Search Results (19)

Schizophrenia is a severe and complex psychological disorder characterised by psychosis, affecting approximately 20 million people worldwide, with its prevalence on the rise. It is hypothesised to arise from a multifactorial aetiology involving a complex interplay of genetic predisposition and environmental risk factors. The exact cause of schizophrenia remains unknown. There are significant interactions between genetic and environmental factors, making it a condition of great significance. Both pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies are available to manage the various symptoms associated with this condition. Antipsychotic drugs are the primary pharmacological approach, addressing both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. However, their use has sparked controversies due to potential side effects and long-term consequences, necessitating individualised treatment plans. Non-pharmacological therapies, on the other hand, provide an alternative approach, focusing on reducing anxiety and fear and empowering patients to regain control over their lives. In this scientific review, an extensive analysis of existing research has been conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of antipsychotic drugs and non-pharmacological therapies for schizophrenia. Their impact on positive and negative symptoms as well as socio-economic implications have been assessed. Beyond treatment efficacy, this review also addresses broader societal aspects, emphasising the need for patient-centred mental healthcare services that consider individual differences and preferences. The review highlights the importance of a multidimensional translational approach to schizophrenia management and advocates for accessible mental healthcare services to cater to the unique challenges faced by individuals with schizophrenia. By considering advantages and disadvantages, we support the implementation of tailored treatment plans to optimise patient outcomes and overall societal well-being. A holistic translational approach to schizophrenia management, incorporating medical, psychological, and societal support systems is essential for improving the quality of life for individuals living with schizophrenia. Full article

Legumes, a dietary staple for centuries, have seen an influx of conventional and unconventional varieties to cater to human care conscious consumers. These legumes often undergo pretreatments like baking, soaking, or boiling to mitigate the presence of non-proteinogenic amino acids (NPAAs) and reduce associated health risks. The recent tara flour health scare, linked to the NPAA baikiain, emphasizes the need for robust analytical methods to ensure the safety and quality of both traditional and novel plant-based protein alternatives. While traditional techniques provide insights into protein and non-proteinogenic amino acid profiles, modern liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) offers superior sensitivity and specificity for NPAA detection. This study employed an LC-QToF method with MS/MS analysis to comprehensively map the distribution of free NPAAs and proteinogenic amino acids (PAAs) in various legume samples. A total of 47 NPAAs and 20 PAAs were identified across the legume samples, with at least 7–14 NPAAs detected in each sample. Sulfur-containing NPAAs, such as S-methyl-L-cysteine, γ-glutamyl-S-methyl cysteine, and S-methyl homoglutathione, were predominantly found in Phaseolus and Vigna species. Cysteine and methionine were the sulfur-containing PAAs identified. Gel electrophoresis and soluble protein quantification were also conducted to understand legume protein composition holistically. This orthogonal approach provides a valuable tool for ensuring the overall quality of plant-based proteins and may aid in investigating food poisoning or outbreaks related to such products. Full article

Thermal comfort is very important for the well-being and safety of vehicle occupants, as discomfort can elevate stress, leading to distracted attention and slower reaction times. This creates a riskier driving environment. Addressing this, high-induction air diffusers emerge as a significant innovation, enhancing indoor environmental quality (IEQ) by efficiently mixing cool air from the heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system with the cabin’s ambient air. This process ensures uniform airflow, diminishes temperature discrepancies, prevents draft sensations, and boosts overall air quality by improving air circulation. In addition to enhancing thermal comfort in vehicles, the novel air diffuser also offers significant potential for personalized ventilation systems, allowing for individualized control over airflow and temperature, thereby catering to the specific comfort needs of each occupant. This study introduces a novel air diffuser that demonstrates a 48% improvement in air entrainment compared to traditional diffusers, verified through Ansys Fluent simulations and laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) measurements. At a fresh airflow rate of 31.79 m³/h, the total air entrainment rate at 0.6 m for the standard air diffuser is 73.36 m³/h, while for the innovative air diffuser, it is 109.26 m³/h. This solution has the potential to increase the level of thermal comfort and air quality within vehicles, and also signals potential applications across various enclosed spaces, underscoring its importance in advancing automotive safety and environmental standards. Full article

