Thesis (M. Tech. Environmental health) -- Central University of technology, Free State, 2011 / In nature microorganisms do not exist alone, but in association with one another. These kinds of associations can also be found in food industries, where cells of the same or different species can attach to pipes (biofilm formation) and a variety of surfaces in food processing environments and in food product such as yoghurt which can contain both yeast and bacteria originating from the starter culture as well as fruit. To control food spoilage organisms and food-borne pathogens preventative measures such as good manufacturing processes, the use of sanitizers and preservatives as well as hazard analysis critical control points (HACCP) are crucial in food industries. Sanitation of the working surface, floors, pipes, containers and equipment is a stepwise application of a detergent, acid or alkali rinse, a disinfectant treatment followed by final rinsing. If rinsing of the sanitizer is not done properly it may end up in the product in sub-lethal doses. In this study the influence of Liquid Hypochlorite (LH) and Liquid Iodophore (LI) sanitizers on organism growth and toxicity was evaluated. The organisms investigated included Escherichia coli 0113, Escherichia coli 026 and Zygosaccharomyces bailii Y-1535 in yeast malt broth, which was supplemented with LH and LI at sub-lethal concentrations 0.05% LH, 0.2% LH and 0.075% LI. Subsequently, bacterial and yeast growth responses as pure cultures and in combination (E. coli + Z. bailii) were measured as colony forming units and optical density values. Incorporation of the sanitizers in the growth media resulted in different levels of growth inhibition. Z. bailii proved more robust and the growth rate was not influence significantly by the addition of sanitizers or communal growth with either E. coli strains. The growth rate of both E. coli strains decreased where grown in combination with Z. bailii as well as in the presence of sanitizers, with the most influence exerted by LH. Changes in endotoxicity following the growth of the test samples (stressed cells) and the control (unstressed) were measured by the limulus amoebocyte lysate (LAL) and porcine IL-6 ELISA methods. Where E. coli strains were cultured together with Z. bailii the toxicity of tire mixture showed a decrease over time when measured with the limulus amoebocyte assay method. Interestingly the communal growth of the E. coli strains and Z bailii produced different toxicity profiles when the IL-6 porcine method was used, hi both cases, where E. coli strains were cultured together with Z. bailii the toxicity of the mixture showed an increase over tune when measured by this assay. Other than a similar toxicity profile for E. coli 0113 grown in pure culture, the comparison between results obtained using the LAL or porcine IL-6 methods yielded no correlation in determined toxicity. It was established that LH and LI sanitizers as well as communal growth had an influence in the toxicity of LPS/EPS and the method used to determine such toxicity should be carefully considered.

The study determines the effects of resilience training on team performance. An investigation was undertaken to: * establish a theoretical foundation for using resilience training to improve performance; * identify parameters and criteria for determining the effects of resilience training on the individual within the team; * gain insight on how learners experienced the resilience training; and * whether they implemented the resilience training within the workplace. This study included the review of literature on various motivational theories, resilience, psycho-education, adult learning and team performance. It also included an empirical investigation on the effects of resilience training on the individual within the team and the team performance as such. Data was collected against the main research question: What is the effect of strengths-focussed training on team performance? / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Didactics)

The observation that similar firms faced with a similar situation and seemingly applying similar market strategies and achieving differing degrees of success sparked the study. The question that arose was whether the market strategies applied by these firms adhered to the principles of a sound market strategy put forward in the literature. The study found that the market strategy applied by the firms in question complied with the principles of market strategy, to varying degrees. The firms that adhered to these principles to a greater degree appeared to have been more successful than the others. It appeared that the latter firms neglected the principle "sustainable competitive advantage''. It was concluded that the adherence to the principles of a sound market strategy could lead to improved performance. / Business Management / D. Comm. (Business Management)

