Thesis (MPH.) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / Background: Street food vending has become a common means of providing traditional, known and convenient meals to communal eating. It has also become a growing portent as a means of job creation and as a survival mechanism to many affected by job creation decline. Suggestion: There is an influx of food vendors at Gate 2 of the University of Limpopo and there is a need to investigate both the hygiene and safety measures taken by the vendors and the environment they operate in. Methods: The purpose of the study was to observe and identify food safety and hygiene practices by the street vendors. An observational descriptive cross sectional study design and a convenience sampling technique were used as research designs and sampling methods. A questionnaire on food safety and hygiene was used to collect data. Results: The study revealed that all of the street vendors have no form of food safety and hygiene training. The vendors also highlighted the fact that over and above them having no food safety and hygiene knowledge, food safety and hygiene practices such as washing of hands frequently cannot be adhered to because of the time limitations they have to prepare and be ready for customers as quickly as possible. The vendors practise a mixed storage of raw and cooked food in the refrigerators within the refrigerators. Only 30% of the vendors wear protective hand gloves while preparing food. They have running water in the bathroom and on the premises but no soap is provided in the bathroom for hand washing. Conclusion: Even though street food is increasingly gaining popularity and accessibility based on affordability, traditional meals served and accessibility, food safety and hygiene still are a concern and a matter of alarm. Key words: food safety and hygiene, street food vendor, food poisoning, health hazards

The selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors appear to have a much wider margin of safety than most other classes of antidepressants. Although there is limited experience with acute overdoses of fluoxetine alone, few serious adverse effects have been reported. There has been almost no experience, however, with significant fluoxetine overdoses in children. This report describes the accidental ingestion of as much as 43 mg/kg of fluoxetine by a 4-year-old child. In this case, serum blood levels of the drug and its major metabolite were consistent with a large ingestion and are among the highest reported in the medical literature. Toxic effects were relatively mild and consisted of a brief spell of unresponsiveness, sinus tachycardia, and moderate psychomotor agitation and dyskinesia. Supportive care was provided and the child recovered completely.

YWCA Hamilton’s Safer Drug Use Space (SUS) is one of only two gender-specific safe consumption spaces in Canada, and the only one integrated into an emergency drop-in program. It is widely acknowledged in both the scholarly literature and by social service and healthcare providers that women and non-binary people are vulnerable to violence and coercion when using substances around men. They also have different needs from harm reduction programs that are not always met in all-gender safe consumption sites. Furthermore, the integration of safe consumption sites in emergency shelters and drop-ins has been found to lower the number of drug poisonings in the area. This study sought to build upon this existing body of literature by speaking with service users from SUS about how they have been supported by the program in its first year of operation, and how it could be improved. Five service users were engaged in individual, qualitative interviews conducted by one of the front-line staff at SUS who is also a student at McMaster University. The “in-between” position of the researcher and previously established rapport with the participants generated nuanced insights to come out of these conversations. Four themes came out of the data: (1) the importance of positive service user/staff relationships; (2) staff knowledge and expertise; (3) SUS being considered a “safe” place and like a “home” to service users; and (4) accessibility of the space for service users being a contributor to why people return to SUS. This study revealed that aligning their harm reduction framework to include safe consumption onsite has meant SUS staff and service users develop more trusting relationships with each other. This allows them cooperate in unique ways to keep the community safe and connect service users to necessary social and healthcare supports. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

Ruthenium (Ru) has been theoretically considered a viable alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction electrocatalyst due to its fast water dissociation kinetics. However, its strong affinity to the adsorbed hydroxyl (OHad) blocks the active sites, resulting in unsatisfactory performance during the practical HER process. Here, we first reported a competitive adsorption strategy for the construction of SnO2 nanoparticles doped with Ru single-atoms supported on carbon (Ru SAs-SnO2/C) via atomic galvanic replacement. SnO2 was introduced to regulate the strong interaction between Ru and OHad by the competitive adsorption of OHad between Ru and SnO2, which alleviated the poisoning of Ru sites. As a consequence, the Ru SAs-SnO2/C exhibited a low overpotential at 10 mAcm􀀀2 (10 mV) and a low Tafel slope of 25 mVdec􀀀1. This approach provides a new avenue to modulate the adsorption strength of active sites and intermediates, which paves the way for the development of highly active electrocatalysts.

No description available.

No description available.

The problem of this thesis consists primarily of a bacteriological survey of the eating utensils of Hardin College Cafeteria and twenty-five other eating establishments in the city of Wichita Falls, Texas. This investigation was made primarily with reference to a determination of the possible presence of typhoid and related organisms, and secondarily to an investigation of the actual presence of those bacterial organisms associated with the more common outbreaks of food poisoning.

