Meeting report: international workshop on endocrine disruptors: exposure and potential impact on consumers health.

The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (Anses) hosted a two-day workshop on Endocrine Disruptors: Exposure and Potential Impact on Consumers Health, bringing together participants from international organizations, academia, research institutes and from German, Swedish, Danish and French governmental agencies. The main objective of the workshop was to share knowledge and experiences on endocrine disruptors (ED) exposure and potential impact on consumers' health, to identify current risk assessment practices and knowledge gaps and issue recommendations on research needs and future collaboration. The following topics were reviewed: (1) Definition of ED, (2) endpoints to be considered for Risk assessment (RA) of ED, (3) non-monotonic dose response curves, (4) studies to be considered for RA (regulatory versus academic studies), (5) point of departure and uncertainty factors, (6) exposure assessment, (7) regulatory issues related to ED. The opinions expressed during this workshop reflect day-to-day experiences from scientists, regulators, researchers, and others from many different countries in the fields of risk assessment, and were regarded by the attendees as an important basis for further discussions. Accordingly, the participants underlined the need for more exchange in the future to share experiences and improve the methodology related to risk assessment for endocrine disrupters.

Convective heat transfer on an inlet guide vane.

The flow and temperature fields around an inlet guide vane are determined numerically by a CFD method. Outer surface temperatures, heat transfer coefficient distributions, and static pressure distributions are presented. Three different thermal boundary conditions on the vane are analysed. The computed results are compared with experimental data. The governing equations are solved by a finite-volume method with the low Reynolds number version of the k-omega turbulence model by Wilcox implemented. It is found that the calculated results agree best with measurements if a conjugate heat transfer approach is applied and thus this wall condition is recommended for future investigations of film cooling of guide vanes and turbine blades.