The objective of the study was to explore and to describe the extent to which the SIDO/UNIDO WED Programme had empowered participating women microentrepreneurs in the food-processing sector in Tanzania. The research question was: To what extent have SIDO/UNIDO WED Programme-supported women microentrepreneurs in the food-processing sector been empowered? The justification for the study was that most studies on women's empowerment have been on micro credit-based microenterprises and almost none on entrepreneurship-based ones. Furthermore, there is a very scanty coverage of Africa in women's empowerment research. Theoretical perspectives in gender and gender relations in accordance with the feminist empowerment paradigm as it is influenced by the international women's movement and empowerment guided the study. The study used a cross-sectional and causal-comparative research design. The sample comprised 78 women microentrepreneurs: 39 programme-supported and 39 others constituted a control group. Participation in the SIDO/UNIDO WED Programme was the independent variable. Women's empowerment was the outcome of interest with the following indicators as dependent variables: freedom to use own income; contribution to household income; ownership of assets; involvement in business associations; participation in trade fairs; freedom of movement and awareness of injustice. Measurement of women's empowerment was on three dimensions: economic, socio-cultural and psychological in two arenas: individual/household and community. Qualitative and quantitative primary data were collected using in-depth interviews and questionnaires. A constant comparative approach in qualitative data analysis and discussion was adopted. At first level of quantitative data analysis, descriptive statistical procedures involving cross tabulations and frequency distributions were used.Then chi-square tests and bivariate correlation analysis were performed. The findings indicated that WED Programme-supported women had become empowered in almost all indicators. However, they lacked control over their assets like their counterparts in the control group. The findings on women's freedom of movement show that it is an area where traditional ideologies, as structural factors, are resistant to changes normally influenced by women's income. The majority of interviewees from both categories were of the view that husbands and wives should have equal say in decision making and division of labour between husbands and wives should also be equal. / Development Studies / D. Litt et Phil. (Development Studies)

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2007. / Please refer to fulltext for abstract

Hospital patients are at high risk for foodborne illness; it is essential that hospital foodservice managers know food safety principles. The purpose of this research was to assess the basic food safety knowledge of hospital foodservice managers and to determine their interest in continuing education related to food safety. A survey was mailed to a random sample of 500 acute care hospital foodservice managers in the United States. Usable surveys were returned by 264 (53%) of the managers. Managers correctly answered from 5 to 16 of the 16 basic food safety knowledge question (mean 14.0±1.7). Managers correctly answered questions relating to cross-contamination and risks for foodborne illness (98%), proper procedures for thawing meat, cooling foods, and the sequence for cleaning utensils and equipment (97%). Managers knew current recommendations for storing eggs, use of a steamtable, and could identify a potentially hazardous food (94%). Managers knew the proper sequence and time for hand washing (92%). Questions missed most frequently were end point cooking temperatures for ground beef (52% correct) and chicken (78% correct). However, when managers who chose higher temperatures than required are added, 93 and 94% of the managers would produce a safe product. Managers who chose a temperature lower than required need to review basic cooking procedures. Knowledge scores were not significantly different when the number of hospital meals served, type of hospital ownership or management, managers years in foodservice, years as a manager, education level, general certification, food safety certification, hours spent or planned learning food safety, or the managers own rating of food safety knowledge were compared to knowledge scores. Inservice training was the most used and most preferred method for learning about food safety. Time support from the hospital (66%) was most often identified as contributing to ease in learning about food safety, followed by financial support (57%). Lack of time (76%) and lack of interesting and convenient programs (39%) were most often identified as obstacles to learning. Managers (94%) were interested in learning more about food safety, especially about applying Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point principles to everyday foodservice procedures. / Graduation date: 2002

