Bacteriophages: a potential game changer in food processing industry.

In the food industry, despite the widespread use of interventions such as preservatives and thermal and non-thermal processing technologies to improve food safety, incidences of foodborne disease continue to happen worldwide, prompting the search for alternative strategies. Bacteriophages, commonly known as phages, have emerged as a promising alternative for controlling pathogenic bacteria in food. This review emphasizes the potential applications of phages in biological sciences, food processing, and preservation, with a particular focus on their role as biocontrol agents for improving food quality and preservation. By shedding light on recent developments and future possibilities, this review highlights the significance of phages in the food industry. Additionally, it addresses crucial aspects such as regulatory status and safety concerns surrounding the use of bacteriophages. The inclusion of up-to-date literature further underscores the relevance of phage-based strategies in reducing foodborne pathogenic bacteria's presence in both food and the production environment. As we look ahead, new phage products are likely to be targeted against emerging foodborne pathogens. This will further advance the efficacy of approaches that are based on phages in maintaining the safety and security of food.

Regulating bacterial biofilms in food and biomedicine: unraveling mechanisms and Innovating strategies.

Bacterial biofilm has brought a lot of intractable problems in food and biomedicine areas. Conventional biofilm control mainly focuses on inactivation and removal of biofilm. However, with robust construction and enhanced resistance, the established biofilm is extremely difficult to eradicate. According to the mechanism of biofilm development, biofilm formation can be modulated by intervening in the key factors and regulatory systems. Therefore, regulation of biofilm formation has been proposed as an alternative way for effective biofilm control. This review aims to provide insights into the regulation of biofilm formation in food and biomedicine. The underlying mechanisms for early-stage biofilm establishment are summarized based on the key factors and correlated regulatory networks. Recent developments and applications of novel regulatory strategies such as anti/pro-biofilm agents, nanomaterials, functionalized surface materials and physical strategies are also discussed. The current review indicates that these innovative methods have contributed to effective biofilm control in a smart, safe and eco-friendly way. However, standard methodology for regulating biofilm formation in practical use is still missing. As biofilm formation in real-world systems could be far more complicated, further studies and interdisciplinary collaboration are still needed for simulation and experiments in the industry and other open systems.

A global perspective on the status of clinical metabolomics in laboratory medicine - a survey by the IFCC metabolomics working group.

OBJECTIVES: Metabolomics aims for comprehensive characterization and measurement of small molecule metabolites (<1700 Da) in complex biological matrices. This study sought to assess the current understanding and usage of metabolomics in laboratory medicine globally and evaluate the perception of its promise and future implementation. METHODS: A survey was conducted by the IFCC metabolomics working group that queried 400 professionals from 79 countries. Participants provided insights into their experience levels, knowledge, and usage of metabolomics approaches, along with detailing the applications and methodologies employed. RESULTS: Findings revealed a varying level of experience among respondents, with varying degrees of familiarity and utilization of metabolomics techniques. Targeted approaches dominated the field, particularly liquid chromatography coupled to a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, with untargeted methods also receiving significant usage. Applications spanned clinical research, epidemiological studies, clinical diagnostics, patient monitoring, and prognostics across various medical domains, including metabolic diseases, endocrinology, oncology, cardiometabolic risk, neurodegeneration and clinical toxicology. CONCLUSIONS: Despite optimism for the future of clinical metabolomics, challenges such as technical complexity, standardization issues, and financial constraints remain significant hurdles. The study underscores the promising yet intricate landscape of metabolomics in clinical practice, emphasizing the need for continued efforts to overcome barriers and realize its full potential in patient care and precision medicine.

The seductive allure of spatial biology: accelerating new discoveries in the life sciences.

Spatial biology is a rapidly developing field which enables the visualization of protein and transcriptomic data while preserving tissue context and architecture. Initially used in discovery, there is growing promise for translational and diagnostic assay developments. Immediate applications are in precision medicine, such as being able to match patients to optimal therapies through better understanding the tumor microenvironment. However, it also has ramifications for many other disciplines (e.g. immunology, cancer, infectious disease and digital pathology). With increasingly massive data sets being generated, data storage, curation, analysis and sharing require more computational approaches and artificial intelligence-powered tools to fully utilize spatial tools. Here, we discuss spatial biology as an important convergent science approach to tackling complex global challenges in areas such as health.

