This study aimed to determine the quality of drinking water supplied in different types of food stalls in Jashore Municipality, Bangladesh. A total of 35 water samples were collected from different tea stalls, street side fast food stalls, normal restaurants and well-furnished restaurants. The water quality was evaluated by determining the distinct physical, chemical and biological parameters. The results revealed that the water used in the food stalls and restaurants for drinking purpose was in desired quality in terms of turbidity, electrical conductivity, pH, total dissolved solids, nitrate (NO₃⁻), sulfate (SO₄²⁻), phosphate (PO₄³⁻), chloride (Cl⁻), sodium (Na) and potassium (K) concentrations. The values were within the permissible limit proposed by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and the World Health Organization. Concentrations of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) found in several samples were higher than the World Health Organization standard. Iron (Fe) concentrations were higher than the permissible limit of the World Health Organization. Only 46% exceeded the permissible limit of Bangladesh Bureau Statistics. The threatening result was that the samples were contaminated by fecal coliform, indicating that the people of Jashore Municipality may have a greater chance of being affected by pathogenic bacteria. The drinking water provided in the street side fast food stalls was biologically contaminated. The findings demonstrate that the drinking water used in food stalls and restaurants of Jashore Municipality did not meet up the potable drinking water quality standards and therefore was detrimental to public health.

A nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) method was developed to quantify cations in mineral water. The procedure was based on integration of signals from metal-ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) complexes at δ 2.70ppm for Mg2+ and δ 2.56ppm for Ca2+. The limits of detection were below 0.5mg/L. Lack of precision did not exceed 5%. Linearity was between 1 and 500mg/L. Correlation between NMR and a reference chromatographic method was significant (p<0.0001, R2=0.99). PLS models were also established to estimate Na+ and K+ contents. R2 was 0.85 and 0.83, respectively. Root mean square errors of cross validation (RMSECV) were 8.0mg/L and 1.9mg/L for Na+ and K+, respectively. The method was applied successfully for the analysis of 31 mineral water samples. This method is a useful tool for quantification of important cations in mineral water and might easily be adapted to other food matrices.

Nitric oxide has been suggested to be involved in the regulation of fluid and nutrient homeostasis. In the present investigation, vasopressin and nitric oxide metabolite (nitrite and nitrate) levels were determined in plasma of male Wistar rats submitted to water or food deprivation for three days. Hematocrit and plasma sodium showed marked increase in dehydrated and starved rats. Potassium levels and plasma volume decreased in both treated groups. Plasma osmolality and vasopressin levels were significantly elevated in water deprived (362.8±7.1 mOsm/kg H₂O, 17.3±2.7 pg/ml, respectively, p<0.001) rats, but not in food deprived (339.9±5.0, 1.34±0.28) rats, compared to the controls (326.1±4.1, 1.47±0.32). The alterations observed in plasma vasopressin levels were related to plasma osmolality rather than plasma volume. Plasma levels of nitrite and nitrate were markedly increased in both water and food deprived rats (respectively, 2.19±0.29 mg/l and 2.22±0.17 mg/l <i>versus</i>1.33±0.19 mg/l, both p<0.01). There was a significant negative correlation between plasma nitrite and nitrate concentration and plasma volume. These results suggest that both dehydration and starvation increase plasma nitric oxide, probably by activation of nitric oxide synthases. The release of nitric oxide may participate in the regulation of the alteration in blood flow, fluid and nutrient metabolism caused by water deprivation or starvation.

Nutrient imbalance and soil moisture stress are the major abiotic constraints limiting productivity of cool season food legumes. These constraints are more pronounced in the semi-arid tropics and sub-tropics which are the principal production zones of chickpea, lentil and faba bean. The legumes are generally grown on residual moisture as a mono crop and consequently face drought especially during the reproductive phase. In recent years, chickpea, lentil, peas and faba bean have been grown in some areas with an irrigated/assured water supply under intensive cropping to sustain cereal based systems. An increased water supply favourably influences productivity in dry environments. Faba bean, French beans and peas show a relatively better response to irrigation. The pod initiation stage is considered most critical with respect to moisture stress. Excessive moisture often has a negative effect on podding and seed yield. Eighty to ninety percent of the nitrogen requirements of leguminous crops is met from N2 fixation hence a dose of 15?25 kg N ha-1 has been recommended. However, in new cropping systems like rice-chickpea, higher doses of 30?40 kg N ha-1 are beneficial. Phosphorus deficiency is wide spread and good responses occur to 20 to 80 kg P2O5 ha-1, depending on the nutrient status of soil, cropping systems and moisture availability. Response to potassium application is localized. The use of 20?30 kg S ha-1 and some of the micronutrients such as Zn, B, Mo and Fe have improved productivity. Band placement of phosphatic fertilizers and use of bio-fertilizers has enhanced the efficiency of applied as well as native P. Foliar applications of some micronutrients have been effective in correcting deficiencies. Water use efficiency has been improved with some management practices such as changed sowing time, balanced nutrition, mulching and tillage | Masood Ali, R. Dahan, J. P. Mishra, N. P. Saxena, 'Towards the More Efficient Use of Water and Nutrients in Food Legume Cropping', Linking Research and Marketing Opportunities for Pulses in the 21st Century, vol. 34, pp.355-368, Springer Netherlands, 2014

