Critical analysis of Big Data Challenges and analytical methods

Big Data (BD), with their potential to ascertain valued insights for enhanced decision-making process, have recently attracted substantial interest from both academics and practitioners. Big Data Analytics (BDA) is increasingly becoming a trending practice that many organizations are adopting with the purpose of constructing valuable information from BD. The analytics process, including the deployment and use of BDA tools, is seen by organizations as a tool to improve operational efficiency though it has strategic potential, drive new revenue streams and gain competitive advantages over business rivals. However, there are different types of analytic applications to consider. Therefore, prior to hasty use and buying costly BD tools, there is a need for organizations to first understand the BDA landscape. Given the significant nature of the BD and BDA, this paper presents a state-of-the-art review that presents a holistic view of the BD challenges and BDA methods theorized/proposed/employed by organizations to help others understand this landscape with the objective of making robust investment decisions. In doing so, systematically analysing and synthesizing the extant research published on BD and BDA area. More specifically, the authors seek to answer the following two principal questions: Q1 – What are the different types of BD challenges theorized/proposed/confronted by organizations? and Q2 – What are the different types of BDA methods theorized/proposed/employed to overcome BD challenges?. This systematic literature review (SLR) is carried out through observing and understanding the past trends and extant patterns/themes in the BDA research area, evaluating contributions, summarizing knowledge, thereby identifying limitations, implications and potential further research avenues to support the academic community in exploring research themes/patterns. Thus, to trace the implementation of BD strategies, a profiling method is employed to analyze articles (published in English-speaking peer-reviewed journals between 1996 and 2015) extracted from the Scopus database. The analysis presented in this paper has identified relevant BD research studies that have contributed both conceptually and empirically to the expansion and accrual of intellectual wealth to the BDA in technology and organizational resource management discipline

Effect of microencapsulation of Pediococus acidilactici on growth performance, body composition and the bacterial flora of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of probiotic bacteria Pediocucus acidilactici encapsulated with alginate and resistant starch (Hi maize) coated by chitosan, on growth indices, intestinal flora and carcass composition of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Rainbow trout fingerling with an average weight of 18.41 ± 0.32 g were fed with diets including: encapsulated probiotic, free probiotic, diet containing capsules free of bacteria (positive control) and control diet containing no probiotics for 60 days. The results exhibited that there were no significant differences in growth rate, weight gain, specific growth rate and feed conversion ratio in different groups. The highest number of lactic acid bacteria was found in the fish received the encapsulated bacteria while the lowest was in the control group (p<0.05). Maximum carcass protein and fat contents were observed in encapsulated bacteria treatment and maximum carcass ash was in control group (p<0.05). Totally, the results suggest that encapsulated P. acidilactici improves the growth performance, body composition and bacterial flora of rainbow trout

Evaluation of growth performance, carcass composition and hematological indices in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, fed with encapsulated Lactobacillus rhamnosus

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of probiotic bacteria Lactobacillus rhamnosus encapsulated with alginate and resistant starch (Hi maize) coated by chitosan on the growth and hematological indices as well as carcass composition in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Rainbow trout fingerlings averaged 19.49 ± 0.32 g in weight were fed with diets containing encapsulated probiotic, free probiotic, and diet containing capsules without bacteria (positive control) as well as control diet without probiotics for 60 days. The results exhibited that there were significant differences in growth rate, weight gain, specific growth rate and feed conversion ratio in different groups. So that, the best results were obtained in the encapsulated probiotic group (p0.05). Totally, the results suggest that encapsulation of L. rhamnosus can increase the potential for probiotic employing in aquaculture

Phenotypic and genotypic characterization of antibiotic resistance of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolated from hospital food

Abstract Background Pathogenic biotypes of the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains are considered to be one of the major cause of food-borne diseases in hospitals. The present investigation was done to study the pattern of antibiotic resistance and prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes of different biotypes of the MRSA strains isolated from various types of hospital food samples. Methods Four-hundred and eighty-five raw and cooked hospital food samples were cultured and MRSA strains were identified using the oxacillin and cefoxitin disk diffusion tests and mecA-based PCR amplification. Isolated strains were subjected to biotyping and their antibiotic resistance patterns were analyzed using the disk diffusion and PCR methods. Results Prevalence of S. aureus and MRSA were 9.69 and 7.62%, respectively. Meat and chicken barbecues had the highest prevalence of MRSA. Prevalence of bovine, ovine, poultry and human-based biotypes in the MRSA strains were 8.10, 8.10, 32.43 and 48.64%, respectively. All of the MRSA strains recovered from soup, salad and rice samples were related to human-based biotypes. MRSA strains harbored the highest prevalence of resistance against penicillin (100%), ceftaroline (100%), tetracycline (100%), erythromycin (89.18%) and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (83.78%). TetK (72.97%), ermA (72.97%), msrA (64.86%) and aacA-D (62.16%) were the most commonly detected antibiotic resistance genes. Conclusions Pattern of antibiotic resistance and also distribution of antibiotic resistance genes were related to the biotype of MRSA strains. Presence of multi-drug resistance and also simultaneous presence of several antibiotic resistance genes in some MRSA isolates showed an important public health issue Further researches are required to found additional epidemiological aspects of the MRSA strains in hospital food samples