Search results

Globally, consumer’s inclination towards functional foods had noticed due to their greater health consciousness coupled with enhanced health-care cost. The fact that probiotics could promote a healthier gut microbiome led projection of probiotic foods as functional foods and had emerged as an important dietary strategy for improved human health. It had established that ice cream was a better carrier for probiotics than fermented milked due to greater stability of probiotics in ice cream matrix. Global demand for ice cream boomed and probiotic ice cream could have been one of the most demanded functional foods. The purpose of this paper was to review the technological aspects and factors affecting probiotic viability and to standardize methodology to produce functional probiotic ice cream.

Attempt was made to search the literature (review and researched papers) to identify diverse factors affecting the probiotic viability and major technological challenge faced during formulation of probiotic ice cream. Keywords used for data searched included dairy-based functional foods, ice cream variants, probiotic ice cream, factors affecting probiotic viability and health benefits of probiotic ice cream.

Retention of probiotic viability at a level of >10⁶ cfu/ml is a prerequisite for functional probiotic ice creams. Functional probiotic ice cream could have been produced with the modification of basic mix and modulating technological parameters during processing and freezing. Functionality can be further enhanced with the inclusion of certain nutraceutical components such as prebiotics, antioxidant, phenolic compounds and dietary fibres. Based upon reviewed literature, suggested method for the manufacture of functional probiotic ice cream involved freezing of a probiotic ice cream mix obtained by blending 10% probiotic fermented milk with 90% non-fermented plain ice cream mix for higher probiotic viability. Probiotic ice cream with functional features, comparable with traditional ice cream in terms of technological and sensory properties could be produced and can crop up as a novel functional food.

Probiotic ice cream with functional features may attract food manufacturers to cater health-conscious consumers.

Breast milk is considered as the most ideal food for infants during infancy owing to its diverse nutritional and therapeutic attributes. In the absence of breast milk, infants may be offered with cow's, buffalo's or goat's milk after modification to bring their composition nearer to human milk. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Risks associated with prolonged and exclusive breast feeding or unmodified cow's, buffalo's or goat's milk have been highlighted. In the absence of human milk, the suitability of modified cow's, buffalo's or goat's milk as a supplementary food for infants is also justified.

Breast milk is the most preferred food for infants owing to its numerous intrinsic therapeutic and nutritional attributes. Human milk is virtually impossible to mimic completely, and therefore, goat's milk is often preferred over cow's milk or buffalo's milk due to its better digestibility, higher biological value and less allergenic. An appropriate blending of protein, carbohydrate, fat, minerals and vitamins to cow's, buffalo's or goat's milk to result in modified milk, nutritionally adequate for infants is suggested.

Nutritional and therapeutic attributes of cow's, buffalo's or goat's milk must be suitably modified to meet the physiological needs as well as to confer protection to the infants.

Shelf‐life of cultured milk products is longer than milk but it is still limited. Shelf‐life of cultured milk products could be enhanced by adopting various techniques. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the longer shelf‐life thus attained would extend the market reach and would be economically beneficial to both producers and consumers.

Attempt has been made to enlighten the various techniques such as bacteriocin (nisin, Microgard^TM, natamycin, etc.), lactoperoxidase‐thiocyanate‐hydrogen peroxide system (LP‐system), high pressure treatment, post‐production heat‐treatment (thermization, microwave heating), ultra‐violet (UV) irradiation, carbonization, etc.

Application of more than one bacteriocin may be advantageous to minimize the possibility of survival of microflora resistant to a particular bacteriocin. Pasteurization, being more detrimental to dietetic properties of cultured milk products than thermization, its application is not suggested as a method of preservation. Microwave heating may be better than conventional pasteurization.

Conjugated application of various techniques would be more efficacious in extending the shelf‐life of cultured milk products. Extension in shelf‐life of cultured milk products would be economically beneficial for producers and consumers.

Purpose – The aim of this article is to examine the effects of ownership concentration and board characteristics on the performance of firms domiciled in Jordan.

Design/methodology/approach – The article employs two-stage least square (2SLS) regressions on a sample of 103 firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange for financial years 2002–2005.

Findings – The empirical results suggest that ownership concentration, multiple directorships and board size are each positive and significant in determining firm performance. Although this result contradicts the findings of some developed country studies, they are consistent with recent emerging market studies.

Implications – The findings of this article echo some of prior researchers’ contention that reforms in corporate governance principles in emerging markets should go beyond adopting the best practice in developed markets and take into account the country- and firm-specific characteristics.

Originality/value – This article exploits a unique dataset of ownership and board characteristics in an emerging market, as well as provides additional evidence on the relation between corporate governance and firm performance. Results of this research provide useful information for policymakers and legislators to understand the environment for corporate control in developing countries.

In absence of breast milk, humanized mammalian milk may not be adequate as it could not confer considerable protection to the infants as those extended by breast milk. With the objective of enhancing the nutritional and therapeutic attributes of humanized mammalian milk considerable efforts have been exercised to mimic infant formulae to the health‐promoting benefits of breast milk with the inclusion of probiotics, oligosaccharides and proteins. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

In the present article an endeavour has been made to enlighten innovations in supplementary foods for infants in absence of human milk. Suitability of special humanized milk such as hypoallergenic formulae, neural formulae and gastrointestinal integrity formulae as a supplementary food for infants in absence of human milk is also justified.

