Food NCPof Russia / Потенциальные участники FP6

Project proposal
Title: Aeroionized and ozonized media and food quality

Type Details: A group of senior food and agricultural researchers, technologists, biochemists, computer scientists, engineers in academia and industry hereby proposes a European Network of Excellence to realise the objectives of a priority thematic area 1.1.5. "Food Quality and Safety" through innovative control systems and processing technologies elaboration with a subsystem of produce quality and safety assessment in a feedback and by means of common informational network of European academia and industry creation. The main goal of the present research activities is investigation of an effect of combining of nonconventional factors (technological media aeroionization and ozonization) and of various usual factors (aeration, feed and heat flows, moistening and drying, etc.) on aerobic organisms (the procaryote and eukaryote) during storage, greensprouting, fermentation and processing, and the following building of biophysical and mathematical models of an intracellular respiration and of other metabolic and transmembrane mechanisms, of biochemical and physical transformations during living objects processing (hydrolysis, drying, innovative processing technologies, etc), as well as of insects and microorganisms populations accompanying the foodstuffs and feedstuffs during storage and transportation, with the purpose of control subsystems elaboration aimed at food/feed quality and safety increase. As objects of study there could be considered such living objects as (a) baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its derivatives which are used as a raw material in breadmaking as well as food additives, functional foodstuffs, medicines, and animal feed source, (b) lysine synthesizing corynebacteria Brevibacterium flavum which are used in biotechnological processes of production of lysine containing feedstuff concentrates and of a food additive in form of crystalline lysine, (c) European potatoes Solanum tuberosum which is an agricultural raw material and a food semi-product, (d) grain and seed cultures, nuts, beans, cacao, etc., used in brewing, confectionary industry, agriculture, etc. (e) mold and saprogenous microflora, (f) vermin (insects, acarina), (h) other living systems. The specific problems of this basic research are connected with formalization and solution of the problems of searching of optimal levels and profiles of influence of external factors on living objects put into a limited space (microenvironment), as well as with an experimental investigation of the the effect of aeroionized and ozonized media in combination with usual control actions on lipidic membranes, Ca2+ and Na+ pumps, oxidative phosphorylation, etc. of living objects and on food/feed quality and safety. In technnological processes of food/feed manufacture an effect of control actions and ways of treatment (as combination of nonconventional and usual external factors) and of raw materials upon quality and safety of semi-products and integrated products could be assessed with the aid of PCR, viscosimetry, densometry, and various rheological characteristics measurement methods. The practical implementation of the investigation could result in a form of control subsystems aiming at solving of local sustainability problems and supporting a balance of microeconomical, microecological and microsocial systems within a technological subsystem realized in a microenvironment maintaining an optimal value of economical criterion and ensuring: (a) economical growth (profit increase, raw material saving); (b) high security, safety and quality of food and feed produce during technological process; elimination of gaseous harmful substances contacts with a subproduct during various technological stages; (c) improvement of labour conditions for industrial personnel from ecological point of view (positive effect of air aeroionisation and purifying on human organism promoting health strengthening and life duration increase, pulverulent and gaseous chemical and biological impurities removal). The other goal of the present research activities is creation of the feedback subsystem of produce (food or feed) quality and safety assessment and of estimation of a processed food/feed influence upon animal and human organisms on the basis of special-purpose expert system software operating with European data banks on food, feed and raw materials. These two goals are to be achieved through creation of a common informational network of European academia and industry aimed on world experience use concerning food, feed and agricultural raw materials quality and safety ensuring through innovative technological processes and treatment methods, systems and ways of produce quality and safety assessment. Such common informational network of European academia and industry could be created on the basis of NGO Non-commercial Association "Common Informational Network of Agro-Industrial Complex" founded by Moscow State University of Food Production. An infotainment and development of such common informational network of European academia and industry could be made through publications in international journals, conferences and seminars organisation, internet interaction, etc. The proposed research programme is scheduled for 2004-2010 and includes the following phases corresponding to systems approach: (1) targets verbal setting; various living systems investigation; biophysical models building; working out of food and feed quality and safety criteria; common informational network of European academia and industry foundation; problems reviewing and analysing; (2) experimental investigations; mathematical modelling; data bases building-up; (3) the control and quality/safety assessment problems formulation and solution; (4) the solutions analysis and construction of algorithms of control and of quality/safety assessment; (5) choice of software/hardware means for systems realization; technical documentation drafting; (6) business planning; (7) practical implementation and dissemination of the results throughout Europe.