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The causes of food waste or loss are numerous and occur at the stages of production, processing, retailing and consumption. Peaches must be processed quickly to maintain their quality because they are seasonal and their shelf life is short. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of freeze drying on quality parameters of stored peaches in order to increase shelf life, consumption and to decrease waste of fruit.

Samples were ripped on maturity time, stored for 16 days and sampled out and freeze-dried at every four-day interval. Microstructure was carried out by applying scanning electron microscopy, texture and colour parameters by image analysis techniques and physicochemical parameters by conventional analysis.

Statistical differences (p<0.05) were obtained of colour and texture (stored and freeze-dried rehydrated samples) and for water activity and porosity (freeze-dried samples). Results revealed that after 12 days of storage/freeze, dried peach snacks showed lower pore size with higher amounts of pore, which affected rehydration process leading to a harder sample. Colour was also affected leading to a darkener fruit.

This research incorporates a quick approach to quality applying image analysis techniques and it will benefit to increase shelf life and consumption of fat-free snack peach and to decrease waste of fruit.

Measuring texture parameters are time consuming and expensive; it is necessary to develop an efficient and rapid method to evaluate them. Image analysis can be a useful tool. The purpose of this paper is to predict texture parameters in different beef cuts applying image analysis techniques.

Samples were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy. Texture parameters were analyzed by instrumental, image analysis techniques and by Warner–Bratzler shear force.

Significant differences (p<0.05) were obtained for image and instrumental texture features. Higher amount of porous were observed in freeze dried samples of beef cuts from Gluteus Medius and semintendinosus muscles. A linear trend with a linear correlation was applied for instrumental and image texture. High correlations were found between image and instrumental texture features. Instrumental parameters showed a positive correlation with image texture feature.

This research suggests that the addition of image texture features improves the accuracy to predict texture parameter. The prediction of quality parameters can be performed easily with a computer by recognizing attributes within an image.

The study aims to investigate the impact of technological innovation, such as blockchain, in the music field from a value co-creation perspective, highlighting how it is determining a radical change in the business model and value creation process.

To shed light on how blockchain adoption is reconfiguring the music industry, the authors adopted a qualitative-based approach based on a case study, allowing us to investigate value co-creation at three levels (macro, meso and micro) through exchange and integration of multi-actor resources.

The authors found that blockchain adoption in the music industry can singularly shape the business model, representing a powerful tool to enhance inter-organizational cooperation in value creation. It effectively deals with operational and business issues, besides financial transactions, profoundly impacting both the creation and distribution of value within the supply chain.

The research contributes to a better understanding of innovation adoption in a specific setting, the music industry, giving support and guidance for players working in this ecosystem. The blockchain-music link helps close the gap between music and society through technology, thus providing a foundation for future research.

The paper provides new insights into the antecedents and mechanisms of value co-creation, spanning macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of context. It also illustrates the factors underpinning Bitsong viability to embed the value co-creation perspective in designing the business model within a value network.

Recently, the relationship between gender representation and organizational performance has been the focus of various studies. However, some research gaps still exist. First, in the healthcare sector, this relationship has been poorly explored. Moreover, in public management studies, researchers focusing on performance tend to focus exclusively on gender differences at the top and/or middle management level. This research aims at exploring the relationship between women's representation and performance in public hospitals at all organizational levels.

To achieve the research objective, 63 healthcare organisations were analysed through ordinary least squares regressions on panel data from 2012 to 2018.

Results show that, in the hospital setting, gender diversity and financial performance are related at every organizational level.

To the authors' knowledge, this is one of the first studies focusing on the link between gender and performance at every level of professional and employment category; avoiding focusing exclusively on top management, which was the case in previous studies on the topic. Moreover, it contributes to a poorly explored literature which is gender studies in public healthcare management.

Different mechanisms allow intellectual capital (IC) to affect performance. This paper aims to analyze the value of relations for the academic performance effect of IC and explore how the university’s reliance on digital technologies facilitates the contribution of IC to the overall academic performance.

The authors develop a model linking elements of IC to academic performance in the form of teaching, research and entrepreneurial activity. The model is centered on relational capital (RC) that is supposed to directly fuel performance and mediate the link between the other two IC dimensions and performance. From a methodological point of view, the authors base the empirical investigation on a sample of Italian public universities and applied structural equation modeling to test the mediation and a group comparison to disentangle the effect of universities’ digitalization.

The authors find a significant and positive effect of RC on performance. RC fully mediates the relationship between structural capital and academic performance, whereas it only partially mediates the link between human capital and academic performance. The authors also suggest that digital technologies guide the prominence of the relationship in the university’s ability to fulfill teaching, research and entrepreneurship missions through IC.

This study offers a representation of how the relational dimension of IC is the mean through which the stock of knowledge inside IC can be translated into entrepreneurial, education and research achievements and how digital technologies are essential for the exploitation of the performance effect of IC in the digital era.

The use of digital technologies in the financial service industry has brought new complexities to the corporate governance in banks. Relying on the agency perspective of the shareholder, debtholder and societal governance in banks, this research examines the impact of financial technology innovation (FinTech) on banks' performance by enlightening the monitoring role of female independent directors.

Relying on a sample of Italian banks observed during the period 2016–2020, the authors hand-collected data on the use of FinTech by considering (1) the in-house provisions of FinTech solutions, (2) the collaboration with external FinTech firms and (3) a combination of both measures. The authors run a panel data regression analysis with fixed effects, measuring bank performance through bank competitiveness and bank riskiness.

The authors find that FinTech increases bank competitiveness in gathering money from depositors and that independent women on board mitigate the negative relationship between FinTech and the riskiness of banks' assets, ameliorating the conflicting interests among shareholders, debtholder and societal governance.

This study emphasizes the complexities of bank governance when dealing with FinTech in the wider perspective of equity governance, debt governance and the societal governance spotlighting the importance of appointing female directors in independent positions to enhance the bright sides of financial innovation. The authors enrich the literature on FinTech with a finer understanding of the drivers and implications of in-house provisions of FinTech solutions versus the collaboration with external FinTech firms.