Search results

Various studies suggest that some of natural agents create a specific action of hypocholesterolemic effect. Considering this fact, the aim of this paper is to work on describing selected natural agents that may reduce cholesterol concentrations by different mechanism of actions.

The advantages, phytochemical components and the mechanisms of the agents were reviewed and supported from the findings of the in vitro, double-blind and clinical studies from published journals, books and articles. The journals used in this review were published between 1987 and 2016, and are available from PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar.

Plant stanols and sterols, turmeric, fenugreek, avocado, tomato, artichoke, red yeast rice and garlic showed a positive effect in maintaining cholesterol levels by specific mechanisms or actions. These agents each had a specific action in creating a hypocholesterolemic effect either by inhibition of the enzyme significant to the synthesis process, disturbing the absorption of cholesterol, conversion of cholesterol to other related forms and through the reduction of the oxidative stress.

However, this field still needs more studies as, currently, there is not any detailed information regarding the main active ingredients responsible for the mechanism to reduce cholesterol levels in humans.

This paper enlightens the authors’ understanding of some natural agents that have the potential to be used in controlling cholesterol.

This study aims to uncover apple preference and consumption in Indonesia, to disclose the risk of non-halal contamination of apples and the importance of maintaining the halal integrity of apples along the supply chain and to uncover the impacts of food miles of apples along supply chain segmentation.

This study adopted mixed research methods under a fully mixed sequential dominant status design (QUAN → qual). Data were collected through a survey in some Indonesian provinces (N = 396 respondents). Samples were collected randomly from individual consumers. The qualitative data were collected through interviews with 15 apple traders in Indonesia. Data were analysed using crosstab, chi-square and descriptive analysis.

First, Muslim consumers believe in the risk of chemical treatment of apples because it can affect the halal status of apples. Second, Indonesian consumers consider the importance of halal certification of chemical-treated apples and the additives for apple treatments. Third, the insignificance of domestic apple preference contributes to longer food miles at the first- and middle-mile stages (preference for imported apples). Fourth, apple consumption and shopping distance contribute to the longer food miles problem at the last-mile stage. Fifth, longer food miles have negative impacts, such as emissions and pollution, food loss and waste, food insecurity, financial loss, slow development of the local economy and food unsafety.

This research has implications for the governments, farmers, consumers (society) and business sectors.

This study proposes a framework of food miles under a halal supply chain (halal food miles) to reduce the risk of food miles and improve halal integrity. The findings from this research have theoretical implications for the development of the food mile theory, halal food supply chain and green supply chain.

Several studies and research related to event study and terrorist bombing acts have different conclusions. Moreover, research on terrorist bombings worldwide has never been conducted. Hence, this research aims at examining the impact of terrorist bombing using the abnormal return variables by looking at all bombings around the world in the past 10 years. This research uses a paired t-test by looking at the abnormal return before, during, and after a bombing act. Results show no significant difference between the abnormal return before, during, and after bombing acts.

It is unfortunately too easy to find examples of absurd functioning in the university. It has never been a perfect institution, because that is an impossibility. One observes in recent years that while its chronic problems have not disappeared, they have lost prominence in the face of a steamroller working at the planetary level. The university has plunged into an even greater absurdity. This institution that was created to be free and clearly work for human emancipation, through the expansion of knowledge, has chosen to submit itself as a slave to the dynamics of the current global model of society. By so doing, it further fosters slavery by strengthening this global hegemony. In the present contribution I choose three concrete examples of this absurdity. The first alludes to the recruitment and shaping of obedient teachers. In this sense, the university is not an exception to the banking system of education, but it raises the production of individual adaptation and obedience to its maximum exponential. The second example refers to the renunciation of the social usefulness of the knowledge that it produces. This is done by adopting operational models from the production of commodities, such as quality measurement and the like, which undermine the institutional mission of universities. The third great absurdity refers to the destruction of thought and language diversity, which are two sides of the same coin. While the aforementioned processes are readily noticed, there are alternatives to the absurd university that entail encouraging projects and realities under construction. My aim with this contribution is to present an analysis of the absurd university, and give visibility to these alternatives under way, linked to grassroots university movements and other hopeful socio-educational projects. This chapter has a particular focus on language, due to its complexity and relative neglect in academia.