Rapid intensification of Vietnamese rice production has had a positive effect on the nation's food production and economy. However, the sustainability of intensive rice production is increasingly being questioned within Vietnam, particularly in major agricultural provinces such as An Giang. The construction of high dykes within this province, which allow for complete regulation of water onto rice fields, has enabled farmers to grow up to three rice crops per year. However, the profitability of producing three crops is rapidly decreasing as farmers increase their use of chemical fertilizer inputs and pesticides. Increased fertilizer inputs are partly used to replace natural flood-borne, nutrient-rich sediment inputs that have been inhibited by the dykes, but farmers believe that despite this, soil health within the dyke system is degrading. However, the effects of the dykes on soil properties have not been tested. Therefore, a sampling campaign was conducted to assess differences in soil properties caused by the construction of dykes. The results show that, under present fertilization practices, although dykes may inhibit flood-borne sediments, this does not lead to a systematic reduction in nutrients that typically limit rice growth within areas producing three crops per year. Concentrations of total nitrogen, available phosphorous, and both total and available potassium, and pH were higher in the surface layer of soils of three crop areas when compared to two crop areas. This suggests that yield declines may be caused by other factors related to the construction of dykes and the use of chemical inputs, and that care should be taken when attempting to maintain crop yields. Attempting to compensate for yield declines by increasing fertilizer inputs may ultimately have negative effects on yields.

Global aquatic ecosystems are essential to human existence and have deteriorated seriously in recent years. Understanding the influence mechanism of habitat variation on the structure of the food-web allows the effective recovery of the health of degraded ecosystems. Whereas most previous studies focused on the selection of driving habitat factors, the impact of habitat variation on the food-web structure was rarely studied, resulting in the low success rate of ecosystem restoration projects globally. This paper presents a framework for exploring the effects of spatial variations in water quality and hydrological habitat factors on the food-web structure in city waters. Indices for the evaluation of the food-web structure are first determined by integrating model-parameter extraction via literature refinement. The key water quality and hydrological factors are then determined by coupling canonical correspondence analysis with partial least squares regression. Their spatial variation is investigated using spatial autocorrelation. Finally, fuzzy clustering is applied to analyze the influence of the spatial variations in water quality and hydrological factors on the food-web structure. The results obtained in Ji'nan, the pilot city of water ecological civilization in China, show that the Shannon diversity index, connectance index, omnivory index, and the ratio of total primary production to the total respiration are important indicators of food-web structural change. They show that the driving factors affecting the aquatic food-web structure in Ji'nan are hydrological factors (e.g., river width, water depth, and stream flow), physical aspects of water quality (e.g., air temperature, water temperature, electrical conductivity, and transparency), and chemical aspects (e.g., potassium, dissolved oxygen, calcium, and total hardness). They also show that the stability of the food-web is more prone to spatial variations in water quality than in hydrological factors. Higher electrical conductivity, potassium, total hardness, and air temperature lead to deteriorated food-web structures, whereas better transparency improves structure and stability. We found that water and air temperature are the most important factors in the spatial variation of the food-web structure in the study area, followed by total hardness. Transparency is the least important factor. Large disparities and varied spatial distributions exist in the driving effects of water quality and hydrological factors across regions attributable to differences in geographical environments, water salinity (fresh vs. sea water), and environmental factors (e.g., water pollution). The above methods and results serve as a theoretical and scientific basis for a high success rate of aquatic ecosystem restoration projects in the study area and other cities worldwide.

