Food supply chain integrity : the need to go beyond certification

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to establish a conceptual model adopted from a strategy-structure-performance paradigm for investigating the fit between the supply chain integration and halal food supply chain integrity and the impact of halal food supply chain integrity on firms’ performance in a Malaysian context. Design/methodology/approach This study comprises a sample of a halal manufacturing firm in Malaysia. A cross-sectional research design was used in this study. Data were gathered based on mailed and personally administered questionnaires. SmartPLS was used to analyse the 254 valid responses. Findings The research findings indicate that internal integration and strategy have positive impact on halal food supply chain integrity. The study results confirmed that customer integration and supplier integration contributes to halal food supply chain integrity. It also finds that halal food supply chain integrity has a significantly positive impact. Research limitations/implications The results suggested that a strategic collaboration with the supplier pivoted around the quality and integrity of the raw materials should be undertaken. Practical implications The results from this study supports that the managers should adopt all halal food supply chain integrity components to achieve a superior performance. Even though some of the components did not yield significant results in terms of their relationships with firms’ performance, these dimensions were generally related to the standardised industry requirements, such as certifications. Originality/value The findings are original and unique and are based on established theories from the literature on supply chain management practices. The research findings are useful to academics and policymakers interested in fostering a halal supply chain in Malaysia

AA. VV., Los Dominicos y el Nuevo Mundo, Actas del III Congreso Internacional, ed. Deimos, Madrid 1991, 852 pp., 17 x 24. [RECENSIÓN]

BACKGROUND: Treatment of genotype 1 hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection with combination direct acting anti-virals is associated with very high rates of sustained virological response (SVR). Daily combination of ledipasvir and sofosbuvir for 12 weeks is approved for the treatment of genotype 1 HCV patients, though noncirrhotic patients who are naïve to treatment with a baseline HCV RNA/mL can be treated for 8 weeks. This guidance stemmed from a post hoc analysis of the ION 3 clinical trial, which demonstrated similar SVR for patients treated with ledipasvir and sofosbuvir with or without ribavirin for 8 or 12 weeks. AIM: To compare the SVR for 8 weeks vs 12 weeks of ledipasvir and sofosbuvir in HCV infected patients in a real-world setting. METHODS: We performed an observational real-world cohort study of treatment success following 8 or 12 weeks of ledipasvir and sofosbuvir for treatment-naïve genotype 1 HCV patients. RESULTS: A total of 826 patients were treated for either 8 (n=252) or 12 weeks (n=574) with ledipasvir and sofosbuvir and achieved SVR rate of 95.3% and there was no statistical difference in SVR rates in the two groups irrespective of any clinical or virological variables. CONCLUSIONS: In treatment-naïve HCV genotype 1 patients, SVR was 95% in those treated for either 8 weeks or 12 weeks with ledipasvir and sofosbuvir. 8 week ledipasvir and sofosbuvir can reduce costs without compromising outcomes for those patients who qualify for such regimen

Hybrid off-river augmentation system as an alternative raw water resource: the hydrogeochemistry of abandoned mining ponds

The use of water from abandoned mining ponds under a hybrid off-river augmentation system (HORAS) has been initiated as an alternative water resource for raw water. However, it raises the questions over the safety of the use of such waters. In this study, the hydrogeochemical analysis of the waters is presented to assess the degree to which the water has been contaminated. Comparisons were made between sampling sites, i.e. abandoned mining ponds, active sand mining ponds and the receiving streams within Bestari Jaya, Selangor River basin. The aqueous geochemistry analysis showed different hydrochemical signatures of major elements between sites, indicating different sources of minerals in the water. Discharges from the sand mining ponds were found to contain elevated availability of dissolved concentrations of iron, manganese, lead, copper and zinc, among others. However, the quality of the water (from the main river) that is supplied for potable water consumption is at a satisfactory level despite being partly sourced from the abandoned mining ponds. In fact, all the metal concentrations detected were well below the Malaysia Ministry of Health guideline limits for untreated raw water. In addition, the results of the geochemical index analysis (i.e. geoaccumulation index, enrichment factor and modified contamination factor) showed that the rivers and abandoned mining ponds were generally unpolluted with respect to the metals found in sediments

