Evaluation of toxicological metal profiling in different varieties of candies from the local market of Lucknow City, India

Virtually almost everyone enjoys chocolates and candies every now and then. Usually, chocolate and candies are the most craved food among children and pregnant women. This craving kicks high during the phase of stress, anxiousness, hormonal changes or mood swings. As children and pregnant women are the most sensitive groups of human population, the presence of any kind of toxicants in their food products can raise serious health concerns. In view of this, an approach has been made to estimate the quantity of nine metals in three different variety of commonly available candies (67 samples) i.e., cocoa-chocolate based, milk based, and fruit flavored candies. Few metals were found at relatively high level in cocoa-chocolate based candies followed by milk based and fruit flavored candies. The findings of this study enlightens the international food safety and public health protection authorities to implement strict permissible limits for the presence of metals in candies. The statistical approach of m­­­ultiple discriminant analysis was also performed in this study to reverse identify the candy groups based on their inter-comparative profiling of multi-elemental contamination among similar type of candy samples which points towards stipulating stringent quality policies and establishing strict standards for manufacturing, processing, storage and transportation of candies and their raw materials.

Real Earnings Management: Do the Experience and Gender of Big4 Auditors Matters?

Objective - This study examines whether the experience and gender of auditors in Big4 firm in relationship of deterring Real Earnings Management (REM).Different from the majority of previous studies, this study focuses on auditors in Big4 audit firms and real earnings management within Malaysian business environment. Big4 audit firms are associated with high quality audit because of the reputation to uphold, thus adopted stringent quality control and assurance approach, systems and procedures. Once adopted, the effect of individual characteristics may become less important. Thus, it is questionable whether individual characteristics such as auditor experience and gender could still have an influence on the outcomes of an audit, in this case, REM, when the audit firms are Big 4 (assuming very stringent quality control procedures are adopted). Methodology/Technique –This study substantiates prior literature and conducted tests only on companies audited by Big4 audit firms. We also find that auditor experiences confirms to Agency Theory where REM reduces when the experience increases. Data was obtained from the Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM), DataStream and Bursa Malaysia. Findings - The result confirms prior literature that auditor experience is still an important factor that can limit REM, even in companies audited by the Big4 firms. The results however reveal that Big4 female auditors do not have any significant effect in reducing REM. Novelty -Although female auditors are claimed by Gender Socialization Theory, to have better moral judgments than male auditors, the result shows both genders are equal, at least in limiting REM. Type of Paper: Empirical. JEL Classification: M40; M41; M42 Keywords: Big4 Auditors; Auditor Experience; Real Earnings Management; Auditor Gender; Bursa Malaysia

Comparison of regulatory approval process for vaccines development and manufacturing in India & USA

The Vaccine Development is a complex and time-consuming process because of stringent quality assessment procedures. The vaccine is approved for release into the market, a stringent regulatory procedure to assess quality, efficacy and safety must be maintained. The regulation of vaccine in India with the licensing and GMP is controlled by the drug controller general of India (DCGI). The USA regulation was controlled by the USFDA in center biologics evaluation and research committee (CBER) and Biologics license application (BLA). These Authorities are responsible for vaccine regulations in India & USA. The current review articles highlight the comparison of registration process of vaccines in INDIA and USA.

Spotlight on the Compositional Quality of Probiotic Formulations Marketed Worldwide

On the worldwide market, a great number of probiotic formulations are available to consumers as drugs, dietary supplements, and functional foods. For exerting their beneficial effects on host health, these preparations should contain a sufficient amount of the indicated living microbes and be pathogen-free to be safe. Therefore, the contained microbial species and their amount until product expiry are required to be accurately reported on the labels. While commercial formulations licensed as drugs are subjected to rigorous quality controls, less stringent regulations are generally applied to preparations categorized as dietary supplements and functional foods. Many reports indicated that the content of several probiotic formulations does not always correspond to the label claims in terms of microbial identification, number of living organisms, and purity, highlighting the requirement for more stringent quality controls by manufacturers. The main focus of this review is to provide an in-depth overview of the microbiological quality of probiotic formulations commercialized worldwide. Many incongruences in the compositional quality of some probiotic formulations available on the worldwide market were highlighted. Even if manufacturers carry at least some of the responsibility for these inconsistencies, studies that analyze probiotic products should be conducted following recommended and up-to-date methodologies.

Development of Highly Validated SNP Markers for Genetics Analyses of Chestnut Species.