Broadening the Definition of Bacterial Small RNAs: Characteristics and Mechanisms of Action.

The first report of trans-acting RNA-based regulation in bacterial cells dates back to 1984. Subsequent studies in diverse bacteria unraveled shared properties of trans-acting small regulatory RNAs, forming a clear definition of these molecules. These shared characteristics have been used extensively to identify new small RNAs (sRNAs) and their interactomes. Recently however, emerging technologies able to resolve RNA-RNA interactions have identified new types of regulatory RNAs. In this review, we present a broader definition of trans-acting sRNA regulators and discuss their newly discovered intrinsic characteristics.

Effects of infrared heating as an emerging thermal technology on physicochemical properties of foods.

Infrared (IR) radiation is part of an electromagnetic spectrum between the ultraviolet and microwave regions. IR radiation impacts the surface of the food, generating heat that can be used as an efficient drying technique. Apart from drying, IR heating is an emerging food processing technology with applications in baking, roasting, microbial inactivation, insect control, extraction for antioxidant recovery, peeling, and blanching. Physicochemical properties such as texture, color, hardness, total phenols, and antioxidants capability of foods are essential quality attributes that affect the food quality. In this regard, the main objective of this review study was to highlight and discuss the effects of IR heating on food quality to expand its food applications and commercial adoption. The fundamental mechanisms, type of emitters, and IR processing parameters are discussed in this review to explore their impacts on food quality. Infrared heating has been shown that the appropriate operating conditions (distance, exposure time, IR power, and temperature) with high heat transfer, thus leading to a shorter drying time. Besides, IR heating used in food processing to improve food-surface color and flavor, it also enhances hardness, firmness, shrinkage, crispiness, and viscosity. Meanwhile, antioxidant activity is enhanced, and some nutrients are retained.

Generation methods, stability, detection techniques, and applications of bulk nanobubbles in agro-food industries: a review and future perspective.

Nanobubble (NB) technologies have received considerable attention for various applications due to their low cost, eco-friendliness, scale-up potential, process control, and unique physical characteristics. NB stands for nanoscopic gaseous cavities, typically <1 µm in diameter. NBs can exist on surfaces (surface or interfacial NBs) and be dispersed in a bulk liquid phase (bulk NBs). Compared to the microbubbles, NBs exhibit high specific surface area, negative surface charge, and better adsorption. Bulk NBs can be generated by hydrodynamic/acoustic cavitation, electrolysis, water-solvent mixing, nano-membrane filtration, and so on. NBs exhibit extraordinary longevity compared to microbubbles, prompting the interest of the scientific community aiming for potential applications including medicine, agriculture, food, wastewater treatment, surface cleaning, and so on. Based on the limited amount of research work available regarding the influence of NBs on food matrices, further research, however, needs to be done to provide more insights into its applications in food industries. This review provides an overview of the generation methods for NBs, techniques to evaluate them, and a discussion of their stability and several applications in various fields of science were discussed. However, recent studies have revealed that, despite the many benefits of NB technologies, several NB generating approaches are still limited in their application in specific agro-food industries. Further study should focus on process optimization, integrating various NB generation techniques/combining with other emerging technologies in order to achieve rapid technical progress and industrialization of NB-based technologies.HighlightsNanobubbles (NBs) are stable spherical entities of gas within liquid and are operationally defined as having diameters less than 1 µm.Currently, various reported theories still lack the ability to explain the evidence and stability of NBs in water, numerous NB applications have emerged due to the unique properties of NBs.NB technologies can be applied to various food and dairy products (e.g. yogurt and ice cream) and other potential applications, including agriculture (e.g. seed germination and plant growth), wastewater treatment, surface cleaning, and so on.

Edible packaging systems for improved microbial quality of animal-derived foods and the role of emerging technologies.