It is important to explore the use of alternative ingredients for soybean and fishmeal in aquaculture feeds because the demand and cost for those ingredients are expected to increase in the near future and long-term. Meanwhile, the food processing industry produces large quantities of wastes that often contain organic solids and nutrients (e.g. nitrogen waste and phosphorus) which can be converted in microbial protein (bioflocs) using suspended growth biological reactors. Bioflocs that were collected from such a reactor that treats confectionary food processing effluent water were dried and in shrimp feed as a replacement for soybean and fishmeal. A control diet (without bioflocs) was compared to three diets that replaced soybean (10, 20, and 30% biofloc inclusion) and two diets that replaced fishmeal (10 and 20% biofloc inclusion). The control and biofloc diets were formulated to be equivalent for levels of crude protein, total fat, crude fiber, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and sodium. Five juvenile shrimp were stocked per tank and each dietary treatment was tested using 8 replicates over a 35day feeding trial. Dietary treatments had some impact on shrimp performance. No differences (P>0.05) in shrimp performance were observed between the control and the diets that included bioflocs for survival (97.5 to 100%), growth (2.16 to 2.40g/wk), harvest biomass (687 to 732g/m2), or food conversion ratio (1.50 to 1.66). These results indicate the bioflocs harvested from a suspended growth biological reactor that treats food effluent water can successfully be used in shrimp diets.Alternative & sustainable protein source for shrimp culture.

Human urine is an abundant, renewable resource that can be used as a valuable source of fertilizer because it is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. As fertilizers derived from urine become more widely used, it is important to understand how excreted pharmaceuticals are transported from urine to the environment. Many pharmaceuticals are excreted from the human body in their native form; therefore, when urine is used as a fertilizer, biologically active pharmaceuticals can be released into the environment. The goal of this study was to develop sensitive methods for the analysis of pharmaceuticals in urine, struvite, lysimeter water, soil, and food crops using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The ability to detect low levels of pharmaceutical residues in various environmental matrices will aid in assessing the potential risks associated with the field application of urine that is used to fertilize croplands. The optimized method reported in this paper, which utilizes solid phase extraction for sample clean-up and pre-concentration, offers analyte recoveries ranging from 29 to 112 percent, and detection limits ranging from 0.89 ng L⁻¹ to 0.0047 μg g⁻¹. The optimized extraction method provides intra-day and inter-day reproducibility of less than 10% for all analytes in all matrices investigated, with the exception for ciprofloxacin in urine. The use of isotope dilution for quantification proved necessary to compensate for matrix effects, especially in urine where matrix effects can range from about 21% to 79%. Overall, the method described here is robust and widely applicable to various types of environmental samples.

Viability of Listeria monocytogenes was monitored during refrigerated (4°C) and/or frozen (i.e., deep chilling at –2.2°C) storage on casing-cooked hams that were commercially prepared with and without potassium lactate and sodium diacetate (1.6%), buffered vinegar (2.2%), buffered vinegar and potassium lactate (1.7%), or a blend of potassium lactate, potassium acetate, and sodium diacetate (1.7%). A portion of these hams were subsequently surface treated with lauric arginate ester (LAE; 44 ppm). In phase I, hams (ca. 3.5 kg each) were sliced (ca. 0.7 cm thick, ca. 100 g), inoculated (ca. 4.0 log CFU per slice), surface treated with LAE, and stored at either 4°C for 120 days or at –2.2°C for 90 days and then at 4°C for an additional 120 days. In phase I, without antimicrobials, the population of L. monocytogenes increased by ca. 5.9 log CFU per slice within 120 days at 4°C; however, pathogen levels increased only slightly (ca. 0.45 log CFU per slice) for hams formulated with potassium lactate and sodium diacetate and decreased by ca. 1.2 log CFU per slice when formulated with the other antimicrobials. For slices held at –2.2°C and then stored at 4°C, but not treated with LAE, L. monocytogenes increased by ca. 4.5 log CFU per slice for controls, whereas when formulated with antimicrobials, pathogen levels decreased by ca. 1.4 to 1.8 log CFU per slice. For product treated with LAE, L. monocytogenes increased by ca. 4.0 log CFU per slice for controls, whereas when formulated with antimicrobials, pathogen levels decreased by ca. 0.9 to 1.9 log CFU per slice. In phase II, whole hams (ca. 1.0 kg each) containing antimicrobials were inoculated (6.8 log CFU per ham) and then stored at –2.2°C for 6 months. Pathogen levels decreased by ca. 2.0 to 3.5 log CFU per ham (without LAE treatment) and by ca. 4.2 to 5.2 log CFU per ham (with application of LAE via Sprayed Lethality in Container) when product was held at –2.2°C. In general, deep chilling hams was listericidal, and inclusion of antimicrobials in the formulation suppressed outgrowth of L. monocytogenes during extended cold storage.