Vaccines are integral to human life to protect them from life-threatening diseases. However, conventional vaccines often suffer limitations like inefficiency, safety concerns, unavailability for non-culturable microbes, and genetic variability among pathogens. Chimeric vaccines combine multiple antigen-encoding genes of similar or different microbial strains to protect against hyper-evolving drug-resistant pathogens. The outbreaks of dreadful diseases have led researchers to develop economical chimeric vaccines that can cater to a large population in a shorter time. The process development begins with computationally aided omics-based approaches to design chimeric vaccines. Furthermore, developing these vaccines requires optimizing upstream and downstream processes for mass production at an industrial scale. Owing to the complex structures and complicated bioprocessing of evolving pathogens, various high-throughput process technologies have come up with added advantages. Recent advancements in high-throughput tools, process analytical technology (PAT), quality-by-design (QbD), design of experiments (DoE), modeling and simulations, single-use technology, and integrated continuous bioprocessing have made scalable production more convenient and economical. The paradigm shift to innovative strategies requires significant attention to deal with major health threats at the global scale. This review outlines the challenges and emerging avenues in the bioprocess development of chimeric vaccines. Full article

Food security has continued to be a topic of interest in our world due to the increasing demand for food. Many technologies have been adopted to enhance food supply and narrow the demand gap. Thus, the attempt to use nanotechnology to improve food security and increase supply has emerged due to the severe shortcomings of conventional technologies, which have made them insufficient to cater to the continuous demand for food products. Hence, nanoparticles have been identified to play a major role in areas involving food production, protection, and shelf-life extensions. Specifically, metal-based nanoparticles have been singled out to play an important role in manufacturing materials with outstanding properties, which can help increase the shelf-life of different food materials. The physicochemical and biological properties of metal-based nanoparticles, such as the large surface area and antimicrobial properties, have made them suitable and adequately useful, not just as a regular packaging material but as a functional material upon incorporation into biopolymer matrices. These, amongst many other reasons, have led to their wide synthesis and applications, even though their methods of preparation and risk evaluation remain a topic of concern. This review, therefore, briefly explores the available synthetic methods, physicochemical properties, roles, and biological properties of metal-based nanoparticles for food packaging. Furthermore, the associated limitations, alongside quality and safety considerations, of these materials were summarily explored. Although this area of research continues to garner attention, this review showed that metal-based nanoparticles possess great potential to be a leading material for food packaging if the problem of migration and toxicity can be effectively modulated. Full article

Seeing the palpable impact of food poisoning associated with catering operations, we surveyed caterers with and without past hygiene violations to examine staffing, food safety practices and correlations with microbial counts in food and the processing environment. Past infringements did not negatively impact the current execution of food safety measures nor the microbial quality of food. In preference to added stringencies for errant operators, we discuss alternative efforts to augment food safety, as well as the policy implications thereof. Full article

Ready-to-eat (RTE) meals produced and served by the catering system still represent one of the major causes of foodborne outbreaks, especially for susceptible consumers. Despite the great progress in food hygiene and safety, the systematic monitoring of microbial contamination of foodstuff is the most effective tool to ensure food safety and protect consumers’ health. The aim of this study was to perform a thorough assessment of the microbial safety and quality of meals and work surfaces of collective catering systems in central Italy, over a five-year period (2014–2018). In total 11,012 microbiological analytical determinations were performed in food matrices (80.1%) and environmental samples (19.9%). The results obtained show a low level of non-conformities ranging from 2.2% to 6.3% of total samples, concerning both hygiene and safety parameters. A decreasing trend of non-conformities during the years was also highlighted (p-value < 0.05), especially for environmental samples. This study suggests that the implementation of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) and the proper definition of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans, combined with a thorough evaluation of microbiological monitoring, are able to ensure high levels of food safety and hygiene. Full article