Ergonomics observation: harvesting tasks at oil palm plantation

Objectives: Production agriculture is commonly associated with high prevalence of ergonomic injuries, particularly during intensive manual labor and during harvesting. This paper intends to briefly describe an overview of oil palm plantation management highlighting the ergonomics problem each of the breakdown task analysis. Methods: Although cross-sectional field visits were conducted in the current study, insight into past and present occupational safety and health concerns particularly regarding the ergonomics of oil palm plantations was further exploited. Besides discussion, video recordings were extensively used for ergonomics analysis. Results: The unique commodity of oil palm plantations presents significantly different ergonomics risk factors for fresh fruit bunch (FFB) cutters during different stages of harvesting. Although the ergonomics risk factors remain the same for FFB collectors, the intensity of manual lifting increases significantly with the age of the oil palm trees-weight of FFB. Conclusions: There is urgent need to establish surveillance in order to determine the current prevalence of ergonomic injuries. Thereafter, ergonomics interventions that are holistic and comprehensive should be conducted and evaluated for their efficacy using approaches that are integrated, participatory and cost-effective

Laboratory evaluation on the characteristics and pollutant emissions of nanoclay and chemical warm mix asphalt modified binders

This study was conducted to investigate the performance characteristics of nanoclay- and chemical warm-mix asphalt (WMA) additive-modified asphalt binders in terms of their chemical, morphology, rheological and surface energy properties in comparison to conventional asphalt binder. Both the nanoclay modified asphalt binder (NCMB B) and the chemical WMA additive modified asphalt binder (CWAA) were artificially aged under short-term and long-term aging conditions prior to evaluation. The chemical and morphological properties were measured with Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) respectively. Rheological eval-uations were conducted to determine binder’s behavior under short-term aging in terms of frequency sweep, temperature sweep, and creep recovery tests by utilizing the dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) machine. Emission test was also conducted on the unmodified and modified WMA mixtures to estimate the gaseous pollutants emitted during their manufacture. FTIR spectroscopy results showed that the addition of WMA modifiers into asphalt binder could delay and weaken the oxidation reaction of the binder which in turn improved the aging process. However, the physical structure did not seem to show any changes after undergoing long term aging. The use of NCMB B 4% (by weight of asphalt binder) seemed to produce better resistance towards rutting when compared to CWAA 1%, 2% and 3% for unaged, and short- and long-term aging test conditions. The modified binders exhibit significantly higher surface energy and hence produced good adhesion between aggregates, which imply increased resistance toward moisture-induced damage. This study also revealed that the manufacture of WMA mixtures reduced up to 50% of the pollutants emitted during mixing in laboratory

Women as Sex Objects in Azizi Haji Abdullah’s Novel Bila Hujan Malam: A Critical Appraisal

This article analyses Azizi Haji Abdullah's novel Bila Hujan Malam to determine critical claims of its literary merit. Using the analytical framework Persuratan Baru advanced by the local writer and critic, Mohd Affandi Hassan, that distinguishes between story and knowledge, the article unpacks “women as sex objects†as the novel's main perception, which Azizi structures into the story by means of four narrative strategies. The strategies centre round firstly, using selected aspects of the “unexplained antecedent†technique, secondly, making molestation that strips women of control and agency as the only form of sexual union available, thirdly, providing a context conducive to sexual exploitation, and fourthly, denying a role for women other than that of a sex object. The article argues that, contrary to claims of its literary merit, the novel prioritises iniquity as a valid aesthetic and literary expression, at the same time as it makes discourse/knowledge irrelevant to its structuring. In so doing, it operates as a novel only on the level of story and story making. This article thus concludes that Bila Hujan Malam is no more than an erotic novel. It also calls into question several literary conventions regarded as mainstream in Malay literature

The Synonymy of the Story and the Message in Abdullah Hussain’s Novel Masuk ke dalam Cahaya

When Abdullah Hussain’s novel Masuk ke dalam Cahaya, which won a consolation prize in an Islamic novel-writing competition in 1983, first met its reading public in the same year, there was no home-grown analytical framework, one dedicated to the Islamic worldview, to evaluate its literary merit and worthiness as an Islamic novel. But now there is the recently and locally-produced Persuratan Baru which, in consonant with Islamic precepts, prioritises true knowledge, and distinguishes between discourse and story, the former to articulate knowledge and the latter to develop and disseminate the knowledge so articulated. It also introduces, in ascending order of literary worthiness, the three categories of persuratan, sastera and picisan with persuratan and picisan occupying the highest and lowest strata respectively. With Persuratan Baru as its critical tool, the article examines the novel’s objective, and the extent to and manner in which the objective realised has been put to the service of disseminating true knowledge. The article argues that Masuk ke dalam Cahaya dismisses discourse as irrelevant, and presents the story and the message or knowledge as synonymous entities. In so doing, the novel prevails as a work of sastera for which story-making and the story serve as its main literary preoccupation

