Spot test analysis of microbial contents during composting of kitchen- and garden biowaste: sampling procedures, bacterial reductions, time-temperature relationships, and their relevance for EU-regulations concerning animal by-products.

This study was aimed to collect data and develop methodologies to determine if and how Dutch biowaste composting plants can meet the microbiological requirements set out in EU-Regulations (EC) 1774/2002 and (EC) 1069/2009, and to provide the European Food and Safety Authority (EFSA) with data and analysis for evaluation of these regulations. We examined twenty plant locations and four types of composting technologies, all with forced aeration and without an anaerobic digestion phase. Raw biowaste, material after sanitation and compost were sampled by spot test analysis according to a standard protocol, and according to an additional protocol with enhanced hygienic precautions.

[Conditional discharge of three committed psychiatric patients; the ambulatory practice].

Three patients, two women aged 54 and 38 years and a man aged 39, of whom the first suffered from a schizoaffective disorder with hyperthyroidism and the others from schizophrenia, were admitted by virtue of the Wet Bijzondere Opneming in Psychiatrische Ziekenhuizen (BOPZ; Bill on Compulsory Admission to Psychiatric Hospitals). They were discharged under conditions of the BOPZ. The conditions were discussed with the patient, the psychiatric hospital, the outpatient department and the general practitioner.

Cholesterol, phospholipid, and protein changes in focal opacities in the human eye lens.

Purpose: Focal opacities are signs of early cataractogenesis in the human lens. They progress slowly over a lifetime and may be precursors of mature cataracts. The authors analyzed changes in proteins, phospholipids, and cholesterol in these opacities using in situ techniques: Raman microspectroscopy, filipin cytochemistry for cholesterol, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

Aging affects the conformation of cholesterol in the human eye lens.

The distribution of 3-beta-OH-cholesterol along the optical axis of 20 human eye lenses of different ages was measured using confocal Raman microspectroscopy in combination with the 3-beta-hydroxysteroid-specific probe filipin. This non-destructive technique allow a spatially very detailed study of the distribution of 3-beta-OH-cholesterol in individual lenses. It revealed age-related changes of the 3-beta-OH-cholesterol distribution along the optical axis.

Relation between local acoustic parameters and protein distribution in human and porcine eye lenses.

The purpose of this study is to characterize the eye lens (human, porcine) by acoustic measurements and to investigate whether relations exist with the local protein content. The acoustic measurements were performed with a 'scanning acoustic microscope' (SAM), operating at a frequency of 20 MHz. At this frequency the lateral resolution in the acoustic images was 150 microns.