Thesis (M. Tech. Environmental health) -- Central University of technology, Free State, 2011 / The threat to the world food supply and the concern for public health as a result of food-borne diseases has been established as a constant global problem. The safety of food, in particular, is of significance to consumers and producers alike. Regarding the diseases related to food-borne pathogens, the disease syndromes affecting the entire human body has become inestimable. The focus of the study was to establish the effect of sanitisers, detergents and household storage temperatures on the growth profiles and toxicity of typical food related organisms. The endotoxin, LPS of these Gram-negative organisms in communal growth as compared to pure culture was the focus of the investigation. Pure and communal samples were grown in the presence of the extrinsic stresses including storage temperature. The change in toxicity was measured using the Limulus amoebocyte lysate test and the possible change in the immune response was determined using the porcine-IL-6 test. The first obvious finding was that the overall sensitivity of organisms was similar for the same sanitiser and the same detergent. The sensitivity of the community varied slightly but in principle followed the same pattern as the individual organisms. The LD50 for all growth samples were as follows: 32 X 104 PPM for sanitiser 1 and sanitiser 2, and 16X 104 PPM for detergent 1 and detergent 2. Growth in community was found not to be the arithmetic sum of the individual growth patterns. The detergents had a marked effect on the growth of all samples throughout the growth cycle. The sub-optimum household storage temperatures inhibited the growth throughout the cycle but growth did not cease entirely. This finding may have revealed that the acceptable refrigeration temperatures still allows for pathogen growth and thus for biofilm formation. Furthermore, the response of the community to the extrinsic stresses appears to be entirely different to the pure culture and therefore needs further exploration to address the problem. Regarding the quantification by LAL, it was found that the enumeration of the food-borne pathogens isolated from households might not be indicative of acclimatisation obtained over short periods of time and the causal stress turning these organisms into more or less toxic pathogens. The sanitisers and detergents induced competition in colonial fashion and the growth varied between feast and famine. The extrinsic stresses had a more observable effect on the older biofilm as this was shown by a decrease in toxicity. The toxicity as quantified by porcine-IL-6 yielded a mixture of stimulation levels for the cytokine. The toxicity change indicated by the test showed a variation between lowering and noticeable elevation for pure cultures. A marked elevation in toxicity was detected in community at storage temperature 4°C. The study would suggest that porcine IL-6 is not an accurate biomarker for pyrogenicity since its sensitivity is questionable and its inability to indicate toxicity if there is a possible change in the LPS structure. It should be said that further elucidation is needed to support this finding. Having said all that, it is no surprise that the validation for the two tests favours the LAL procedure. The large room for pre-test stimulation in pigs’ blood also tends to cast a shadow on the IL-6 findings. The findings of the study contribute to the body of knowledge covering the effects and quantitative analysis of toxins in food. This should add to safety assurance by sensitizing the industry regarding the most suitable analytical methodologies to apply.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

Darbo tikslas Aprašyti profesinių ligų tendencijas Lietuvoje 1973-1978 m. Uždaviniai 1. Nustatyti profesinių ligų skaičiaus ir sergamumo rodiklio pokyčius 1973-1978 m. Lietuvoje. 2. Nustatyti profesinių ligų pasiskirstymą Lietuvoje 1973-1978 m. pagal rizikos veiksnius, ligų grupes, ekonominės veiklos rūšis bei apskritis. 3. Nustatyti profesinių ligų pasiskirstymą Lietuvoje 1973-1978 m. pagal lytį ir darbo stažą. Metodika Duomenys apie 1303 profesinių ligų atvejus buvo surinkti iš 6 LCVA bylų, kuriose yra surinktos 1973-1978 m. tuometinės LTSR SAM ketvirtinės profesinių ligų ataskaitos bei teritorinių SES pranešimai apie profesines ligas. Aprašomoji statistika atlikta Microsoft Excel 2003, Microsoft Excel 2003, WinPepi 11.18, SPSS 17.0 programomis, naudojant χ2 ir tikslųjį Fišerio kriterijų. Išvados apie santykinio požymių skirtumo statistinį reikšmingumą buvo daromos, kai p ≤ 0,05. Rezultatai ir išvados Vidutinis sergamumo profesinėmis ligomis Lietuvoje 1973-1978 m. rodiklis buvo 16,3 / 100 tūkst. dirbančiųjų. Daugiausiai profesinių ligų buvo įtakotos fizikinių veiksnių (51,04 proc.). Daugiausiai registruota ausies (35,5 proc.) ir jungiamojo audinio ir skeleto raumenų sistemos (17,2 proc.) ligų. Daugiausiai profesinių ligų registruota Kauno (31,2 proc.) apskrityje bei apdirbamosios gamybos darbuotojams (64,1 proc.). Vyrams daugiau buvo registruota ūmių profesinių ligų, o moterims – lėtinių. Moterys daugiau sirgo ausies bei nervų sistemos ligomis, o vyrai jungiamojo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Purpose of Study Describe tendencies of occupational diseases in Lithuania in 1973-1978. Objectives 1. Set the number of occupational diseases and the incidence rate of change in Lithuania in 1973-1978. 2. Determine the distribution of occupational diseases according to risk factors, disease groups, industry and region in Lithuania in 1973-1978. 3. Determine the distribution of occupational diseases by sex and total experience of working in Lithuania in 1973-1978. Methodology Data on occupational diseases about 1303 cases were collected from LCVA of 6 files, in which Lithuanian SSR Ministry of Health quarterly reports and territorial Sanitary Epidemiological Station reports about occupational diseases are archived. Descriptive statistics performed in Microsoft Excel 2003, Microsoft Excel 2007, WinPepi 11.18, SPSS 17.0 programs using χ2 and Fisher's exact test. Conclusions about the relative signs of the difference between statistical significance were made at p ≤ 0.05. Conclusions and Results The average incidence rate of occupational diseases in Lithuania in 1973-1978 was 16.3 / 100 000 workers. Most occupational diseases have been influenced by physical factors (51.04%). Majority of them was ear (35.5%) and connective tissue and musculoskeletal system (17.2%) diseases. Most occupational diseases registered in Kaunas (31.2%) and for manufacturing workers (64.1%). There have been registered more acute occupational disease for men, and chronic for women. Women had... [to full text]