The quality of the environment should be measured by the satisfaction of the public and guided by the issues of public concern. With the development of the internet, social media as the main platform for people to exchange information has become a data source for planning and management analysis. Nowadays, the rural catering industry is becoming increasingly competitive, especially after the pandemic. How to further enhance the competitiveness of the rural catering industry has become a hot topic in the industry. From the perspective of consumers, we explored consumers’ preferences in a rural outdoor dining environment through social media data. The research analyzed the social media data through manual collection and object detection, divided the landscape of the rural outdoor dining environment into eight categories with 35 landscape elements, and then used BP (Back Propagation) neural network nonlinear fitting and least square linear fitting to analyze the 11,410 effective review pictures from eight rural restaurants’ social media comments in Chengdu. We derived the degree of consumer preference for the landscape quality of the rural outdoor dining environment and analyzed the differences in preference among three different groups (regular customers, customers with children, and customers with the elderly). The study found that agricultural resources are an important factor in the competitiveness of rural restaurant environments; that children’s emotions when using activity facilities can positively influence consumers’ dining experiences; that safety and hygiene environment are important factors influencing the decisions of parent–child dining; and that older people are more interested in outdoor nature, etc. The research results provide suggestions and knowledge for rural restaurant managers and designers through human-oriented needs from the perspective of consumers, and clarify the preferences and expectations of different consumer groups for rural restaurant landscapes while achieving the goal of rural landscape protection. Full article

Many catering merchants are currently adopting omnichannel sales methods. At a restaurant, customers can place their orders, and while waiting for the food to be completed, they can enjoy the restaurant’s service environment. Online customers, by placing orders on various apps, can skip the queue, increasing their utility by reducing the opportunity cost, but they cannot enjoy the restaurant’s service environment. For merchants, it is important to adequately address how to choose the optimal capacity to provide services to customers in different channels and obtain optimal profits based on the service environment. In this paper, we establish a stylized theoretical model to study the impact of the service environment on customers’ shopping behavior online and offline, and we study how merchants can formulate the optimal capacity. Our main results are as follows: First, improving the service environment was conducive to reducing the merchants’ safety capacity and could help them obtain higher profits. In short-term omnichannel operations, merchants obtained higher profits than in traditional offline single-channel operations. Improving the service environment increased profits, but the profit difference between short-term omnichannel and offline single-channel operations gradually decreased. Finally, in long-term operations, the process of online customers transferring to offline channels based on a high-quality service environment might be detrimental to merchants’ profits. Full article

The profile of tourists during the COVID-19 pandemic is changing toward those seeking health, safety and quality products. One of the modalities that best adapts to these needs is gastronomic tourism and, within this segment, wine tourism (enotourism), which can be enjoyed in many areas across the world. The great diversity of grapes, climates, terrains and winemaking processes gives rise to an enormous variety of wines that ensures that no two wines are alike. The current situation of the tourism market necessitates enhancing the uniqueness of areas that offer differentiated products, helping to position such locations as benchmarks for gastronomic tourism. Gastronomic routes provide a way to unify and benefit rural areas through the recently increased demand of tourists seeking to experience regional foods. In this study, the Montilla-Moriles Wine Route is analyzed with the objective of forecasting the demand (using autoregressive integrate moving average, ARIMA models), establishing a tourist profile and calculating the probability that a wine tourist is satisfied with the visit based on their personal characteristics (logit model). The results obtained indicate a slight increase (3.6%) in wine tourists with a high degree of satisfaction, primarily derived from the gastronomic or catering services of the area, from the number of wineries visited, from the treatment received and from the age of the tourist. Consequently, a high percentage of these tourists recommend the route. By increasing the demand for enotourism in this area and applying the results obtained, marketing initiatives could be established, particularly for wine festivals to improve this tourist segment and generate wealth in that area. Full article

This study aimed to create a catering quality scale for university canteens in China. It is based on a questionnaire survey, with a total of 1302 distributed and 844 valid retrieved questionnaires, yielding a 64.8% recovery rate. Catering safety management, employee hygiene management, catering service, food quality, environmental atmosphere, and corporate social responsibility are the six topics primarily covered. In the first step of the scale, the dimensions were developed through EFA. Catering safety management includes kitchen safety, storage safety, and food safety. Employee hygiene management has two dimensions: Employee hygiene knowledge and employee management. Catering service includes service consciousness and a focus on consumers. Environmental atmosphere includes place management and place design. Further, corporate social responsibility encompasses social responsibility and taking care of employees. The second step of the scale involved conducting a CFA, which found a good overall fit of the scale. The results indicated good discriminant validity, convergent validity, and reliability. Moreover, the model comparison showed that the two-level, six-factor model was significantly better than other models. Full article