Animal-derived foods are susceptible to microbial spoilage due to their superior nutritional composition and high moisture content. Among the various options, edible packaging is a relatively nascent area and can effectively control microbial growth without substantially affecting the sensory and techno-functional properties. Numerous studies have evaluated the effect of edible packaging systems on the microbial quality of animal-derived foods, however, a review that specifically covers the effect of edible packaging on animal foods and summarizes the findings of these studies is missing in the literature. To fill this gap, the present review analyses the findings of the studies on animal foods published during the last five years. Studies have reported edible-packaging systems for improving microbial stability of animal foods using different biopolymers (proteins, polysaccharides, lipids, and their derivatives) and bioactive ingredients (phytochemicals, peptides, plant extracts, essential oils, and their nanoparticles, nanoemulsions or coarse emulsions). In general, nanoparticles and nanoemulsions are more effective in controlling microbial spoilage in animal foods compared to the direct addition of bioactive agents to the film matrices. Studies have reported the use of non-thermal and emerging technologies in combination with edible packaging systems for improved food safety or their use for enhancing functionality, bioactivity and characteristics of the packaging systems. Future studies should focus on developing sustainable packaging systems using widely available biopolymers and bioactive ingredients and should also consider the economic feasibility at the commercial scale.

The effects of ultrasound on probiotic functionality: an updated review.

The effects of ultrasound (US) on probiotics, as health-promoting microbes, have attracted the attention of researchers in fermentation and healthy food production. This paper aims to review recent advances in the application of the US for enhancing probiotic cells' activity, elaborate on the mechanisms involved, explain how probiotic-related industries can benefit from this emerging food processing technology, and discuss the perspective of this innovative approach. Data showed that US could enhance fermentation, which is increasingly used to enrich agri-food products with probiotics. Among the probiotics, recent studies focused on Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus brevis, Lactococcus lactis, Lactobacillus casei, Leuconostoc mesenteroides, Bifidobacteria. These bacteria proliferated in the log phase when treated with US at relatively low-intensities. Also, this non-thermal technology increased extracellular enzymes, mainly ß-galactosidase, and effectively extracted antioxidants and bioactive compounds such as phenolics, flavonoids, and anthocyanins. Accordingly, better functional and physicochemical properties of prebiotic-based foods (e.g., fermented dairy products) can be expected after ultrasonication at appropriate conditions. Besides, the US improved fermentation efficiency by reducing the production time, making probiotics more viable with lower lactose content, more oligosaccharide, and reduced unpleasant taste. Also, US can enhance the rheological characteristics of probiotic-based food by altering the acidity. Optimizing US settings is suggested to preserve probiotics viability to achieve high-quality food production and contribute to food nutrition improvement and sustainable food manufacturing.

Ultrasound affects probiotics during fermentation to produce healthy foodsUltrasound could enhance the activity of probiotic cells through various mechanismsLactobacillus plantarum, L. brevis, and Leuconostoc mesenteroides are most studied probioticsSonication could increase extracellular enzyme and antioxidant activity of fermented foods.

Research progress on extraction of active components from apple processing waste.

Apple waste (APW) is the residual product after apple processing, including apple peel, apple core, apple seed, and other components. A large quantity of APW produced is abandoned annually, leading to serious resource waste and environmental pollution. APW is rich in natural active compounds, such as pectin, polyphenols, fatty acids, and dietary fiber, which has a good use value. This paper reviewed the current research on recovering active components from APW. The traditional extraction methods (acid, alkali, physical, enzyme, etc.) and the novel extraction methods (SWE, UAE, MAE, RFAE, etc.) for the recovery of pectin, polyphenols, apple seed oil, apple seed protein, and dietary fiber from APW were systematically summarized. The basic principles, advantages, and disadvantages of different extraction methods were introduced. The requirements of different extraction methods on extraction conditions and the effects of different extraction methods on the yield, quality, and functional activity of extracted products were analyzed. The challenges and future study direction of APW extraction have prospected. This paper aims to provide a reference for other researchers interested in APW extraction, improve the utilization rate of APW and extend the value chain of the apple industry.

