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Faced with the challenges associated with sustainably feeding the world's growing population, the food industry is increasingly relying on operations research (OR) techniques to achieve economic, environmental and social sustainability. It is therefore important to understand the context-specific model-oriented applications of OR techniques in the sustainable food supply chain (SFSC) domain. While existing food supply chain reviews provide an excellent basis for this process, the explicit consideration of sustainability from a model-oriented perspective along with a structured outline of relevant SFSC research techniques are missing in extant literature. We attempt to fill this gap by reviewing 83 related scientific journal publications that utilise mathematical modelling techniques to address issues in SFSC. To this end, we first identify the salient dimensions that include economic, environmental and social issues in SFSC. We then review the models and methods that use these dimensions to solve issues that arise in SFSC. We identify some of the main challenges in analytical modelling of SFSC as well as future research directions.

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It is important to know whether the human population includes genetically predisposed radiosensitive subsets. In vitro studies have shown that cells from individuals homozygous for ataxia telangiectasia (A-T) are much more radiosensitive than cells from unaffected individuals. Although cells heterozygous for the ATM gene (ATM ؉/؊ ) may be slightly more radiosensitive in vitro, it remained to be determined whether the greater susceptibility of ATM ؉/؊ cells translates into an increased sensitivity for late effects in vivo, though there is a suggestion that radiotherapy patients that are heterozygous for the ATM gene may be more at risk of developing late normal tissue damage. We chose cataractogenesis in the lens as a means to assay for the effects of ATM deficiency in a late-responding tissue. One eye of wild-type, Atm heterozygous and homozygous knockout mice was exposed to 0.5-, 1.0-, 2.0-, or 4.0-Gy x rays. The animals were followed weekly for cataract development by conventional slit-lamp biomicroscopy. Cataract development in the animals of all three groups was strongly dependent on dose. The lenses of homozygous mice were the first to opacify at any given dose. Most important in the present context is that cataracts appeared earlier in the heterozygous versus wild-type animals. The data suggest that ATM heterozygotes in the human population may also be radiosensitive. This may influence the choice of individuals destined to be exposed to higher than normal doses of radiation, such as astronauts, and may also suggest that radiotherapy patients who are ATM heterozygotes could be predisposed to increased late normal tissue damage.

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