Food availability and food waste are signi cant global problems which can be mitigated through the use of sensor networks. Current methods of monitoring food waste require manual data collection and are implemented infrequently, providing imprecise information. The use of sensors to automate food waste measurement allows constant monitoring, provides a better dataset for analysis, and enables real- time feedback, which can be used to affect behavioral change in consumers. The data from such networks can be used to drive ambient displays designed to educate a target audience, and ultimately reduce the amount of waste generated. We present WASTE REDUCE, a system for automating the measurement of food waste and affecting behavioral change. The challenges and results of deploying such a system are presented. To assess the bene ts of using WASTE REDUCE, two case studies are conducted. The rst study evaluates three different displays, and the second reevaluates one of these displays in a separate location. These studies con rm that the combination of automated monitoring and ambient feedback can reduce food waste for targeted groups. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-03T18:33:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Claudio_Colucci.pdf: 998498 bytes, checksum: 7c1b532e9e2f1a0a4018ada447eeb971 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-09-16 / Studies about organizational buying behavior received greater emphasis since the sixty years, with many works about models for buying and adopted criteria for suppliers selection and decisions, been useful for industrial marketing, and also to the development of purchase strategies. This work wishes to corroborate for better understanding about the subject, studying the suppliers selection for two ingredients, flavors and colors, used by food and beverages industries. The first step of work was a bibliographic review about buying organizations, flavors and colors. After that, the research was developed in two steps. The first seeked the construction of a questionnaire to be applied in the second, by interviewing with opened and non-structured questions specialized professionals in foods and beverages, for better understanding about specificity for flavors and colors. The second step, developed in food and beverages industries, researched the buying centers compositions for flavors and colors, the legal categories for the used products, the general (based on Kannan & tan, 2002) and specifics (based on interviewed professionals) criteria buying decision . Concludes for flavors and colors, that the buying centers are composed by the areas of p&d, quality, purchase, and minors influences from marketing. The most important factors in the suppliers selection are quality, reputation, specialization, be open and honest in the communications, and adopt good manufactory practices. The price is not the most important factor in the buying decision. The use of sensory research is important for both products, and possibly followed by market research. To the food and beverages industries, flavors could be classified as strategic, and colors as critic. The relationship with flavors and colors suppliers could be classified as associated. / O estudo sobre comportamentos em compras organizacionais recebeu maior ??nfase a partir do final dos anos sessenta, atrav??s da apresenta????o de uma s??rie de propostas sobre modelos de compras e crit??rios adotados na sele????o de fornecedores e decis??es, com utilidade na ??rea de marketing industrial, como tamb??m ao desenvolvimento de estrat??gias de compras. Este trabalho pretende corroborar com maiores compreens??es sobre o assunto, ao estudar a sele????o de fornecedores e decis??es de compras de dois ingredientes, aromas e corantes, utilizados em ind??strias de alimentos e de bebidas. Inicialmente o trabalho envolveu uma revis??o bibliogr??fica sobre compras organizacionais, aromas e corantes. Em seguida, foi desenvolvida uma pesquisa em duas etapas. A primeira visou a elabora????o de um instrumento de pesquisa a ser aplicado na segunda etapa, envolveu entrevistas atrav??s de quest??es abertas e n??o estruturadas ?? especialistas em alimentos e bebidas, pela qual se buscou compreens??es sobre especificidades de aromas e corantes. Na segunda etapa desenvolvida em ind??strias de alimentos e de bebidas, foram pesquisadas as composi????es dos centros de compras de aromas e corantes, as categorias legais utilizadas desses produtos, os crit??rios gerais (baseados no trabalho de Kannan e Tan, 2002) e espec??ficos (gerados atrav??s das entrevistas com especialistas em alimentos e bebidas) adotados nas sele????es de fornecedores e decis??es de compras. Conclui que para aromas e para corantes, os centros de compras s??o formados pelas ??reas de desenvolvimento de produtos, qualidade e compras, com influ??ncias de marketing. Os fatores mais importantes nas sele????es de fornecedores s??o a qualidade, a boa reputa????o, a especializa????o, as comunica????es, a rapidez e a ado????o de procedimentos de boas pr??ticas de fabrica????o. O pre??o n??o ?? o principal fator nas decis??es de compras. O uso de an??lise sensorial ?? importante nas escolhas desses produtos, com o poss??vel acompanhamento de pesquisas de mercados. Para as ind??strias de alimentos e de bebidas, os aromas podem ser classificados como produtos estrat??gicos e os corantes como cr??ticos. O relacionamento com os fornecedores de aromas ou de corantes pode ser classificado como associado.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-04T11:45:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sergio_Ricardo_Silva_Schreiner.pdf: 899701 bytes, checksum: f4095338b1a848c4b6fc696d0d62e8e7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004-07-30 / This study aims at analyzing current status and the difficulties faced by brazilian companies to comply with the new Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which covers internal controls and corporate governance issues. It is a case study based on a large brazilian company with securities (American Depositary Receipts - ADRs) traded in the US capital market that has to comply, in a short period, to the requirements of the law enacted in 2002. The case study is complemented by a bibliographic review on the companies internal controls evolution, on the increase of corporate governance in the last two decades as a response to the conflicts by the agency theory due to the segregation between ownership and management, the key issues of the new legislation, specifically those related to internal controls, and the results of some recent surveys on the current status of some large american companies, and the difficulties faced by them, to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Although internal controls exist and are assessed on a on-going basis at brazilian public companies, at least because they have their financial statements audited, the new law obliges the principal executives to assert the existence and reliability of such controls, which must also be attested by independent auditors. The study aims to contribute to the awareness of the internal controls relevance to assure the accuracy of companies financial statements, as well as to increase shareholders and stakeholders value. The initial hypothesis is that since the new legislation do not include a standard to assess internal controls then the companies should be looking for an efficient way to satisfactorily comply with the requirements. As a contributing factor, the empirical aspects described in the case study confirmed the concepts of the review bibliography. As a consequence of both the empirical observation and the theoretical basis, we concluded that actually the companies are still looking for the best practices to comply with the new legislation, and that the audit entities have been actively supporting the companies to achieve such objective. / Estudo realizado visando analisar o est??gio atual e as dificuldades encontradas pelas empresas brasileiras para o atendimento da nova legisla????o norte-americana, a Lei Sarbanes-Oxley, que trata de controles internos e governan??a corporativa. Trata-se de um estudo de caso realizado em uma empresa nacional de grande porte que tem valores mobili??rios (American Depositary Receipts - ADRs) negociados no mercado de capitais norte-americano e que ?? obrigada a atender, em um prazo relativamente curto, aos requisitos da lei editada em 2002. O estudo de caso ?? complementado por uma revis??o bibliogr??fica acerca da evolu????o dos controles internos das empresas, do crescimento da governan??a corporativa nas duas ??ltimas d??cadas como resposta aos conflitos gerados pela teoria da ag??ncia, conseq????ncia da separa????o cada vez maior entre propriedade e gest??o, dos pontos principais da nova legisla????o, especificamente os referentes a controles internos, e dos resultados de algumas pesquisas recentes sobre o est??gio em que se encontram algumas das maiores empresas norte-americanas, e as dificuldades que as mesmas t??m encontrado, para o atendimento da Sarbanes-Oxley. Embora os controles internos existam e sejam peri??dica e oportunamente avaliados nas empresas brasileiras de capital aberto, at?? porque elas t??m suas demonstra????es financeiras auditadas por auditores independentes, a nova legisla????o obriga os principais executivos a atestarem a exist??ncia e confiabilidade dos mesmos, os quais devem ser, ainda, objeto de certifica????o por auditores externos. O trabalho tem como objetivo contribuir para a conscientiza????o da import??ncia dos controles internos para a garantia da acur??cia das informa????es cont??beis e financeiras das empresas, bem como para a gera????o de valor para os acionistas e outras partes interessadas. A hip??tese inicial ?? de que como a nova legisla????o n??o apresenta um padr??o a ser seguido para a avalia????o dos controles internos das empresas ent??o estas devem estar buscando uma maneira eficiente de atender satisfatoriamente os requisitos. Como fator corroborativo, os aspectos emp??ricos descritos no estudo de caso confirmaram os conceitos da revis??o da literatura efetuada. Como conseq????ncia da observa????o emp??rica e do embasamento te??rico, chegou-se ?? conclus??o de que efetivamente as empresas ainda est??o procurando as melhores pr??ticas para o atendimento da nova lei, e que as empresas de auditoria t??m participado ativamente no suporte para o atingimento de tal objetivo.

