The relationship between hygiene assessment system audit scores and the bacteriological status of single species red meat abattoirs in the Free State province

Published ThesisThe Hygiene Assessment System (HAS) is an audit checklist that is used to measure the hygiene status of the abattoir. The final HAS score for individual abattoirs is graded to a sum of 100, and is interpreted as a measurement of the potential risk to public health. Theoretically, the final HAS score reflects the likelihood of safe meat being produced in that specific abattoir on the day of audit. The aim of the study was to test the association between the HAS scores and the bacteriological contamination in six single species high throughput abattoirs in the Free State province. This was done to validate the efficiency of the HAS score as a measure for meat safety and to determine the extent to which HAS audit score and bacteriological tests mirror each other. Each abattoir was visited once and the audit was performed according to official HAS: four carcasses were sampled at four different carcass sites at three processing stations; and ten direct air samples were collected from the slaughter floors. All the abattoirs showed compliance with the meat safety legislation since the total HAS scores ranged from 68 to 94. However, it was found that the effectiveness of HAS audits as a measure of food safety was questionable, since it does not demonstrate the risk/impact of non-compliance. The microbiological analysis for both carcass and air samples included the test for aerobic plate count (APC), Escherichia coli, Salmonella species and Staphylococcus aureus. The APC for the abattoirs ranged from undetectable to 9.9 x 104 CFU.m-2 for carcass surfaces and 0 to 2.4 x 102 CFU.m-3 for bioaerosols. The total count for E. coli, S. aureus and Salmonella species exceeded the national maximum acceptable limits. These results highlight the possibility of the occurrence of foodborne diseases in the human population. In addition the relationship between E. coli, S. aureus, Salmonella spp, APC, and total HAS score, revealed no significant relationship. These findings further justify the fact that HAS audits should not be used as a measure of meat safety. The results also suggest the importance of the inclusion of bacterial tests in meat safety audits because a high HAS score does not signify that meat is entirely safe for human consumption

Developing a ‘best practice’ supply chain performance and operational framework for dairy producers : a multiple case study analysis in Egypt

Supply chain management is based on the global concept, where different companies are connected worldwide. Moreover, supply chain performance management is a growing field of study, especially for perishable products. Egyptian dairy producers have suffered a significant drop in their production since 2011, due to the poor quality and quantity of raw milk, changes in governmental regulations, hazard risks, and volatility in consumer taste. This has threatened meeting the increasing market demand for dairy products. Extant literature highlighted the following gaps: limited research assessing the dairy producers' supply chain performance in a detailed view from an operational perspective, and lack of specific performance measures especially in Egypt as a developing country in this context. Therefore, this thesis introduces a best practice performance framework for dairy producers in Egypt to optimise and assess their performance, in terms of sustainable production of safe and secure dairy products to fulfil the Egyptian market demand. The research adopts three theories to explore and understand the research problem. The resource-based view theory is used to identify the operational capabilities and the critical control points within the production. Network theory is used to explore the risks in the wider dairy supply chain and identify solutions to overcome them. Last, the institutional theory is used to understand the pressures faced by dairy producers, all of which will help to develop a best practice performance framework by following the mimetic approach to contrast and compile the performance measures of the top six large Egyptian dairy producers. That is achieved by referring to the Supply Chain Operation Reference (SCOR) model key attributes as a guide. This research utilises a narrative literature review to consolidate the background knowledge on the dairy sector’s operations and supply chain risks. Then, classify the different operational and supply chain performance measures and models to provide future research directions based on the research gaps identified. A multiple case-study methodology is adopted in this study. It follows a qualitative research approach across two phases by using the NVivo12 software to conduct a thematic analysis. Firstly, two observations and seventeen exploratory semi structured interviews with key informants within six case studies were conducted to explore the operational capabilities, critical control points and performance measures and the risks affecting large Egyptian dairy producers. Secondly, two focus groups were held with a diversified sample of practitioners, government officials, and suppliers to validate the results of the first phase. The key findings of the research highlighted that those dairy producers performing on a satisfactory level qualify them to adopt the SCOR model to enhance their performance and imitate the dairy producers’ practices in developed countries. The following key areas were addressed: 1) identifying the current operational capabilities needed to produce milk products, defining and classifying new critical control points for the production of UHT milk and pasteurised milk which up until now remains vague and not well determined, 2) each producer has designed their performance measures which has left them exposed to vulnerabilities and limits their optimum utilisation of their capabilities and to be able to continually improve. Thus, standardisation of performance measures and sharing of best practice, with a detailed classification for applicability is key for Egyptian dairy producers. A major contribution of this research is the development of an operational and supply chain performance-based best practice framework, based on SCOR, to guide the dairy producers through optimising and enhancing their production of safe and secure dairy products. Further, the research has identified three new SCOR attributes: a) suppliers’ improvement and traceability, b) health and safety environment, and c) employees’ morale, also seven new critical control points and capabilities. Besides, utilising the qualitative approach to provide in-depth within and cross-case exploration of six large dairy producers’ current state. This research also recommends that the government should leverage the small farmers within a milk hub, with a tracking system, to close the gap of raw milk supply shortage to Egypt. That addresses the shortcomings in the extant literature, which will significantly contribute to enhancing the performance and sustainability of the Egyptian dairy industry as a whole, and consequently will benefit the Egyptian economy. That sets the base for future researchers to utilise the proposed best practice for a wider scope of dairy producers with similar characteristics