Potential of CO2 laser for food processing: Applications and challenges.

Laser food processing has the breath-taking potential to revolutionize the industry in many aspects. Among the different laser configurations, CO2 laser has received special attention due to its relative high efficiency in power generation, its high-power output and its laser beam wavelength, infrared, which is strongly absorbed by water, the main component of food materials. Over the last 50 years, different uses of CO2 laser for processing foods have been proposed so far, including cooking, broiling and browning, selective laser sintering, marking, microperforation for improving downstream mass transfer operations (e.g. infusion, diffusion, marinating, salting, drying, extraction), cutting and peeling, and microbial surface decontamination. The present work is a review of the state of the art of the use of CO2 laser for food processing that covers the main characteristics and mechanisms of this technology, as well as the most important published results regarding its applications in the agri-food sector, highlighting the main challenges to bring out its full potential in the coming years.

Recent innovations and emerging technological advances used to improve quality and process of plant-based milk analogs.

The worldwide challenges related to food sustainability are presently more critical than ever before due to the severe consequences of climate change, outbreak of epidemics, and wars. Many consumers are shifting their dietary habits toward consuming more plant-based foods, such as plant milk analogs (PMA) for health, sustainability, and well-being reasons. The PMA market is anticipated to reach US$38 billion within 2024, making them the largest segment in plant-based foods. Nevertheless, using plant matrices to produce PMA has numerous limitations, including, among others, low stability and short shelf life. This review addresses the main obstacles facing quality and safety of PMA formula. Moreover, this literature overview discusses the emerging approaches, e.g., pulsed electric field (PEF), cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), ultrasound (US), ultra-high-pressure homogenization (UHPH), ultraviolet C (UVC) irradiation, ozone (O3), and hurdle technology used in PMA formulations to overcome their common challenges. These emerging technologies have a vast potential at the lab scale to improve physicochemical characteristics, increase stability and extend the shelf-life, decrease food additives, increase nutritional and organoleptic qualities of the end product. Although the PMA fabrication on a large scale using these technologies can be expected in the near future to formulate novel food products that can offer green alternatives to conventional dairy products, further development is still needed for wider commercial applications.

Prospects on emerging eco-friendly and innovative technologies to add value to dry bean proteins.

The world's growing population and evolving food habits have created a need for alternative plant protein sources, with pulses playing a crucial role as healthy staple foods. Dry beans are high-protein pulses rich in essential amino acids like lysine and bioactive peptides. They have gathered attention for their nutritional quality and potential health benefits concerning metabolic syndrome. This review highlights dry bean proteins' nutritional quality, health benefits, and limitations, focusing on recent eco-friendly emerging technologies for their obtaining and functionalization. Antinutritional factors (ANFs) in bean proteins can affect their in vitro protein digestibility (IVPD), and lectins have been identified as potential allergens. Recently, eco-friendly emerging technologies such as ultrasound, microwaves, subcritical fluids, high-hydrostatic pressure, enzyme technology, and dry fractionation methods have been explored for extracting and functionalizing dry bean proteins. These technologies have shown promise in reducing ANFs, improving IVPD, and modifying allergen epitopes. Additionally, they enhance the techno-functional properties of bean proteins, making them more soluble, emulsifying, foaming, and gel-forming, with enhanced water and oil-holding capacities. By utilizing emerging innovative technologies, protein recovery from dry beans and the development of protein isolates can meet the demand for alternative protein sources while being eco-friendly, safe, and efficient.

Dry beans are a source of lysine-rich proteins and high-quality AA for the diet.Physical treatments can reduce the ANFs of beans and increase protein digestibility.Eco-friendly technologies can treat, modify, extract, and separate bean proteins.Conformational changes with protein unfolding improve WHC, EA, and solubility.The combined use of emerging technologies allows for conveying advantages of each one.

Leveraging innovation technologies to respond to malaria: a systematized literature review of emerging technologies.