This paper attempts to understand how the interaction of natural disasters and human behaviour during wartime led to famines in three regions under imperial control around the Indian Ocean. The socio-economic structure of these regions had been increasingly differentiated over the period of imperial rule, with large proportions of their populations relying on agricultural labour for their subsistence.

Before the war, food crises in each of the regions had been met by the private importation of grain from national or overseas surplus regions: the grain had been made available through a range of systems, the most complex of which was the Bengal Famine Code in which the able-bodied had to work before receiving money to buy food in the market.

During the Second World War, the loss of control of normal sources of imported grain, the destruction of shipping in the Indian Ocean (by both sides) and the military demands on internal transport systems prevented the use of traditional famine responses when natural events affected grain supply in each of the regions. These circumstances drew the governments into attempts to control their own grain markets.

The food crises raised complex ethical and practical issues for the governments charged with their solution. The most significant of these was that the British Government could have attempted to ship wheat to Bengal but, having lost naval control of the Indian Ocean in 1942 and needing warships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean in 1943 chose to ignore the needs of the people of Bengal, focussing instead on winning the war.

In each of the regions governments allowed/encouraged the balkanisation of the grain supply – at times down to the sub-district level – which at times served to produce waste and corruption, and opened the way for black markets as various groups (inside and outside government ranks) manipulated the local supply.

People were affected in different ways by the changes brought about by the war: some benefitted if their role was important to the war-effort; others suffered. The effect of this was multiplied by the way each government ‘solved’ its financial problems by – in essence – printing money.

Because of the natural events of the period, there would have been food crises in these regions without World War II, but decisions made in the light of wartime exigencies and opportunities turned crises into famines, causing the loss of millions of lives.

Smart furniture is an essential part of research that has been designed to best complement easy and safe human interaction. The purpose of smart furniture is to save the space of the house and make the products unique, awesome and safe, functional, strong and also make it works better so the people can live better with it. This research aims to explore the key supply chain strategies implemented by the Indian smart furniture industry to reduce the impact of a post-COVID-19 pandemic.

This work utilized a case study and conducted semi-structured interviews with the top leadership of the smart furniture manufacturing industry to explore key supply chain strategies to reduce the influence of the post-COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, key supply chain strategies have been analyzed using a multi-criteria decision-making technique known as grey relational analysis (GRA) to determine their ranking significance in the smart furniture industry.

The results of this study discovered that “Inventory-Categorization” is essential in ensuring business continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic and helps reduce the amount of stock they have on hand. It enhanced the opportunity for employees to properly focus on their work and an opportunity for better work-life balance. The results of the study can also help supply chain stakeholders in their establishment of critical strategies.

The implications of this research work help the Indian furniture industry to make supply chain investment decisions that benefit the organization to sustain itself.

This is the first study to explore key supply chain strategies for the post-COVID-19 era. This work will assist managers and practitioners in helping the organization decide which supply chain strategies are more critical to the betterment of the organization.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors affecting the intention of social networking sites (SNS) users to comply with government policy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Based on the theory of appraisal and coping, the research model is tested using survey data collected from 326 SNS users. Structural equation modeling is used to test the research model.

The results show that social support has a positive effect on outbreak self-efficacy but has no significant effect on perceived avoidability. Government information transparency positively affects outbreak self-efficacy and perceived avoidability. Outbreak self-efficacy and perceived avoidability have a strong positive impact on policy compliance intention through problem-focused coping.

The results suggest that both government and policymakers could deliver reliable pandemic information to the citizens via social media.

This study brings novel insights into citizen coping behavior, showing that policy compliance intention is driven by the ability to cope with problems. Moreover, this study enhances the theoretical understanding of the role of social support, outbreak self-efficacy and problem-focused coping.