admission. This proportion could already be greater in some parts of the country and may increase if referrals of cases of self-poisoning increase faster than the facilities for their assessment and management. The provision of social work and psychiatric expertise in casualty departments may be one means of preventing unnecessary medical admissions without risk to the patients. Dr Blake's and Dr Bramble's figures do not demonstrate, however, that any advantage would attach to medical teams taking over assessment from psychiatrists except that, by implication, assessments would be completed sooner by staff working on the ward full time. What the figures actually suggest is that if assessment of overdoses were left to house doctors there would be an increase in admissions to psychiatric units (by 19°U), outpatients (by 5O°'), and referrals to social services (by 140o). So for house doctors to assess overdoses would provide no economy for the psychiatric or social services. The study does not tell us what the consequences would have been for the six patients who the psychiatrists would have admitted but to whom the house doctors would have offered outpatient appointments. E J SALTER

Vitamin D deficiency.

Impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita Le cause e le responsabilita dei cambiamenti climatici sono state trattate sul numero di ottobre della rivista Cda. Approfondiamo l’argomento presentando il documento: “Cambiamenti climatici 2007: impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita” votato ad aprile 2007 dal secondo gruppo di lavoro del Comitato Intergovernativo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Si tratta del secondo di tre documenti che compongono il quarto rapporto sui cambiamenti climatici.

/pdf/climate-change-2007-impacts-adaptation-and-vulnerability-31xc1cf4d3.pdf

Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

Renewable technologies are considered as clean sources of energy and optimal use of these resources minimize environmental impacts, produce minimum secondary wastes and are sustainable based on current and future economic and social societal needs. Sun is the source of all energies. The primary forms of solar energy are heat and light. Sunlight and heat are transformed and absorbed by the environment in a multitude of ways. Some of these transformations result in renewable energy flows such as biomass and wind energy. Renewable energy technologies provide an excellent opportunity for mitigation of greenhouse gas emission and reducing global warming through substituting conventional energy sources. In this article a review has been done on scope of CO2 mitigation through solar cooker, water heater, dryer, biofuel, improved cookstoves and by hydrogen.

https://www.beren.sakarya.edu.tr/sites/beren.sakarya.edu.tr/file/1380752545-07-RenewEn.pdf.pdf

Role of renewable energy sources in environmental protection: A review

The science and technology of ultracapacitors are reviewed for a number of electrode materials, including carbon, mixed metal oxides, and conducting polymers. More work has been done using microporous carbons than with the other materials and most of the commercially available devices use carbon electrodes and an organic electrolytes. The energy density of these devices is 3¯5 Wh/kg with a power density of 300¯500 W/kg for high efficiency (90¯95%) charge/discharges. Projections of future developments using carbon indicate that energy densities of 10 Wh/kg or higher are likely with power densities of 1¯2 kW/kg. A key problem in the fabrication of these advanced devices is the bonding of the thin electrodes to a current collector such the contact resistance is less than 0.1 cm2. Special attention is given in the paper to comparing the power density characteristics of ultracapacitors and batteries. The comparisons should be made at the same charge/discharge efficiency.

Ultracapacitors: Why, How, and Where is the Technology

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) constitute a class of flexible nonlinear models designed to mimic biological neural systems. In this entry, we introduce ANN using familiar econometric terminology and provide an overview of ANN modeling approach and its implementation methods. † Correspondence: Chung-Ming Kuan, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Road, Sec. 2, Taipei 115, Taiwan; ckuan@econ.sinica.edu.tw. †† I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the editor, Professor Steven Durlauf, for his patience and constructive comments on early drafts of this entry. I also thank Shih-Hsun Hsu and Yu-Lieh Huang for very helpful suggestions. The remaining errors are all mine.