This study is located in the rather young area of international entrepreneurship research. Despite the vast literature in Western countries exploring the nexuses on entrepreneurship-national culture and entrepreneurship-decision making, we know very little about how bounded rationality and national culture affect the entrepreneur’s capital budgeting decision making in emerging economies. Past research on small business and capital budgeting shows a predominance of quantitative approaches to identify which capital budgeting techniques were used and why they are used. Through qualitative interviews with 20 Mexican and 20 Canadian participants, this study looks at how Mexican and Canadian entrepreneurs approach capital budgeting decisions in small businesses in the food sector industry. This study confirms that capital budgeting decisions are taken under conditions of bounded rationality, but also suggests that context affects how bounded rationality is used. For instance, Mexican entrepreneurs rely more on “gut feeling”, while Canadian entrepreneurs tend to combine intuition with business plans. The differences observed for both national samples are further discussed through a Hofstedian and a GLOBE lens. I argue that national culture affects how capital budgeting decisions are made throughout the decision making process (planning, identifying, evaluating, selecting and authorizing) and also that national culture plays a role for who influences the entrepreneurs’ decisions. By contextualizing capital budgeting decisions and using a constructivist logic of discovery, this study provides insights into entrepreneurs’ capital budgeting decision making in small businesses and suggests that national cultural differences play a valuable part in understanding this important aspect of entrepreneurial activity. This thesis also adds to our understanding of entrepreneurs in emerging economies.