NZ Markets Fruit Grading Machine Singapore Company Offers
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ASIA-PACIFIC BI TECHNEWS Each partner has invested S$500 000 (US$290 000) NZ Markets Fruit Grading initially. The investment may later be increased by up to Machine S$4 million (US$2.3 million) if additional funding is needed. Steri-Care feels that there is a strong demand for outsourced A machine originally developed by an Auckland-based sterilization services in Singapore and expects to break engineering company to sort and grade New Zealand kiwifruit even in its first year of operation with revenues projected at and apples is finding a demand overseas. S$3–4 million. According to Compac Sorting Equipment Ltd., its machine The services offered include collection, decontamination, is able to gauge how a fruit tastes and to grade and label it sterilization, packing and distribution of items such as correctly — while keeping it intact. The machine has now surgical instruments, linen and sterile supplies used by been improved to grade other fruit, including avocados, operating theaters and wards in hospitals and other healthcare tomatoes, oranges, lemons, capsicum, onions and potatoes. facilities. The machine employs a proprietary technology (called Steri-Care will establish an offsite sterile supplies Tastemark) that uses a near infrared (NIR) spectrophotometry processing center and start offering the service in the second unit and a special software. The computer reads and interprets quarter of next year. It will initially service Parkway-affiliated the light reflected from each fruit sample and interprets what hospitals in Singapore. the fruit is like internally, regardless of how it may appear Outsourcing of services such as sterilization could reduce externally. the operating costs of healthcare providers. According to Studies conducted in the US have successfully used the Parkway, the service is the first of its kind in the Asian region, NIR technology in a high-speed sorting system to measure although hospitals in the United States and Europe are already the sugar content (Brix scale) in apples that had been bred for farming out such non-core activities to specialized service their red-skinned appearance. Some of these apples, bred for providers. looks, are disappointing in taste; but the grader was able to sort them according to sugar and dry matter content. ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE Packers will therefore be able to sort fruit with the best taste into export consignments, while the rest will be diverted Indian President Calls for to second-tier export and domestic markets. Eventually, big supermarket chains in the US and Europe might even add Research into Traditional taste to such label specifications of fruit as appearance, size and spray history. Medicines Compac has built more than 40 graders so far, and several Indian President, Mr. K R Narayanan, has recently called of these are for overseas customers. The company says that for comprehensive scientific research into traditional Indian the technology has saved one of the biggest citrus-packers in medicines, and their protection to prevent western countries California from financial trouble. The machine enabled Golden from acquiring exclusive rights over them. He said this during Valley Citrus to separate good oranges from damaged ones the inaugural function of the Ayurvedic Hospital and Research after a severe frost last December. This enabled the company Center in New Delhi. to save 30 percent of the harvest, when its competitors, who The Ayurvedic Hospital and Research Center, which is were using the old water sorters, were able to save only 20– an affiliate of the Kottayal Arya Vaidya Sala in Kerala, will 25 percent. It was just what the company needed to keep its treat patients suffering from rheumatic problems, skin diseases, business going. Parkinson’s Disease and degenerative diseases such as motor-neuron disorders and multiplesclerosis. It will also offer various reputed therapies and classical Ayurdedic formulations for the treatment of paralysis, rheumatism, arthritis, spondilitis, Singapore Company Offers hysteria, insanity and other psychosomatic disorders. Hospitals Outsourcing Mr. Narayanan, who said that India cannot go on fighting cases in western courts for patents, stressed on the need Services for India to work towards patenting its drugs, while at the same time making its knowledge available to the western A new company in Singapore is offering equipment and world. supplies sterilization services to hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare centers. The company, Steri-Care, is a joint According to Mr. Narayanan, the glory of Ayurveda could venture between SembCorp Logistics and Parkway Group only be restored if it was allied with modern sciences. Mr. Healthcare. The joint venture will bring together Parkway’s Narayanan said that if Ayurveda practitioners ignored scientific strength in healthcare and SembCorp Logistics’ logistical and developments, then medical doctors would also disregard supply chain management experience. Ayurveda. APBN • Vol. 4 • No. 23 • 2000 433 APBNV4N23 433 11/13/00, 11:22 AM The researchers warn that many people who take herbal Chinese Medicine is Not medicine for asthma may be unaware of its side effects. These medicines include gingko biloba, one of the most popular Biotech, Says HK Academic Chinese herbal medicines, which could have the potential to In a recent report in the South China Morning Post, the interfere with anticoagulant drugs used by heart patients. President of the Hong Kong Baptist University sent a strong The study cited a survey by Britain’s National Asthma warning to the Hong Kong government regarding the Campaign, which found that up to 70 percent of people with “westernization” of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). moderate to severe asthma had tried alternative medicine, Dr. Daniel Tse, who is also the Vice-Chancellor of the including herbal remedies. Considering the popularity of herbal University, said that it is completely wrong to study TCM as medicines among asthma patients, the researchers think there one would biotechnology. “The science of biotechnology can is an urgent need for stringently designed, clinically relevant, only serve as a means to upgrade Chinese medicine. But the randomized clinical trials to be conducted to evaluate the two subjects are not identical,” he warned. efficacy of the medicines. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, Mr. Tung Chee-hwa, plans to develop the Special Administrative Region into an RESEARCH NEWS international hub for TCM. A research center, called the Institute of Chinese Medicine, has already obtained funding Singapore University Finds of HK$500 million (US$64 million) and construction will start soon. Mr. Tung encourages research to be undertaken in the Quick Test for Enteroviruses field of TCM and eventual commercialization of the products. Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Executive Associate Dean of Baptist University’s School have found a way to cut the time needed to test for viruses of Chinese Medicine, Prof. Liu Liang, agreed with Dr. Tse. He — such as those responsible for the recent outbreak of hand, felt that TCM has a long history and had proved to be effective, foot and mounth disease (HFMD) among children in the therefore, “westernizing” it would not be right. republic — from two to three weeks to just a few days. The NUS team published its research findings in the Journal of Dr. Tse is perhaps taking a more balanced view of the VirologicaI Methods in April this year. They are currently ancient knowledge of TCM. He did not outrightly criticize working on improving the technique in order to obtain the the study of TCM via biotechnological methods, but he result on the same day. appeared to be worried that TCM would be studied only in the laboratory without the participation of TCM practitioners. The university’s Department of Microbiology’s Enterovirus He suggested that the government appoint people who know 71 Research Team has been studying tests for the viruses, TCM well to give their advice on the future plans and called enteroviruses, for more than two years. These viruses, developments. which killed more than 70 children in Taiwan in 1998 and three children in Malaysia in 1997, may show flu-like symptoms. Some may be serious as to cause inflammation of the heart and brain. Eastern Herbal Cures for There are three countries in the world conducting major research on enterovirus 71 — the Centers for Disease Control Asthma Disputed and Prevention in the US; the James Cook University in A study published in the British journal Thorax throws Australia and the NUS, where research is funded by a grant doubts on the efficacy of eastern herbal medicines to treat from the National Medical Research Council. Only the James asthma. Researchers from the University of Exeter in the Cook University and the NUS are working on developing a UK reported that there is no scientific evidence to back the vaccine. claims, after it had assessed 17 eastern herbal remedies for The NUS team, with help from the Singapore General asthma. Hospital, tested for the virus by applying a molecular typing Six of the remedies were traditional Chinese medicines, process that analyzes the molecular structure of the virus. eight were Indian Ayurvedic medicines, and the other three This enables the virus to be identified more quickly. Associate were kampo medicine from Japan, marijuana and extract of Professor Poh Chit Laa, the team’s principal investigator, said dried ivy leaf. her team had been able to directly isolate the virus, something their counterparts had not been able to do. With the new Nine of the 17 trials reported a significant improvement testing method, different virus strains can be compared and in breathing or easing in asthma symptoms. However, the British researchers say that most of the trials were scientifically studied. Professor Poh said that while the enterovirus 71 strains flawed, e.g., in the age and profile of the patient, description isolated in Singapore and Malaysia were similar, they were of the outcome and whether the herbs had any adverse effect.