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Many cases of food poisoning originate in the domestic environment and can be associated with improper food handling and ineffective cleaning by consumers. These practices could lead to the introduction and spread of bacterial contamination in the kitchen and if not subsequently removed could present an infection risk. This study proposes investigating changes in levels of bacterial contamination at five key sites in ten domestic kitchens during a period of 24 hours.

Microbiological swabs were used to provide an aerobic colony count and an Enterobacteriacea count. A record was kept of cooking, cleaning and other activities within the kitchen.

Results showed that contamination levels varied during the day, peaking after meal preparation and generally falling overnight. There was also indirect evidence of cross contamination, particularly from hands to other surfaces. Sites such as the refrigerator handle, kettle handle and taps, which generally only come into contact with hands, show increases in the levels of contamination recorded. Levels of microbiological contamination were lower in vegetarian than non‐vegetarian households. A variety of data showed that non‐food preparation activities also take place in the kitchen. These could also introduce bacterial contamination into the kitchen and facilitate their spread.

The implications of these results are that the most important time for cleaning in the kitchen is immediately after food has been prepared, with attention focussing on high risk areas such as the work surface, chopping board, taps and other hand contact surfaces.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the coupled heat and mass transport of different shaped porous moist objects in a rectangular channel under the effects of convective drying. Numerical simulations were performed under turbulent conditions for cylindrical, triangular and rectangular shaped different food products in a two-dimensional channel.

Finite element method was used for the unsteady problem and, effects of drying air velocity (AV) and temperature on transport mechanism were evaluated. Three different food materials were used for the circular shaped object and drying performance of the products under different conditions was compared.

Results showed that, changing the air temperature has an important effect on drying for all shaped objects and all materials. The same effect was seen for the AV as, increasing the velocity had positive effects on drying. Two identical objects were placed in the channel one behind the other, and this configuration showed that location of the object in the channel is also important for drying. The moisture content in the object at the front is lower than in the object behind at the end of drying.

This paper can provide technical support to optimize drying performance in the industry with comprehensive data for the process.

Much of the discussion surrounding the antivaccine movement focuses on the decision of parents to not vaccinate their children and the resulting danger posed to others. However, the primary risk is borne by the child left unvaccinated. Although living in a developed country with high vaccination rates provides a certain amount of protection through population immunity, the unvaccinated child is still exposed to a considerably greater risk of preventable diseases than one who is vaccinated. I explore the tension between parental choice and the child’s right to be free of preventable diseases. The chapter’s goal is twofold: to advocate for moving from a dyadic framework – considering the interests of the parents against those of the state – to a triadic one, in which the interests of the child are given as much weight as those of the parent and the state; and to discuss which protections are available, and how they can be improved. Specific legal tools available to protect that child are examined, including tort liability of the parents to the child, whether and to what degree criminal law has a role, under what circumstances parental choice should be overridden, and the role of school immunization requirements in protecting the individual child.

Almost every country around the world has been focusing on food safety in intense and multifaceted ways. The use of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) is widely accepted as a food safety management system. This paper investigates the success factors of HACCP practices with reference to the domains of food production, processing and delivery. A literature review of food safety and management articles was conducted. Using the keywords search, the online Emerald Database was used and a total of 102 journal articles were identified between 1994 and 2007. The study examined a list of 20 success factors. Results show that “food regulations”, “role of the industry”, “government policies and interventions”, “training on food safety and hygiene”, and “food contamination and/or poisoning” share the spotlight as being the most critical factors for HACCP practices in organisations. Future research could investigate a holistic paradigm that incorporates the success factors and aligns HACCP measures for attaining safety performance goals.

To amend the efficiency of engineering processes and electronic devices, it is very urgent to assess the irreversibility in the term entropy generation (EG). The efficiency of energy transportation in a system can be improved by minimization of the rate of EG. In this context, the aim of the present study is to estimate irreversible losses of an unsteady magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of a viscous incompressible electrically conducting non-Newtonian molybdenum disulfide-polyethylene glycol Casson nanofluid past a moving vertical plate with slip condition under the influence of Hall current, thermal radiation, internal heat generation/absorption and first-order chemical reaction. Molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) nanoparticles are dispersed in the base fluid polyethylene glycol (PEG) to make Casson nanofluid. Casson fluid model is considered to characterize the rheology of the non-Newtonian fluid, whereas Rosseland approximation is adopted to simulate the thermal radiative heat flux in the energy equation.

The closed-form solutions are obtained for the model equations by using the Laplace transform method (LTM). Graphs and tables are prepared to examine the impact of pertinent flow parameters on the pertinent flow characteristics. The energy efficiency of the system via the Bejan number is studied extensively.

Analysis reveals that Hall current has diminishing behavior on entropy production of the thermal system. Strengthening of the magnetic field declines the velocity components and prop-ups the rate of EG. Adding nanoparticles into the base fluid reduces the EG, whereas there are an optimum volume fraction of nanoparticles for which the EG is minimized. Further, the rate of decay of EG is prominent in molybdenum disulfide-polyethylene glycol in comparison to PEG.

The results of this study would benefit the industrial sector in achieving the maximum heat transfer at the cost of minimum irreversibilities with an optimal choice of embedded thermophysical parameters. In view of this agenda, this study would be adjuvant in powder technology, polymer dynamics, metallurgical process, manufacturing dynamics of nano-polymers, petroleum industries, chemical industries, magnetic field control of material processing, synthesis of smart polymers, etc.

The novelty of this study is to encompass the analytical solution by using the LTM. Such an exact solution of non-Newtonian fluid flow is rare in the literature. Limited research articles are available in the field of EG analysis during the flow of non-Newtonian nanoliquid subject to a strong magnetic field.