Characterization of components of human milk and identification of nutritional needs of infants have resulted in formulation of special humanized milk such as hypoallergenic formulae for allergenic infants, neural formulae for normal physiological functions of infants and gastrointestinal integrity formulae for maintaining microbial balance in the intestine. Supplementation of infant formulae with sialic acid, long chain poly unsaturated fatty acids such as decosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid, probiotic cultures such as Bifidobacterium bifidum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus GG and Lactobacillus casei and prebiotic such as galacto‐OS and fructo‐OS are recommended.

The paper emphasises that, with the characterization of components of human milk and identification of nutritional needs of infants, modification of infant formulae should be constantly carried.

There is a paucity of comparative literature on pathway to care among patients with co-occurring disorders and those with only substance use disorders. This paper aims to compare the pathways to care among patients with co-occurring disorder and those with only substance use disorders.

A cross-sectional observational study was carried out on male treatment seekers at a tertiary care substance use disorder treatment center in India. Participants were recruited in two groups, those with co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorders and those with only substance use disorders. The two groups were matched for age and socio-economic status.

A total of 189 subjects with co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorders and 197 subjects with substance use disorders only were recruited. Psychiatric services were the most common first point of care. However, a larger proportion of the subjects in the co-occurring disorder group received the first care from faith healers, while a greater proportion received first care from the therapeutic communities in substance use disorder only group. Initial care was sought mostly following suggestion from the family members in both the groups. The time to treatment for substance use disorders did not differ between the two groups, though the treatment seeking for substance use disorder was more delayed than that of psychiatric disorder in the co-occurring disorder group.

The findings shed light on the pathway of care followed in India and is a matter of further research.

Expansion of services and dissemination of information about psychiatric disorders and substance use disorders can provide timely care to patients with substance use disorders and co-occurring disorders.

The findings have a social implication as well. More awareness is needed currently in India for timely treatment of dual disorders.

The paper is an original research by the authors. The data were collected from the participants who reported to the dual diagnosis clinic. The findings are important as they tell us about the current understanding of dual diagnosis by the general public.

The importance of corporate governance was recognized aftermath the major corporate scandal and regulators all over the world tightened regulations. When Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed, President of United States George W. Bush proclaimed that “the era of low standards and false profits are over.” Following the path, SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) introduced clause 49 to the listing agreement to enhance transparency and integrity to financial statements. Adequate disclosures thus ensure good governance. The concept of corporate governance is more than a decade old in India. Following Satyam Scandal, Indian Industry groups and regulators advocated a number of reforms which led to MCAs (Ministry of Company Affairs) Corporate Governance Voluntary guidelines 2009 to encourage and guide companies to adopt superior practices like appointing board committees, the appointment and rotation of external auditors, and creating a whistle blowing mechanism. The new Companies Amendment bill made the corporate governance disclosures even more stringent. Hence this is an attempt on our part to construct an objective overall corporate governance score to reflect the whole firm governance practices as per the disclosure requirements of clause 49 of the listing agreement of SEBI as well as the insights from the various academic studies to score each element of corporate governance and study the impact of governance on corporate performance represented by Tobin Q.

This study analyzes the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the trade between Mexico and the U.S. NAFTA was signed by the U.S., Canada and Mexico on 17 December 1992 and took effect on 1 January 1994. This research found that NAFTA led to a significant increase in U.S. imports from Mexico, did not affect U.S. exports to Mexico, and led to a negative U.S. trade balance in the short term with Mexico. From a policy point of view, the results suggest that further expansion of NAFTA will probably lead to even larger trade deficits, at least in the short term, for the U.S. In order to prepare for the political and economic implications of NAFTA and FTAA the U.S. needs to encourage further research that leads to a quantification of the short‐term benefits and losses, even if most economists, business leaders, and government officials agree that in the long term the countries and populations involved will all benefit.

This research work introduces an imperfect production system where the demand is assumed to be stochastic and it is influenced by random selling price. The shift time from an “in-control” state to an “out-of-control” state is exponentially distributed. The accumulated inventory contains both perfect and defective items which are all sold with a free repair warranty (FRW) offer. Complete back ordering of shortages are taken into account. The purpose of this paper is to determine the optimal selling price and hence the optimal production lot size such that the expected profit is maximized.

The general model is discussed separately for both types of uniformly distributed selling price-sensitive demand pattern: additive type and multiplicative type. Numerical examples and graphical representations of the optimal solutions are provided to illustrate the models.

This paper helps the manager to manage future situations and it may be considered as a base work for the researchers to work in this direction.

The main limitation of this model is to consider a single item for a single channel system. There are many correlated issues that need to be further investigated. The future study in this direction may include the consideration of multi-items, diverse demand pattern with different types of price distributions.

In the production inventory literature, plenty of articles are available considering imperfect production but none of them have considered selling price-sensitive stochastic demand where the sales price is random in character under an FRW offer.

This paper aims to study from three perspectives: the developed countries corporate governance (CG) practices, the role of OECD in the global convergence of CG standards and India as an emerging country.

The paper reviews the various CG codes and regulations enacted in the Indian paradigm with special reference to the Indian Companies Act 2013 (cited as Act 2013).

The Act 2013 endeavours to provide a governance landscape in India with reforms. The new CG codes comprehensively introduce more accountability, transparency and stringent disclosure requirements. However, these changes are affected by the ownership structure, the level of enforcement and regulatory compliance of CG disclosure practices imposed on companies.

Further research can be carried out in three domains in emerging countries: ownership structure, the effect of legal and regulatory environment and impact of mandatory compliance.

Legal and regulatory environment are notable extent that can effectively govern the CG codes. An increase in the board size, investor protection and gender diversity, with strong governance structure, can enhance the transparency of companies.

The paper examines the prominence of CG norms with the ratification of the Indian Companies Act 2013, which is analogous with global CG policies and regulations.