BACKGROUND: In 2019, an estimated 409,000 people died of malaria and most of them were young children in sub-Saharan Africa. In a bid to combat malaria epidemics, several technological innovations that have contributed significantly to malaria response have been developed across the world. This paper presents a systematized review and identifies key technological innovations that have been developed worldwide targeting different areas of the malaria response, which include surveillance, microplanning, prevention, diagnosis and management. METHODS: A systematized literature review which involved a structured search of the malaria technological innovations followed by a quantitative and narrative description and synthesis of the innovations was carried out. The malaria technological innovations were electronically retrieved from scientific databases that include PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, IEEE and Science Direct. Additional innovations were found across grey sources such as the Google Play Store, Apple App Store and cooperate websites. This was done using keywords pertaining to different malaria response areas combined with the words "innovation or technology" in a search query. The search was conducted between July 2021 and December 2021. Drugs, vaccines, social programmes, and apps in non-English were excluded. The quality of technological innovations included was based on reported impact and an exclusion criterion set by the authors. RESULTS: Out of over 1000 malaria innovations and programmes, only 650 key malaria technological innovations were considered for further review. There were web-based innovations (34%), mobile-based applications (28%), diagnostic tools and devices (25%), and drone-based technologies (13%. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This study was undertaken to unveil impactful and contextually relevant malaria innovations that can be adapted in Africa. This was in response to the existing knowledge gap about the comprehensive technological landscape for malaria response. The paper provides information that countries and key malaria control stakeholders can leverage with regards to adopting some of these technologies as part of the malaria response in their respective countries. The paper has also highlighted key drivers including infrastructural requirements to foster development and scaling up of innovations. In order to stimulate development of innovations in Africa, countries should prioritize investment in infrastructure for information and communication technologies and also drone technologies. These should be accompanied by the right policies and incentive frameworks.

Mapping emerging technologies in aged care: results from an in-depth online research.

BACKGROUND: Emerging Technologies (ETs) have recently acquired great relevance in elderly care. The exceptional experience with SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has emphasized the usefulness of ETs in the assistance and remote monitoring of older adults. Technological devices have also contributed to the preservation of social interactions, thus reducing isolation and loneliness. The general purpose of this work is to provide a comprehensive and updated overview of the technologies currently employed in elderly care. This objective was achieved firstly, by mapping and classifying the ETs currently available on the market and, secondly, by assessing the impact of such ETs on elderly care, exploring the ethical values promoted, as well as potential ethical threats. METHODS: An in-depth search was carried out on Google search engine, by using specific keywords (e.g. technology, monitoring techniques, ambient intelligence; elderly, older adults; care and assistance). Three hundred and twenty-eight technologies were originally identified. Then, based on a predetermined set of inclusion-exclusion criteria, two hundreds and twenty-two technologies were selected. RESULTS: A comprehensive database was elaborated, where the two hundred and twenty-two ETs selected were classified as follows: category; developmental stage; companies and/or partners; functions; location of development; time of development; impact on elderly care; target; website. From an in-depth qualitative analysis, some ethically-related contents and themes emerged, namely: questions related to safety, independence and active aging, connectedness, empowerment and dignity, cost and efficiency. Although not reported by developers, a close analysis of website contents highlights that positive values are often associated with potential risks, notably privacy threats, deception, dehumanization of care. CONCLUSIONS: Research findings may ultimately lead to a better understanding of the impact of ETs on elderly people.

Ethical Dilemmas and Privacy Issues in Emerging Technologies: A Review.

Industry 5.0 is projected to be an exemplary improvement in digital transformation allowing for mass customization and production efficiencies using emerging technologies such as universal machines, autonomous and self-driving robots, self-healing networks, cloud data analytics, etc., to supersede the limitations of Industry 4.0. To successfully pave the way for acceptance of these technologies, we must be bound and adhere to ethical and regulatory standards. Presently, with ethical standards still under development, and each region following a different set of standards and policies, the complexity of being compliant increases. Having vague and inconsistent ethical guidelines leaves potential gray areas leading to privacy, ethical, and data breaches that must be resolved. This paper examines the ethical dimensions and dilemmas associated with emerging technologies and provides potential methods to mitigate their legal/regulatory issues.