The Impact of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene on Key Health and Social Outcomes: Review of Evidence

This evidence paper looks at 10 areas identified collaboratively with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on which WASH can plausibly have a strong impact: diarrhea, nutrition, complementary food hygiene, female psychosocial stress, violence, maternal and newborn health, menstrual hygiene management, school attendance, oral vaccine performance, and neglected tropical diseases. Together, these areas cover the most significant sector outcomes associated with the distinct life course phases that UNICEF seeks to help to address through its WASH activities

Development of a Local and Alternative Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) suitable for Community-based Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition

In order to produce a local Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) alternative to Plumpy 'Nut ® commercial, based on dehusked, roasted and pulverized soy and sorghum ingredients, Arthrospira maxima (Spirulina) dried and pulverized, sunflower oil and powdered sugar, based on nutritional specifications suggested by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF) for the RUTF for the treatment of Acute Severe Malnutrition (MAS), a experimental design D-Optimal Design with three variables (sorghum and soy flours, sugar, oil) Of the twenty RUTF formulations generated by the software, thanks to the analysis of the selected response variables for rheological-mechanical and technological instrumental discrimination, are four optimal formulations were hypothesized, subsequently submitted to validation. Moreover, on these creams oxidative stability tests have been carried out, assuming extreme conservation conditions (30 ° C, 40 ° C and 60 ° C, exposure to atmospheric oxygen, without any barrier), typical of developing countries , where this type of product is intended to be used. Two of the four optimal ones were found to be more stable than the others. Furthermore, following a scale up that involved the use of a discontinuous semi-industrial ball mill, sensorial analyzes were carried out on the four optimal formulations, in order to obtain a sensory profile useful for assessing the potential acceptability of creams. Of the four, two, in particular, were more welcome by a trained panel and then by a hundred-person consumer test. Still, on the four optimal creams obtained in the semi-industrial mill, nutritional analyzes were performed on macronutrients and micronutrients. Finally, a bibliographic analysis was carried out on the latest updates on the socio-economic aspects of food supply in developing countries and on the costs of ingredients used

