International legislation on trace elements as contaminants in food: a review

Environmental contaminants such as trace elements may be present in all foods. Foods, raw materials and ingredients for food production are to an increasing extent traded across borders. Hence, there is a need for international legislation on trace elements as contaminants in food. In 1961, the FAO and WHO established the Codex Alimentarius to elaborate international food legislation. Contaminants in food are handled by the Codex Committee for Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC). The Codex Alimentarius system for developing legislation concerning trace elements as contaminants in food is based upon the Codex General Standard for Contaminants and Toxins in Food (GSCTF). By October 2001, the principles for setting maximum limits (MLs) for contaminants in food are agreed, and work is in progress on MLs for trace elements such as lead and cadmium in the various food categories. The status for the proposals is presented and discussed. The EU Regulation 466/2001 of 8 March 2001 sets MLs for lead and cadmium in various foods. This regulation will apply from 5 April 2002. The EU regulation is more detailed but similar to the Codex draft standards for lead and cadmium in food. In future, legislators and administrators in the Codex and EU and analytical chemists will discuss how to use more and better analytical data as risk-management tools to protect public health. Trace elements' speciation is an important aspect of this discussion.     

10 years of operation of an integrated nutrient removal treatment plant: ups and downs. Background and water treatment.

Water retention times less than 3 h from inlet to outlet were necessary to meet new effluent requirements without extending the footprint of the existing plant. Nitrogen removal was required at the existing, high loaded, direct precipitation plant and space was not readily available. The staff at the VEAS WWTP took on the task to design a new process at their own risk. Selected solutions and ups and downs in the water treatment during the past 10 years of operations and further developments are presented in this paper. Always asking for well-proven solutions might make life easy. The intent of this paper is to encourage some of our colleagues to be more daring in their approach to new challenges. However, expect sleepless nights in order to solve the unexpected problems along the way.     

Arc fusion splices with improved strength (4.8 GPa) approaching thestrength of the fibre

For the first time it has been shown that a median splice strength (4.8 GPa) closely matching that of the fibre can be achieved using a commercial fusion splicer. This is achieved by carefully controlling the stripping process and the environmental conditions     

On operator effectiveness: the role of expertise and familiarity of environment on the detection of deviant behaviour

This paper examines factors contributing to the effectiveness of camera operators in urban camera surveillance. The use of camera surveillance has taken an enormous flight in the past decades. Despite this increase, its effectiveness is strongly debated. One reason for the disputed effectiveness may be that an understanding of how to use camera surveillance, including elements contributing to the effectiveness of camera operators, has not kept track with technological developments. This paper focuses on the role of expertise and familiarity with the environment on the effectiveness of camera operators to detect offenders in video footage from Rotterdam City Surveillance in the Netherlands. Results show no effect of expertise, but do show that familiarity with the location contributes to operator effectiveness and that camera operators seem to use different criteria for detecting and selecting suspects depending on the familiarity with the location. These results contribute to our understanding of operator effectiveness and offer guidelines for the training of camera operators. Implications are discussed.     

Electrically injected single-defect photonic bandgapsurface-emitting laser at room temperature

An electrically injected defect-mode photonic bandgap microcavity surface-emitting laser at room temperature is demonstrated for the first time. 931 nm lasing is observed under pulsed excitation conditions. With a threshold current of 300 μA. Near- and far-field modal characteristics of the emission confirm lasing from the defect-related microcavity in the photonic bandgap crystal     

A weak form of the conjugate gradient FFT method for plate problems

A number of electromagnetic field problems for planar structures can be formulated in terms of a hypersingular integral equation, in which a grad-div operator acts on a vector potential. The vector potential is a convolution of the free-space Green's function and some surface current density over the domain of interest. A weak form of this integral equation is obtained by testing it with subdomain basis functions defined over the plate domain only. As a next step, the vector potential is expanded in a sequence of subdomain basis functions and the grad-div operator is integrated analytically over the plate domain only. For the problem of electromagnetic scattering by a plate, the method shows excellent numerical performance. The numerical difficulties encountered in some previous conjugate gradient fast Fourier transform (CGFFT) methods have been eliminated     

3-D structure-property relationships in rolltruded polymers. Part II: Anisotropic yielding and deformation in triaxially oriented polymers

Rolltrusion, a single step solid state deformation process, has been successfully applied to isotactic poly(propylene), iPP, to produce unique 3-D properties. Mechanical property enhancement not only occurs in the principal draw direction, but also in the transverse directions. A systematic series of standard (ASTM) tensile and compressive experiments were made on well oriented materials supporting this claim. Tensile testing was also performed on dumb-bell shaped specimens cut at various angles to the main deformation direction. A variety of observations were made during testing. Deformation bands, anisotropic yielding, and ductile-to-brittle behavior were observed. These results are presented along with a morphological model that has been developed to account for the behavior of these unique triaxially oriented polymers.     

Iterative computational techniques in scattering based upon the integrated square error criterion

An iterative technique is developed to rigorously compute the electromagnetic time- and frequency-domain scattering problems. The method is based upon a wave-function expansion technique (this also includes the integral-representation techniques), in which the electromagnetic field equations and causality conditions are satisfied analytically, while the boundary conditions or the constitutive relations have to be satisfied in a computational manner. The latter is accomplished by an iterative minimization of the integrated square error. For the solution of an integral equation, it is shown how to obtain optimum convergence. Some numerical results pertaining to a number of representative problems illustrate the numerical advantages and disadvantages of the iterative method.