Artificial neural networks

Application of Electrical Field in Dewatering and Drying


 In order to prolong the storage and inhibit microorganisms of pakchoi, the antibacterial activity and mechanism of ultrasound combined with sodium hypochlorite (NaClO-US), the efficiency of NaClO-US in reducing E. coli, S. aureus and P. aeruginosa as well as preserving quality of pakchoi were investigated.
 Ultrasound treatment could significantly reduce the usage of NaClO solution from 800 ppm to 500 ppm. NaClO-US decreased the counts of E. coli, S. aureus and P. aeruginosa, which disrupted the bacterial cell membrane with cytoplasmic leakage. In addition, NaClO-US significantly increased cell membrane permeability, while cell membrane integrity decreased, the secondary structure of bacterial proteins showed several obvious changes, such as the increase of random coil content and random coil content, as well as the decrease of α-helix content. The bacterial counts, E. coli, S. aureus and P. aeruginosa population in pakchoi treated with NaOCl-US reduced by 1.89, 1.40, 1.60, 1.72 log cfu/g, respectively compared to CK sample after storage for 15 days. NaOCl-US resulted in minimum chlorophyll depletion, flavor and sensory deterioration.
 Ultrasound combined with NaClO solution treatment inhibited microorganisms and prolong storage of pakchoi. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Antibacterial mechanism of ultrasound combined with sodium hypochlorite and their application in pakchoi (Brassica campestris L. ssp. chinensis).

Selection of the agents for reducing water activity (aw) of Brassica parachinensis with intermediate moisture contents (23.01% w.b.) and the storage stability at 4, 20, and 37°C using different packaging methods were studied. The aw-lowering agent for the dehydrated Brassica parachinensis with intermediate moisture was optimized: 8% glucose, 4% lactose, 2% sodium chloride, and 7.5% maltodextrin. Storage experiments showed that vacuum packaging or storage in darkness can reduce the loss of ascorbic acid and chlorophyll and delay the browning process. The overall quality of dehydrated Brassica parachinensis with intermediate moisture stored at 4° was better than at 20 and 37°C. Microbial analysis showed that an aw value of 0.69–0.70 was safe for dehydrated Brassica parachinensis with intermediate moisture.

Study on Reduction of Water Activity and Storage Stability for Dehydrated Brassica parachinensis with Intermediate Moisture

Heat Pump Drying Systems

In recent years, a new trend in the food industry is the use of flowers in food production. Although currently consumed on a relatively small scale around the world, edible flowers have been a source of nutritional diets since ancient times due to their aesthetic appeal and desirable aroma. The importance of color acceptability and the need to meet and attract more consumers to market have led to the development of new pigments for industrial products. The stability of anthocyanin is influenced by a number of factors such as pH, temperature, oxygen as well as the presence of co-pigments and metallic ions. It can also easily degraded by oxidase. Several preservation methods can improve the stability of anthocyanin, phytochemicals, nutrients and other functional properties of edible flowers. This article comprehensively reviewed the recently developed processing and preservation technologies for color retention, anthocyanin degradation, and anthocyanin-related enzyme inactivation as well as various methodologies for the extraction of anthocyanins from edible flowers. It should be noted that not all flowers are safe to consume due to potential presence of natural toxins. Practical applications The synergistic effect of novel treatments could maintain anthocyanins degradation, color, nutrients, and bioactive compounds as well as the novel extraction techniques were also expressed to extract the anthocyanins of edible flowers. The anthocyanins pigments have been traditionally used as a natural colorant nowadays. Besides being used as natural colorants, some of the anthocyanin-rich flowers and fruits have been used as medicine to treat various diseases. 

Arun S. Mujumdar

Papers

Application of Electrical Field in Dewatering and Drying

Antibacterial mechanism of ultrasound combined with sodium hypochlorite and their application in pakchoi (Brassica campestris L. ssp. chinensis).

Study on Reduction of Water Activity and Storage Stability for Dehydrated Brassica parachinensis with Intermediate Moisture

Heat Pump Drying Systems

Preservation of Color and Nutrients in Anthocyanin‐rich Edible Flowers: Progress of New Extraction and Processing Techniques