The effects of cellulose powder and water activity (aw) on the equilibrium water content, glass transition temperature (Tg), mechanical relaxation, and caking of freeze-dried amorphous carbohydrate blend powders (dextrin-glucose mixture) were investigated. Water sorption isotherm and Tg-curve were obtained, and critical water activity (awc) was determined as the aw at Tg = 25 °C. There was a minor effect of cellulose powder on the awc. The degree of caking was negligible below the awc (glassy state), but increased remarkably above the awc (rubbery state). Cellulose powder played a dispersive role in the powder, and thus diminished the degree of caking. The caking behavior could be described by a stretched exponential function, and an experimental formula to predict the degree of caking as a function of aw/awc was obtained. The results for a food powder, with a more complex composition, largely deviated from the formula. Mechanical relaxation was evaluated as a force-reduction during isothermal compression. It was found that the relationship between the degree of caking and force-reduction could be described as a linear function independent of aw and cellulose powder content. The results for the food powder partially followed the linear relationship.

ABSTRACT: A synthetic medium containing glucose, glycerol, yeast extract (YE), and ammonium sulfate (AS) was compared to several low-cost media in their ability to produce high emulsification index (EI). The goal was to reduce the production costs of an emulsifier with application in food oil-in-water emulsions. To this end, agro-industrial by-products were screened for bioemulsifier production from Yarrowia lipolytica. The statistical analysis showed that the EIs of media containing residual frying oil from palm oil (RFO_palm) or soybean oil (RFO_soy), residual liquid from butter production (butter whey, BWhey) or cheese production (cheese whey, CWhey), supplemented with YE and AS were similar to the EI of the synthetic medium. The replacement of YE by corn steep liquor (CSL) also resulted in similar EI, except for RFO_soy. BWhey was tested with CSL without AS and similar EI (66.8%) was detected in comparison to that of the same medium with AS (66.3%). The cell-free broth obtained after Y. lipolytica growth in BWhey+CSL was successfully used to obtain vegetable oil-in-water emulsions indicating its potential application in food products.

The management of water-energy-food nexus lies at the heart of the nexus approach, addressing the trade-offs and externalities across these three components while focusing on system efficiency instead of isolated sectoral productivity. This latter approach posits that there is no possible isolated efficiency and that decision-making based on classic management theories needs to change. This study examines whether the nexus approach is embedded into business sustainable initiatives, and suggests ways to improve the judicious use of water, soil/land, energy, and healthy food production. We use the latent Dirichlet allocation method to analyze the sustainability reports of Brazil’s largest bioenergy companies and documents from the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association from 2007 to 2020 in order to understand the response of these companies to nexus integration challenges. Despite efforts by bioenergy firms to minimize the impacts of their production processes, our results show that the nexus thinking is overlooked in many aspects, such as food security, water scarcity and working conditions. Furthermore, policies and decisions that appear to incentivize sustainability in one sector, such as energy, may lead to unintended oversights in others. Management could be improved by implementing nexus thinking that considers integrated governance between the different sectors involved in the production of bioenergy.

As an important agricultural production area in China, the Yangtze River Economic Belt has a large amount of water resources and rich types of energy. Water and energy resources are the supporting basis of food production, and the production and use of energy also need to consume a large amount of water resources. The three affect each other and are interdependent. Paying attention to the synergistic security of water-energy-food system in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is important for regional economic development. This paper uses the pressure-state-response (PSR) model and selects 27 indicators to build an evaluation index system of the regional water-energy-food system. We use the random forest model to evaluate the security level of the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2008 to 2017, and the Haken model is employed to identify the driving factors that dominate the synergistic evolution of the system. Then we take the identified factors as the key control variables under each scenario and launch a scenario simulation of some provinces in the Yangtze River Economic Belt in 2025. The results show that due to the improvement of water and energy utilization efficiency and the advancement of agricultural production technology, the level of water-energy-food security in the Yangtze River Economic Belt improved significantly from 2008 to 2017. Each province performs differently in different subsystems, with water resources security being better in the upper reaches and Zhejiang and Shanghai in the lower reaches, and food security being better in the middle and lower reaches. The level of energy security is high in Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou in the upper reaches and Shanghai and Anhui in the lower reaches. According to the results of scenario prediction for Jiangsu Province and Hubei Province in 2025, implementing moderate management in accordance with current management objectives can increase the overall security of the system to level 4. The two provinces should focus on controlling water resources and energy consumption and improving the utilization efficiency of water and energy in agricultural production.