COVID-19 has impacted the whole world since 2019, especially the dietary patterns of customers. Before the pandemic, some companies had been monitoring the operation data for health and food safety situations. It has become a vital mission to improve the food production and service process if the companies wish to pursue the sustainability of their businesses due to the general environment being changed by the epidemic. The sustainability of food systems inherently implies not only customer satisfaction but also the saving of costs. The catering service must find new ways to increase customer loyalty and satisfaction while implementing improved practices for building their brand image and modern decoration. The objective of this article is to discuss the service innovation process in order to investigate the interrelationships of catering environmental policy and psychological effects in the service function. The data were collected from a DINESERV questionnaire, comprised service quality standards, to increase the customer satisfaction for a mobile dining car. Finally, the TRIZ or Kano is a standardized measure designed to improve the idealization of strategy for selecting the most appropriate service quality model. This study presents the results from the survey and discusses future perspectives of increasing the sustainability of service within a catering information system. Full article

This paper presents the results from monitoring the organization of catering for children in general education institutions. Monitoring was conducted in August–September 2020. We collected relevant databases for 85 Russian subjects: the total number of indicators—113, the total number of sub-indicators—347, and the total number of data—76,414. This paper investigates the problems surrounding resource provision in regard to organizing nutrition for schoolchildren in the Russian Federation. We analyzed the structure of the informatization in regard to the provision of hot meals for schoolchildren in Russian regions. Moreover, we present cases and best practices surrounding informatization management and personalization of children’s nutrition. The research results reveal that Russia possesses a unified regional information system for accounting/monitoring the organization of children’s nutrition, as an independent specialized information resource (in regard to catering). This paper identifies the levels of information technology used in school nutritional programs for each federal district. We present the results of the analysis, the availability of information resources, and the possibility of automated non-cash payments for meals in general education institutions. Moreover, we analyzed information resources and generated reporting documents on the organization of nutrition for schoolchildren in Russia. Finally, we analyzed the automated assessment of satisfaction, in regard to catering and food quality among children and their parents in Russian regions. Full article

Aim: Hospital food provision is subject to multiple constraints (meal production, organization, health safety, environmental respect) which influence the meal tray offered to the patient. Multiple diets can add complexity and contribute to non-consumption of the meal. To avoid undernutrition, it appeared necessary to propose guidelines for foods and diets in hospitals. Methods: These guidelines were developed using the Delphi method, as recommended by the HAS (French Health Authority), based on a formal consensus of experts and led by a group of practitioners and dieticians from the AFDN (French Association of Nutritionist Dieticians) and SFNCM (French Society of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism). Results: Twenty-three recommendations were deemed appropriate and validated by a panel of 50 national experts, following three rounds of consultations, modifications and final strong agreement. These recommendations aim to define in adults: 1—harmonized vocabulary related to food and diets in hospitals; 2—quantitative and qualitative food propositions; 3—nutritional prescriptions; 4—diet patterns and patient adaptations; 5—streamlining of restrictions to reduce unnecessary diets and without scientific evidence; 6—emphasizing the place of an enriched and adapted diet for at-risk and malnourished patients. Conclusion: These guidelines will enable catering services and health-care teams to rationalize hospital food and therapeutic food prescriptions in order to focus on individual needs and tasty foods. All efforts should be made to create meals that follow these recommendations while promoting the taste quality of the dishes and their presentation such that the patient rediscovers the pleasure of eating in the hospital. Full article

Temperature and time are two critical parameters in sous vide cooking which directly affect eating quality characteristics and food safety. This study aimed to evaluate physicochemical and microbiological properties of sous vide chicken breast fillets cooked at twelve different combinations of temperature (60, 70, and 80 °C) and time (60, 90, 120, and 150 min). The results showed that cooking temperature played a major role in the moisture content, cooking loss, pH, a* color value, shear force, and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS). Increasing cooking temperature caused an increase in cooking loss, lipid oxidation, TBARS, and pH, while moisture content was reduced (p < 0.05). Cooking time played a minor role and only moisture content, cooking loss, and a* color value were affected by this parameter (p < 0.05). Total mesophilic aerobic bacteria, Psychrotrophic bacteria, and Enterobacteriaceae were not detected during 21 days of storage at 4 °C. Cooking at 60 °C for 60 min showed the optimum combination of temperature and time for sous vide cooked chicken breast fillets. The result of this study could be interesting for catering, restaurants, ready-to-eat industries, and homes to select the optimum combination of temperature and time for improving the eating quality characteristics and ensuring microbiological safety. Full article