The environmental impacts of packages have been found to be relatively small compared with the food items they contain. Furthermore, from the environmental and operational point of view, the most significant task of the package is to protect the product, which is important to acknowledge in the packaging design process. This study introduces a guiding framework for designing sustainable food packaging. In this approach, the entire life cycle of the product–package combination is taken into consideration. The emphasis is on the prevention of food losses in packaging design as a major environmental criterion. Consideration of the properties of both the package and the product itself when designing the final package will lead to a better end result with smaller product losses and environmental impacts. By using different assessment methods in the different stages of the packaging design, the sustainability of the package can be enhanced. The decision making of the packaging designer is facilitated with methods that are introduced step by step and in a certain order that will also allow for corrective measures through back‐loops in the design process. The purpose is to integrate sustainability aspects at all stages firmly into the design process. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Through comparison to the corneal ERG, the transretinal ERG is a valuable tool for assaying the physiologic state of isolated retinal tissue. The rod photoreceptor responses of the intact isolated retina correspond well to those recorded in vivo. The origin of their faster kinetics compared to single cell recordings remains to be determined.

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Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), affecting the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), is the leading cause of blindness in middle-aged and older people in developed countries. Genetic and environmental risk factors have been identified, but no effective cure exists. Using a mouse model we show that a transmembrane prolyl 4-hydroxylase (P4H-TM), which participates in the oxygen-dependent regulation of the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF), is a potential novel candidate gene for AMD. We show that P4h-tm had its highest expression levels in the mouse RPE and brain, heart, lung, skeletal muscle and kidney. P4h-tm mice were fertile and had a normal life span. Lack of P4h-tm stabilized HIF-1α in cortical neurons under normoxia, while in hypoxia it increased the expression of certain HIF target genes in tissues with high endogenous P4h-tm expression levels more than in wild-type mice. Renal erythropoietin levels increased in P4h-tm mice with aging, but the resulting ∼2-fold increase in erythropoietin serum levels did not lead to erythrocytosis. Instead, accumulation of lipid-containing lamellar bodies in renal tubuli was detected in P4h-tm mice with aging, resulting in inflammation and fibrosis, and later glomerular sclerosis and albuminuria. Lack of P4h-tm was associated with retinal thinning, rosette-like infoldings and drusen-like structure accumulation in RPE with aging, as is characteristic of AMD. Photoreceptor recycling was compromised, and electroretinograms revealed functional impairment of the cone pathway in adult P4h-tm mice and cone and rod deficiency in middle-aged mice. P4H-TM is therefore imperative for normal vision, and potentially a novel candidate for age-induced diseases, such as AMD.

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A previously unidentified calcium-dependent mechanism contributes to light adaptation in mammalian rods.

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