To better study and manage chestnut trees and species, we identified nuclear single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers using restriction-associated DNA sequencing. Out of 343 loci tested, 68 SNP markers were selected that withhold stringent quality criteria such as quasi-systematic amplification across species and Mendelian segregation in both purebred and hybrid individuals. They provide sufficient power for species, hybrids and backcross characterization as well as for clonal identification, as shown by a comparison with single sequenced repeat (SSR) loci.

On Multi-Resource Procurement in Internet Access Markets

With the increasing popularity and significance of content delivery services, especially video streaming, stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements have been placed upon Internet content providers (CPs). As a result, CPs have strong incentives to pay for resources such as premium peering bandwidth and cache capacity that ameliorate service quality. In this paper, we study an Internet access market with multiple access resources that CPs can purchase to enhance service quality. We build a detailed content delivery model, through which we characterize the traffic throughput and the resulting utilities of CPs and social welfare. We show that a market equilibrium exists for a multi-resource market, at which the optimization problems for individual utilities and social welfare coincide. Furthermore, we characterize the optimal purchasing strategies of CPs as well as how varying parameters are going to change the market equilibrium via sensitivity analysis.

Processes, Challenges and Optimisation of Rum Production from Molasses—A Contemporary Review

The rum industry is currently worth USD 16 billion, with production concentrated in tropical countries of the Caribbean and Asia-Pacific regions. The primary feedstock for rum production is sugar cane molasses, a by-product of sugar refineries. The main variables known to affect rum quality include the composition of the molasses, the length of fermentation, and the type of barrels and length of time used for aging the rum. The goal of this review is to provide an overview of the impact of these variables on rum quality, and to highlight current challenges and opportunities in the production of rum from molasses. In order to achieve this, we review the relevant contemporary scientific literature on these topics. The major contemporary challenges in the rum production industry include minimising the effects of variability in feedstock quality, ensuring the fermentation process runs to completion, preventing microbial contamination, and the selection and maintenance of yeast strains providing optimum ethanol production. Stringent quality management practices are required to ensure consistency in the quality and organoleptic properties of the rum from batch to batch. Further research is required to fully understand the influences of many of these variables on the final quality of the rum produced.

Classification of white rice grain quality using ANN: a review

Exploring the new method of using technology for classifying rice grain quality is pertinent for rice producers in order to provide quality grains and protect consumers from any contamination exist. This is even more important when in today’s market we can see that rice with low quality is traded without stringent quality control which at the end will affect consumer’s health. This paper will review classification methods in determining quality white rice grain. Although there are many researchers developing new process to do rice classification by using different technique, there are still more advanced technique that can be used to do classification. This paper will focus on classifying rice grain quality using artificial neural network (ANN) approach with the help of image processing to identify the impurities contained in the rice grains. The findings show ANN using BPNN has the highest accuracy of 96%, it is also noted that other methods provide equally better performance. This review indicate hybrid method in ANN should be explored next for future work.

Implementation of government e-marketplace in a tertiary care hospital of North India: advantages and challenges

Background: The procurement in public sector in India was revolutionized by Government e marketplace (GeM). This study was undertaken to elaborate the implementation process, identify advantages and challenges in a tertiary care institute of North India.Methods: The process of implementation of GeM was studied by reviewing the orders, records. Data related to items procured from year 2017 to 2019 was retrieved.Results: The procurement through GeM portal has steadily increased through the year. The portal offers many advanatges like simplification of procurement, paperless, time bound, transparent system with minimal human interface. Innovative approaches like GeM helpdesk, GeMmy are used. There could be better provisions for stringent quality assurance, rate contract or extended warranty or annual and comprehensive maintenance contracts on GeM..Conclusions: GeM portal is a relatively novel dynamic concept in the country and continuously evolving with a mandate to revolutionize public procurement.

Improving Dependability via Deadline Guarantees in Commodity Real-time Networks

Software-defined Networking (SDN) can facilitate the deployment of deterministic algorithms with stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements that pave the way for commodity Real-time (RT) networks. However, current QoS approaches are conservative and under-provision the network, that becomes a bottleneck when scaling or upgrading infrastructure. In this paper, we argue that the use of fixed priorities for flows – a common practice in RT networks, is the root-cause of this issue. We develop algorithms that use the global view provided by SDN to develop on-demand, variable priority schemes. Evaluation shows that this “correct by construction” approach increases network utilization while still meeting the necessary QoS requirements, thereby improving network robustness under high utilization.