Persuratan Baru: An Alternative Paradigm to Western Literary Methodologies

As an ex-colony of Britain, the Malay literary world exhibits an intellectual rush to imbibe Western literary constructs at the expense of local literary tradition which, informed by Islam, has spanned centuries. These Western constructs, which contradict both Malay culture and Islam, the religion of the Malays, give rise not only to confusion of knowledge and epistemology (in particular the concept of literary function and aesthetics), but also reinvent new values and structures of literary form and practice. Malay literature thus takes on an unmistakably Western hue and identity. In the face of this foreign onslaught, local scholars feel an urgent need to revive analytical frameworks that are cognisant of Islamic precepts and Malay cultural dynamics. This is seen as a means to bring back to Malay literature the Islamic worldview and identity which have been eclipsed, and, in some cases, jettisoned altogether. One such framework is Persuratan Baru (Genuine Literature) or PB which is informed by the concept of taklif, principally accountability to God through observation of the syariah or Islamic jurisprudence. Persuratan Baru re-orientates Malay creative and critical writings by challenging the primacy of the story as the lynchpin of fiction. In its place, PB prioritises knowledge as the main organising principle of narrative on the one hand, and stylisation of ideas, with discourse positioned as a crucial tool of articulation, as an integrated method of foregrounding ideas in creative terms, on the other

Development and validation of a high-density SNP genotyping array for African Oil Palm

High-density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping arrays are powerful tools that can measure the level of genetic polymorphism within a population. To develop a whole-genome SNP array for oil palms, SNP discovery was performed using deep resequencing of eight libraries derived from 132 Elaeis guineensis and Elaeis oleifera palms belonging to 59 origins, resulting in the discovery of >3 million putative SNPs. After SNP filtering, the Illumina OP200K custom array was built with 170 860 successful probes. Phenetic clustering analysis revealed that the array could distinguish between palms of different origins in a way consistent with pedigree records. Genome-wide linkage disequilibrium declined more slowly for the commercial populations (ranging from 120 kb at r2 = 0.43 to 146 kb at r2 = 0.50) when compared with the semi-wild populations (19.5 kb at r2 = 0.22). Genetic fixation mapping comparing the semi-wild and commercial population identified 321 selective sweeps. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) detected a significant peak on chromosome 2 associated with the polygenic component of the shell thickness trait (based on the trait shell-to-fruit; S/F %) in tenera palms. Testing of a genomic selection model on the same trait resulted in good prediction accuracy (r = 0.65) with 42% of the S/F%variation explained. The first high-density SNP genotyping array for oil palm has been developed and shown to be robust for use in genetic studies and with potential for developing early trait prediction to shorten the oil palm breeding cycle

Status of HIV and hepatitis C virus infections among prisoners in the Middle East and North Africa: review and synthesis.

INTRODUCTION: The status of HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections among incarcerated populations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the links between prisons and the HIV epidemic are poorly understood. This review synthesized available HIV and HCV data in prisons in MENA and highlighted opportunities for action. METHODS: The review was based on data generated through the systematic searches of the MENA HIV/AIDS Epidemiology Synthesis Project (2003 to December 15, 2015) and the MENA HCV Epidemiology Synthesis Project (2011 to December 15, 2015). Sources of data included peer-reviewed publications and country-level reports and databases. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: We estimated a population of 496,000 prisoners in MENA, with drug-related offences being a major cause for incarceration. Twenty countries had data on HIV among incarcerated populations with a median prevalence of 0.6% in Afghanistan, 6.1% in Djibouti, 0.01% in Egypt, 2.5% in Iran, 0% in Iraq, 0.1% in Jordan, 0.05% in Kuwait, 0.7% in Lebanon, 18.0% in Libya, 0.7% in Morocco, 0.3% in Oman, 1.1% in Pakistan, 0% in Palestine, 1.2% in Saudi Arabia, 0% in Somalia, 5.3% in Sudan and South Sudan, 0.04% in Syria, 0.05% in Tunisia, and 3.5% in Yemen. Seven countries had data on HCV, with a median prevalence of 1.7% in Afghanistan, 23.6% in Egypt, 28.1% in Lebanon, 15.6% in Pakistan, and 37.8% in Iran. Syria and Libya had only one HCV prevalence measure each at 1.5% and 23.7%, respectively. There was strong evidence for injecting drug use and the use of non-sterile injecting-equipment in prisons. Incarceration and injecting drugs, use of non-sterile injecting-equipment, and tattooing in prisons were found to be independent risk factors for HIV or HCV infections. High levels of sexual risk behaviour, tattooing and use of non-sterile razors among prisoners were documented. CONCLUSIONS: Prisons play an important role in HIV and HCV dynamics in MENA and have facilitated the emergence of large HIV epidemics in at least two countries, Iran and Pakistan. There is evidence for substantial but variable HIV and HCV prevalence, as well as risk behaviour including injecting drug use and unprotected sex among prisoners across countries. These findings highlight the need for comprehensive harm-reduction strategies in prisons