The goal of this paper is to provide a preliminary analysis of European ecovillages considered as rural grassroots experiments with the sustainable management of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. The article presents empirical data on the management of basic resources in 60 European ecovillages collected with an online survey in 2020. The results show that a vast majority of ecovillages pursue some self-sufficiency in food, water or energy, and that 50% of them seek some self-sufficiency in all three of these resources. However, ecovillages do not try to be completely self-sufficient but rather aim at achieving feasible levels of self-sufficiency complemented with local and regional cooperation. While the role of ecovillages in driving conventional rural growth is limited, they can help in guiding sustainability transitions by illustrating opportunities and difficulties of reducing resource consumption of settlement units without reducing personal and communal well-being.

The North China Plain (NCP) is one of the major grain production areas in China where the groundwater level has declined rapidly in recent years because of irrigation. To alleviate the pressure on water resources, in 2016, the government developed and implemented a reasonable subsidy policy, known as the Winter Fallow Policy (WFP), to fallow cultivated land in a selected pilot area in the funnel region (Heilonggang region, HR). In the present study, a large-scale household survey was conducted across the NCP groundwater overexploitation region (OR) to evaluate the possible impact of the WFP on groundwater and food security. Our survey results indicated that the education level of decision makers, the dependency ratio of farmers, laborers per cultivated area, and the magnitude of the importance of water-saving in agriculture of decision makers have significant impacts on farmers' willingness to fallow. The average ecological compensation (EC) was 8781 CNY/ha (1358 USD/ha) and varied from 6932 to 10816 CNY/ha (1072–1673 USD/ha) in different counties. Winter wheat fallow in semiarid, dry subhumid and humid areas can save approximately 4642, 3325 and 1906 m³/ha, respectively, of groundwater in the OR. In the HR, a fallow area of 0.31×10⁶ ha is recommended for maintaining the current groundwater table, and an area of 0.42×10⁶ ha is recommended for restoring or recovering groundwater resources; these areas are greater than the existing fallow area and will reduce wheat yields, accounting for 1.55% and 2.08%, respectively, of national wheat production. Thus, EC standards should be determined based on local commodity price standards and modified based on annual changes in local conditions. Furthermore, the winter fallow acreage should be expanded in the HR to maintain the groundwater table.

International audience | The Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus for urban sustainability needs to be analyzed via an integrative rather than a sectoral or silo approach, reflecting the ongoing transition from separate infrastructure systems to an integrated social-ecological-infrastructure system. As technology hubs can provide food, energy, water resources via decentralized and/or centralized facilities, there is an acute need to optimize FEW infrastructures by considering cost-benefit-risk tradeoffs with respect to multiple sustainability indicators. This paper identifies, categorizes, and analyzes global trends with respect to contemporary FEW technology metrics that highlights the possible optimal integration of a broad spectrum of technology hubs for possible cost-benefit-risk tradeoffs. The challenges related to multiscale and multiagent modeling processes for the simulation of urban FEW systems were discussed with respect to the aspects of scaling-up, optimization process, and risk assessment. Our review reveals that this field is growing at a rapid pace and the previous selection of analytical methodologies, nexus criteria, and sustainability indicators largely depended on individual FEW nexus conditions disparately, and full-scale cost-benefit-risk tradeoffs were very rare. Therefore, the potential full-scale technology integration in three ongoing cases of urban FEW systems in Miami (the United States), Marseille (France), and Amsterdam (the Netherlands) were demonstrated in due purpose finally.

