The Variations in Religious and Legal Understandings on Halal Slaughter

Purpose: This paper attempts to provide an overview of different understandings regarding the concept of "what constitutes halal" and "who determines this concept?" In practice, this equates to contemporary legal understandings versus religious understandings. The paper further aims to provide an overview of competing Muslim understandings regarding the concept of "What does or does not constitute halal slaughter?" In practice, this equates to evaluating the application of no stunning at all upon an animal (unanimous acceptance) versus the application of reversible stunning upon an animal (contested). Design: The study includes a review of priori literature and considers the current scenario of the halal poultry trade and raises important questions regarding Islamic dietary practices, halal food integrity, religious and animal welfare understandings. Three key questions were raised: "To what extent does stunning impact halal slaughter?’, ‘Who determines what is halal slaughter?’ and ‘What are the variations and tensions between legal and religious understandings of halal slaughter?’ Findings: The examination of such requirements and concomitant consumer and provider expectations is underpinned by a study of an operational framework, i.e. industry practices with poultry (hand slaughter, stunning, mechanical slaughter, etc.), ethical values and market forces to appraise whether there is a point of convergence for these that can be beneficial for both seller and consumer concerns. This paper has considered different perspectives on the religious slaughter and provided an overview of competing understandings regarding the above concepts. Originality/value – This study although academic and philosophical in nature, raises questions on route to suggesting future research directions. It provides real value in stimulating more research in the area of halal food production and contributes to the understanding of different slaughter requirements for religious slaughter and the meat industry. It further sheds light on not only the religious and secular legal frameworks on animal slaughter and welfare but also the variations in understanding between them and provides examples of attempts to bridge any gap. The paper highlights the importance of halal food based on religious values and its implications for wider society

A unified statistical model for S-N fatigue curves: probabilistic definition

In recent years, experimental tests exploring the gigacycle fatigue properties of materials suggest the introduction of modifications in well known statistical fatigue life models. Usual fatigue life models, characterized by a single failure mechanism and by the presence of the fatigue limit, have been integrated by models that can take into account the occurrence of two failure mechanisms and do not consider the presence of the fatigue limit. The general case, in which more than two failure mechanisms coexist with the fatigue limit, has not been proposed yet. The paper presents a unified statistical model which can take into account any number of failure mechanisms and the possible presence of the fatigue limit. The case of S-N curves with different fatigue life distributions coexisting for the entire stress range covered by fatigue tests is also considered. The adaptability of the statistical model to the S-N curves proposed in the open literature is demonstrated by qualitative numerical example

Voter Buying: Shaping the Electorate through Clientelism

Studies of clientelism typically assume that political machines distribute rewards to persuade or mobilize the existing electorate. We argue that rewards not only influence actions of the electorate, but can also shape its composition. Across the world, machines employ “voter buying” to import outsiders into their districts. Voter buying demonstrates how clientelism can underpin electoral fraud, and it offers an explanation of why machines deliver rewards when they cannot monitor vote choices. Our analyses suggest that voter buying dramatically influences municipal elections in Brazil. A regression discontinuity design suggests that voter audits—which undermined voter buying—decreased the electorate by 12 percentage points and reduced the likelihood of mayoral reelection by 18 percentage points. Consistent with voter buying, these effects are significantly greater in municipalities with large voter inflows, and where neighboring municipalities had large voter outflows. Findings are robust to an alternative research design using a different data set

Properties of eco-friendly cement mortar contained recycled materials from different sources

Building materials such as sand, cement, bricks, and steel are usually the main components of the construction sector. All these materials are produced from existing natural resources and they will cause substantial damage to the environment as a result of their continuous depletion. Moreover, during the manufacture of various building materials, especially cement, a high concentration of carbon dioxide is constantly emitted into the atmosphere. Therefore, to reduce this environmental damage as well as to save natural resources, this study was performed to recycle the wastes of some of building materials such as marble, granite and porcelain tiles and clay brick through using them as cement and aggregate replacement materials in cement mortar. Sixteen mixtures were cast for this study. In addition to the control, the mortar mixes were divided into five groups, three mixes in each group. In four of the five groups, cement was replaced in three proportions (5%, 10%, 15% by weight) with each of marble, granite, porcelain and clay brick waste powders (passing through 150-μm sieve). The fifth group included 100% replacing (by weight) of the natural sand with the marble, granite and porcelain tiles wastes (with a comparable gradation). The influence of these wastes on flow rate, compressive strength, flexural strength, bulk density, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) and water absorption tests were observed. Results showed that it is possible to produce an eco-friendly mortar made with 100% recycled marble or porcelain aggregate with a significant improvement in the mechanical and durability properties in comparison with natural aggregate mortar

Microalgal biorefineries

ABSTRACT: Microalgae-based bioproducts remain expensive mainly due to microalgae cultivation, harvesting, and downstream processing costs. Nonetheless, microalgae are a high potential source of several biofuels, biofertilizers, and bioproducts (e.g., carbohydrates, long-chain fatty acids, pigments, and proteins), which can provide important nutritional, cosmetical, pharmaceutical, and health benefits. In addition, they are able to perform wastewater bioremediation and carbon dioxide mitigation. This not only contributes to a more sustainable microalgae production, with environmental benefits, but also offers cost savings on the whole process. Hence, from these small cellular factories, a large source of compounds and products can be obtained, providing a real microalgal-based biorefinery. This type of approach is crucial for the full application and commercialization of microalgae in a large range of products and industries, with added benefits for bioeconomy and society in general. This chapter addresses the potential transformation of microalgal biomass into a wide range of marketable products, presenting examples of experimental microalgae-based biorefineries grown in an autotrophic mode at a laboratory scale.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Contaminating microorganisms in quark-type cheese and their capability of biogenic amine production

The aim of this study was to characterise the contaminating microorganisms during individual stages of manufacture of quark-type cheese and also describe their capability of biogenic amine production. We isolated and identified 118 contaminating microorganisms for which the production of biogenic amines has been established. Over half of the isolates were capable of significantly producing at least one biogenic amine and, in some cases, multiple amines (content values for a particular biogenic amine exceeding 200 mg/L of broth). The strongest production ability of the isolated microorganisms was for putrescine and tyramine. © 2018 Society of Dairy TechnologyMinistry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic; National Agency for Agriculture Research [QK1710156]; Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Internal Grant Agencies [IGA/FT/2017/003