In this study a simple meal was prepared from raw chicken and lettuce in a manner which incorporated examples of common food hygiene malpractice. Prior to meal preparation, the chicken was inoculated with varying levels of Salmonella Typhimurium. The spread of microbial contamination (total viable counts, Enterobacteraceae counts and the presence of Salmonella species) from the chicken to sites in the kitchen was traced. Results indicate how easily bacterial contaminants from food may be spread around a kitchen. Levels of contamination on foods ready for consumption and in areas considered clean after washing up and wiping surfaces are established. These indicate that contaminants are unlikely to be removed from some sites unless cleaning procedures are rigorous.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how parents and caregivers describe their concerns about the HPV vaccine for their children on open Internet websites. The study examines what the discourse among parents reveals about their concerns regarding the HPV vaccine.

Our exploratory study utilized a grounded theory approach as a method of collecting data and simultaneously formulating research questions based on emerging themes from the data. We used purposeful sampling to select sets of comments posted on websites that provided news, scientific information, or parental support regarding HPV and its vaccine.

Findings suggest support for Bond and Nolan’s (2011) theory that familiarity with a disease is central to parents’ assessment of risk, and that dread of a serious disease such as cervical cancer is weaker than dread of unknown possible side effects in parents’ motivation to give or withhold the vaccine for their children.

Research limitations include our usage of a purposeful convenience sample of websites. The limitation of this sampling technique is that the comments made by website “users” and used in the analysis may not be representative of the wider population, and may include Americans as well as non-Americans.

Our research fills an important gap in the literature by looking at the ways in which parents share their concerns about the HPV vaccine on Internet websites as they consider whether to reject, delay, or consent to the vaccine.

The purpose of the present study was to observe the preparation practices of both adult and young consumers using frozen, uncooked, breaded chicken products, which were previously involved in outbreaks linked to consumer mishandling. The study also sought to observe behaviors of adolescents as home food preparers. Finally, the study aimed to compare food handler behaviors with those prescribed on product labels.

The study sought, through video observation and self‐report surveys, to determine if differences exist between consumers' intent and actual behavior.

A survey study of consumer reactions to safe food‐handling labels on raw meat and poultry products suggested that instructions for safe handling found on labels had only limited influence on consumer practices. The labels studied by these researchers were found on the packaging of chicken products examined in the current study alongside step‐by‐step cooking instructions. Observational techniques, as mentioned above, provide a different perception of consumer behaviors.

This paper finds areas that have not been studied in previous observational research and is an excellent addition to existing literature.

The aim of this paper was to analyze the effect according to knowledge and behavior, respectively, through a simplified health information model launched in a selected city district.

The intervention in this study encompasses information meetings where two educational computer programs highlighting the “five a day” concept, and food hygiene were showcased in conjunction with a group discussion. In total, 92 people living or working in a selected city district participated. The effect of the intervention was determined by means of inquiries (multiple‐choice) that were carried out prior to, immediately following, and three weeks after the intervention.

A statistically significant improvement in knowledge of the concepts “five a day”, cross‐contamination, and recommended storage temperature (for smoked salmon and raw mince meat) was observed, however, no major change in behavior was reported.

The knowledge improvement suggests that the education programs, in conjunction with discussions, are a useful information model for raising awareness about the notion of “five a day” and food safety. The results of the study make it clear that there are difficulties in getting people to change their behavior, let alone getting them to participate in health education offered locally.

Intervention projects are a communication tool that may be used in order to increase knowledge and produce behavioral change. The project is working from the inside out, i.e. it examines the needs first and then develops solutions for them.

The purpose of this study is to use the structural model to determine the influence of mobile telecommunication on Egypt’s economic growth from 2000 to 2009. By focusing on mobile unique subscribers and mobile broadband-capable device penetration as indicators of telecommunications adoption, the authors seek to understand their overarching effects on the nation’s economic landscape.

The paper uses quarterly time-series data set over the period 2000–2019 and uses a structural econometric model based on an aggregate production function, a demand function, a supply function and an infrastructure function to detect causality and examine long-run relationships between variables.

The findings of the structural model reveal that both mobile unique subscribers and mobile broadband-capable device penetration significantly contributed to Egypt’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth from 2000 to 2019. Specifically, a 1% increase in mobile unique subscriber penetration and mobile broadband-capable device adoption is estimated to result in an average annual contribution to GDP growth of 0.172% and 0.016%, respectively.

The scarcity of panel data is the main research limitation for comparative study with other Middle East and North African Region (MENA) countries. Research extensions would include testing the significance of complementarities such as improving governance measures and building human capacity for both households and firms, which are necessary to boost the impact of telecommunication on economic growth in the MENA region.

Based on these findings, the study puts forth policy recommendations aimed at maximizing investment in network utilization, including mobile and internet services, as well as fixed broadband subscriptions. It highlights the crucial role of these investments in promoting social and economic development, not only in Egypt but also across the MENA region as a whole.

The findings of this research emphasize the importance of strategic investments in network utilization, encompassing mobile, internet services and fixed broadband subscriptions. Such investments are pivotal for fostering social and financial inclusion. The study underscores the potential of these investments to drive social and economic progress, not just within Egypt but throughout the entire MENA region.

Overall, existing literature generally supports the notion that the telecommunications sector has a positive economic impact. However, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to understanding the specific effects of the Egyptian telecommunications sector on the country’s economy, particularly in relation to the Egypt Vision 2030. The study aims to fill this gap by focusing specifically on Egypt and providing additional insights into the direct and indirect effects of the Egyptian telecommunications sector on the economy. By conducting a thorough analysis of the sector’s role, the authors aim to contribute to the existing literature by providing context-specific findings and recommendations.