Business plan: biological Milk production in Azores: BioAçores

According to Mahatma Gandhi, "The Earth provides enough to satisfy every person's need but not every person's greed". Considering that, the Autonomous Region of the Azores, as an insular archipelago with unique characteristics, connecting European mainland to American one, has the duty to protect the environment. Since always, the dairy sector assumed itself as predominant in the environmental, economic and touristic dimension of the region. Milk, cows, green pastures, all of this make part of our culture and daily routine; most of all make part of ourselves. Owing to the fact that we live in a globalized world, the continuous sectors' development is imperative, otherwise, they can be outdated. Nowadays, consumers are not the same as before, they are more informed, value their health and well-being, a lot of them influenced by social media. Besides all of those facts mentioned before, it is important to highlight that there is oversupply of conventional milk comparatively to the industry's demand, resulting in a low price paid to milk producers, less than previous years. Those aspects resulted in the Business Plan development to the biological milk's production in São Miguel Island, which is an underexplored product, so far. The project has the purpose the certified production of a Portuguese premium milk, with higher nutritional and environmental components than conventional milk. Summarizing, the BioAçores project aims to differentiate in the national panorama for its social responsibility allied with sustainable consumption of higher quality products, affecting directly the Azorean economy.De acordo com Mahatma Gandhi, "The Earth provides enough to satisfy every person's need but not every person's greed". Deste modo, a Região Autónoma dos Açores, como arquipélago insular com características peculiares, que conecta o continente europeu ao continente americano tem o dever de preservar o meio ambiente. Desde sempre que o setor dos lacticínios se assumiu como preponderante tanto na vertente ambiental, económica e mesmo turística da região. O leite, as vacas, os pastos verdejantes fazem parte da nossa cultura e quotidiano, acima de tudo, fazem parte de nós. Face a vivermos num mundo cada vez mais globalizado, o desenvolvimento contínuo dos setores é imperativo, correndo o risco de serem ultrapassados pela concorrência. Hoje em dia, os consumidores já não são os mesmos que os de outrora, são mais informados, prezam pela sua saúde e bem-estar, muitos deles influenciados pelas redes sociais. Para além dos factos supramencionados, denota-se que excesso de oferta de leite convencional face à procura das indústrias, resulta num valor pago aos produtores abaixo do que era praticado em anos anteriores. Estes aspetos resultaram no desenvolvimento do Plano de Negócios para a produção de leite biológico na ilha de São Miguel, produto ainda pouco explorado na região. O projeto tem como objetivo a produção certificada de um leite premium português, com componentes nutricionais e ambientais mais vantajosas que o leite convencional. Em suma, o projeto BioAçores pretende assim diferenciar-se no panorama nacional pela sua responsabilidade social aliada ao consumo sustentável de produtos com qualidade superior no mercado, impactando diretamente a economia açoriana

Process Mining applied to BPMN-E2

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia InformáticaProcess Mining is characterized by a group of techniques that aim to mine and analyze event logs in an effort to extract patterns and useful insights regarding a business process, allowing for a better and more efficient understanding of it. This topic is sparking increasing interest in both academia and business contexts, which results in fast advances in the algorithms being applied, as well as in the subjacent notations used for process modeling. One of the most used notations for process modeling is Business Processs Model and Notation (BPMN), being its expressiveness in representing processes its strongest attribute. However, this notation reveals some flaws when dealing with some specific contexts, struggling to model activity duration, quality control and activity effects in context-specific resources. For this particular purpose, an extension named Business Processs Model and Notation Extended Expressiveness (BPMN-E2 ) was developed to tackle the limitations found on the original notation. In this dissertation, a new conformance checking algorithm was developed focusing on finding non-conformities between an event log and process models, taking into consideration the new elements that BPMN-E2 has to offer. Fuelled by a few setbacks found during this work, an event log clustering technique was also developed to downsize large event logs without stripping its representativity. Furthermore, the BPMN-E2 notation was used to model a real-life process and the developed conformance checking algorithm was applied to illustrate its analytical potential.Process Mining caracteriza um conjunto de técnicas que permitem a mineração e análise de event logs com o principal objetivo de extrair destes padrões e informações relevantes que permitam uma melhor percepção e eficiência dos processos realizados num determinado contexto. Esta área tem verificado um interesse crescente, tanto em meio académico como em meio empresarial, sendo notados avanços quer nos algoritmos de mineração utilizados, quer nas notações subjacentes utilizadas para modelar processos. Uma das notações mais utilizadas por profissionais e académicos é o Business Processs Model and Notation (BPMN) devido à sua expressividade na representação de processos. No entanto, esta mesma notação apresenta alguns inconvenientes quando é usada em determinados contextos, sendo difícil representar, por exemplo, durações de atividades, controlo de qualidade e efeitos da atividade nas características de um produto. Num esforço para resolver estes problemas, foi desenvolvida uma extensão chamada Business Processs Model and Notation Extended Expressiveness (BPMN-E2 ). Neste projeto foi desenvolvido um novo algoritmo de conformance checking, tendo em consideração a informação complementar oferecida pelo BPMN-E2 . Motivada por alguns contratempos durante o trabalho, uma técnica de clustering foi também desenvolvida para reduzir o tamanho de event logs sem afetar a sua representatividade. A notação BPMN-E2 foi também usada para modelar um processo real e o algoritmo de conformance checking usado nesse contexto para ilustrar o seu potencial analítico