Digital Twins and Enabling Technologies in Museums and Cultural Heritage: An Overview.

This paper presents an overview of various types of virtual museums (ViM) as native artifacts or as digital twins (DT) of physical museums (PM). Depending on their mission and features, we discuss various enabling technologies and sensor equipment with their specific requirements and complexities, advantages and drawbacks in relation to each other at all stages of a DT's life cycle. A DT is a virtual construct and embodies innovative concepts based on emerging technologies (ET) using adequate sensor configurations for (meta-)data import and exchange. Our keyword-based search for articles, conference papers, (chapters from) books and reviews yielded 43 contributions and 43 further important references from Industry 4.0, Tourism and Heritage 4.0. After closer examination, a reference corpus of 40 contributions was evaluated in detail and classified along with their variants of DT-content-, communication-, and collaboration-centric and risk-informed ViMs. Their system features correlate with different application areas (AA), new or improved technologies-mostly still under development-and sensors used. Our proposal suggests a template-based, generative approach to DTs using standardized metadata formats, expert/curator software and customers'/visitors' engagement. It advocates for stakeholders' collaboration as part of a comprehensive validation and verification assessment (V&VA) throughout the DT's entire life cycle.

Emerging Technologies for 6G Communication Networks: Machine Learning Approaches.

The fifth generation achieved tremendous success, which brings high hopes for the next generation, as evidenced by the sixth generation (6G) key performance indicators, which include ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC), extremely high data rate, high energy and spectral efficiency, ultra-dense connectivity, integrated sensing and communication, and secure communication. Emerging technologies such as intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), and others have the ability to provide communications for massive users, high overhead, and computational complexity. This will address concerns over the outrageous 6G requirements. However, optimizing system functionality with these new technologies was found to be hard for conventional mathematical solutions. Therefore, using the ML algorithm and its derivatives could be the right solution. The present study aims to offer a thorough and organized overview of the various machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms concerning the emerging 6G technologies. This study is motivated by the fact that there is a lack of research on the significance of these algorithms in this specific context. This study examines the potential of ML algorithms and their derivatives in optimizing emerging technologies to align with the visions and requirements of the 6G network. It is crucial in ushering in a new era of communication marked by substantial advancements and requires grand improvement. This study highlights potential challenges for wireless communications in 6G networks and suggests insights into possible ML algorithms and their derivatives as possible solutions. Finally, the survey concludes that integrating Ml algorithms and emerging technologies will play a vital role in developing 6G networks.

The Recent Development of Acoustic Sensors as Effective Chemical Detecting Tools for Biological Cells and Their Bioactivities.

One of the most significant developed technologies is the use of acoustic waves to determine the chemical structures of biological tissues and their bioactivities. In addition, the use of new acoustic techniques for in vivo visualizing and imaging of animal and plant cellular chemical compositions could significantly help pave the way toward advanced analytical technologies. For instance, acoustic wave sensors (AWSs) based on quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) were used to identify the aromas of fermenting tea such as linalool, geraniol, and trans-2-hexenal. Therefore, this review focuses on the use of advanced acoustic technologies for tracking the composition changes in plant and animal tissues. In addition, a few key configurations of the AWS sensors and their different wave pattern applications in biomedical and microfluidic media progress are discussed.

Minimal Processing Technologies for Production and Preservation of Tailor-Made Foods§.

Tailor-made foods, also known as foods with programmable properties, are specialised systems with unique composition prepared by different methods, using the known mechanisms of action of their bioactive ingredients. The development of tailor-made foods involves the evaluation of individual components, including bioactive substances derived from waste products of other productions, such as essential oils. These components are evaluated both individually and in combination within food compositions to achieve specific functionalities. This review focuses on the application of minimal processing technologies for the production and preservation of tailor-made foods. It examines a range of approaches, including traditional and emerging technologies, as well as novel ingredients such as biomolecules from various sources and microorganisms. These approaches are combined according to the principles of hurdle technology to achieve effective synergistic effects that enhance food safety and extend the shelf life of tailor-made foods, while maintaining their functional properties.