randomized to Intervention (N = 88) or Control (N = 91) groups. The intervention group wrote about their thoughts and feelings in relation to having had an MI. Controls wrote in a neutral way about daily activities. The main outcome measures were health care utilization, physical status and subjective quality of life (QOL), assessed after one, two, and five months. Results: One-hundred and fifty-six (87%) completed the study. Five months post-intervention, the intervention group had significantly fewer recorded medical appointments compared to controls. The number of prescribed medicines decreased over time within the intervention group but increased within the control group. The intervention group attended significantly more rehabilitation sessions, reported fewer cardiac related symptoms and had lower diastolic blood pressure five months post-intervention. There was no significant group by time interaction on reported physical health. The group by time interaction on reported mental health approached significance, those in the intervention group reporting greater improvement. Conclusion: Expressive writing may be a beneficial strategy which could be incorporated into rehabilitation interventions to help individuals adjust after first MI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fate of trace element haps when applying mercury control technologies

During the past several years, and particularly since the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) was promulgated in June of 2005, the electric utility industry, product vendors, and the research community have been working diligently to develop and test Hg control strategies for a variety of coal types and plant configurations. Some of these strategies include sorbent injection and chemical additives designed to increase mercury capture efficiency in particulate control devices. These strategies have the potential to impact the fate of other inorganic hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), which typically include As, Be, Cd, Cr, Co, Mn, Ni, Pb, Se, and Sb. To evaluate this impact, flue gas samples using EPA Method 29, along with representative coal and ash samples, were collected during recent pilot-scale and field test projects that were evaluating Hg control technologies. These test programs included a range of fuel types with varying trace element concentrations, along with different combustion systems and particulate control devices. The results show that the majority of the trace element HAPs are associated with the particulate matter in the flue gas, except for Se. However, for five of the six projects, Se partitioning was shifted to the particulate phase and total emissions reduced when Hg control technologies were applied.     

Passive Filtration of Airborne Particles from Buildings Ventilated by Natural Convection: Design Procedures and a Case Study at the Buddhist Cave Temples at Yungang,China

Air exchange between interior spaces and the outdoor atmosphere can occur due to a variety of processes, including wind-driven flows and natural convectiondriven flows. As air is exchanged with the outdoors, airborne particles can be brought inside. Depending on the use of the indoor space, the presence of particles in indoor air could be a nuisance to the occupants or could be damaging to materials kept indoors. While one obvious solution to such problems is to install a mechanical air filtration system, that is not always practical. In particular, the character of some historical houses and some archaeological sites would be degraded by the presence of a mechanical air distribution system, and in some parts of the world the reliable electrical power supply needed for such a filtration system may not be available. In the present paper we consider principles for the design of passive filtration systems in which air motion through the filter material is induced by a natural convection flow rather than by a mechanical fan. A fluid mechanical model first is described for predicting the air flow through an interior space that acts as a thermal siphon. The effect of placing filter material in the path of such air flows is examined next. The indoor-outdoor air quality model of Nazaroff and Cass (1989a) is matched to the natural convection air exchange model, and calculations are performed to determine the relationship between the outdoor particle size distribution and indoor particle size distributions and particle deposition rates given a passive filtration system. Example calculations are worked for the case of a passive particle filtration system that could be installed to protect the interior of the Buddhist cave temples at Yungang, China. These are a collection of manmade cave temples dating from the 5th century AD, now situated in the middle of one of China's largest coal-mining regions with its accompanying air pollution problems.