La finalidad de este trabajo de tesis, fue la implementación del sistema de calidad en base a los Principios Generales de Higiene del Codex Alimentarius, elaborar los procedimientos, instructivos y formatos de las Buenas Prácticas de Manufactura, Procedimientos Operativos Estandarizados de Saneamiento y Plan para la vigilancia, prevención y control de la salud de los trabajadores con riesgo de exposición a SARS-CoV-2 para la planta envasadora de agua de mesa ¨Los Lirios¨, ubicada en la ciudad de Tarapoto, departamento de San Martín. Se inicio la implementación realizando un diagnóstico higiénico sanitario de la planta, aplicando el check list de la D. S. Nº007-98-SA, ¨Reglamento sobre Vigilancia y Control Sanitario de Alimentos y Bebidas¨, con la finalidad de conocer la situación real en cuanto a condiciones de infraestructura, equipos y personal, obteniendo un puntaje de 80 (Regular) en base a 100 puntos. En base a estos resultados iniciales y con la aplicación de normativas legales como el D. S. Nº007-98-SA- Reglamento sobre Vigilancia y Control Sanitario de Alimentos y Bebidas y su modificatorias y bajo coyuntura actual y global de la enfermedad del Covid-19, incorporamos a nuestros controles en planta, la aplicación de la R. M. N°972-2020-MINSA - Lineamientos para la vigilancia, prevención y control de la salud por exposición al SARS-CoV-2, optimizando los resultados en calidad, servicio y producción para el agua de mesa envasada. | The purpose of this thesis work was the implementation of the quality system based on the General Hygiene Principles of the Codex Alimentarius, elaborating the procedures, instructions and formats of the Good Manufacturing Practices and Standardized Sanitation Operating Procedures for the plant ¨ Los Lirios¨, table water bottler located in the city of Tarapoto, department of San Martín. The implementation began by carrying out a sanitary hygienic diagnosis to the plant, applying the check list of the S.D. Nº007-98-SA, ¨Regulation on Sanitary Surveillance and Control of Food and Beverages¨, in order to know the real situation in terms of infrastructure, equipment and personnel conditions, obtaining a score of 80 (Regular) based on 100 points. Based on these initial results and with the application of legal regulations such as the S.D. Nº007-98-SA- Regulation on Sanitary Surveillance and Control of Food and Beverages and its amendments and under the current and global situation of the Covid-19 disease, we incorporate the application of the R.M. N ° 972-2020-MINSA - Guidelines for the surveillance, prevention and control of health due to exposure to SARS-CoV-2, optimizing the results in quality, service and production for bottled table water.

The chloropropanols, monochloropropane-1,2-diol (3-MCPD) and 1,3-dichloro-2-propanol (1,3-DCP) are potential contaminants that may be found in food contact materials (FCM) from paper and paperboard that have been treated with certain wet-strength resins. They can migrate from the paper matrix to aqueous food and beverages and, due to their potentially carcinogenic properties, are of increasing interest in quality assurance or official controls of paper-based FCM. We hereby describe an improved method for the analysis of 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP in water extracts of FCM making use of 1-chloro-3-methoxy-2-propanol (CMP) as a novel internal standard. The LOD and LOQ were determined to be 0.4 µg/L and 1.2 µg/L for both analytes, making the method appropriate for the quantification of 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP below the current legal limits. The method was applied to an extensive market survey of food contact articles made from paper and paperboard including 674 samples. The survey revealed that a high percentage of the products available on the market (e.g., up to 55% of the analysed drinking straws) exceed the BfR limits with values of up to 327 µg/L 3-MCPD and 20 µg/L 1,3-DCP detected in the cold water extract. Remarkable differences were observed concerning the release of 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP from different kinds of paper-based FCM products, with drinking straws, cupcake cases, bagasse bowls and kitchen rolls showing particularly high rates (>10%) of non-conformity with the legal limits. A number of samples with especially high concentrations were additionally analysed by hot water extraction, which surprisingly yielded considerably lower results for the release of 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP than cold water extraction. The results indicate that cold water extraction is the most sensitive method to detect the migration and control the risk of exposure to 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP.

The shortage of water resources has become a notable bottleneck, restricting the economic development of many countries and areas around the word, especially that of North-west China. The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Shaanxi Province are important energy bases and food production areas in North-west China. However, the region is suffering from perennial drought and water shortage, which has become the most significant shortcoming for energy and food production. Guiding the decoupling between regional economic development and water consumption is a critical way to achieve sustainable development. Based on the analysis of the food and energy production value and their water consumption in North-west China from 2009 to 2019, this paper uses the Tapio model to analyze the decoupling relationship between food, energy production, and water consumption, and uses the Logarithmic Mean Divisional Index (LMDI) model to analyze the driving factors affecting decoupling. The results show that most water consumption for food and energy production in North-west China is out of the ideal strong decoupling, the decoupling status is unstable, and re-coupling occurs frequently. The increase in water intensity and the change in industrial structure are the promoting factors of decoupling between production value and water consumption in food and energy in North-west China, while the increase in production value and population size are the main restraining factors. Therefore, in pursuit of strong decoupling, the government should guide the food and energy industry to move toward implementing in water saving measures through policies and promote the enthusiasm and efficiency of the labor force through financial support and other ways. Moreover, ecological protective measures are needed to be strengthened, such as water source protection, and sewage treatment.