Jasmeet Kour, Sukhcharn Singh and Dharmesh C. Saxena
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of residence time distribution in extruders along with the incorporation of nutraceuticals on the final quality of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of residence time distribution in extruders along with the incorporation of nutraceuticals on the final quality of the products with respect to several pivotal responses.
Design/methodology/approach
Corn–rice flour blend fortified with isolated nutraceutical concentrates at two (low and high) levels was extruded at barrel temperature (110°C), screw speed (260 rpm) and feed moisture (17 percent). Extrudates were collected at an interval of 24 s followed by analysis for radial expansion (RE), bulk density (BD), water absorption index (WAI), sensory score (SS), textural hardness, colorimetric values (L*, a* and b*) and color difference (E).
Findings
The entire data were fitted to zero- and first-order kinetic models. There was a gradual decrease in RE, SS and L* value, whereas an increase in BD, textural hardness and a* value of extrudates fortified with the three nutraceutical concentrates was observed with the successive time interval of 24 s along with a more pronounced effect on color difference (E) observed during the last stages of extrusion time. The zero-order kinetic model was well fitted for BD and a* value, whereas the first-order kinetic model showed better results for RE, WAI, SS, textural hardness, L* value, a* value and b* value of fortified extrudates.
Originality/value
Nutraceuticals like β-glucans, lignans and γ oryzanol exhibit numerous health-beneficial effects. This study analyzes the kinetics of changes in various responses of extrudates fortified with these nutraceutical concentrates during extrusion.
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T.T. Niranjan, K.B.C. Saxena and Sangeeta S. Bharadwaj
This paper sets out to classify business process outsourcing (BPO), linking it to service level agreement (SLA) design needs.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper sets out to classify business process outsourcing (BPO), linking it to service level agreement (SLA) design needs.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper develops a framework based on prior literature to classify BPOs and illustrates it with field research of Indian vendors.
Findings
The paper identifies criticality and complexity as the dimensions of classification and explicates the role of SLAs along these dimensions.
Research limitations/implications
This is an exploratory research involving four vendors. A larger study is needed to strengthen/enrich the proposed framework, and make the findings more conclusive.
Practical implications
The taxonomy aids BPO industry practitioners in understanding the characteristics of different processes and the control issues arising therein. It also helps analysts to make more qualified generalizations within the BPO industry.
Originality/value
The paper addresses a dearth of literature on BPOs, especially from a vendor perspective. The taxonomy serves to position future work in this fast‐growing field of research.
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E‐governance initiatives are common in most countries as they promise a more citizen‐centric government and reduce operational cost. Unfortunately most of these initiatives have…
Abstract
Purpose
E‐governance initiatives are common in most countries as they promise a more citizen‐centric government and reduce operational cost. Unfortunately most of these initiatives have not been able to achieve the benefits claimed. Often the reason for this failure is a techno‐centric focus rather than a governance‐centric focus. The aim of this paper is to explore the necessary attributes of a governance‐centric initiative under the banner “excellent e‐governance” (e2‐governance), and describe a methodology for ensuring such excellence in e‐governance implementations.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper follows a case study approach for developing the concept of excellent e‐governance. It first conceptually differentiates between e‐government and e‐governance and describes the status of e‐governance in developing countries. It then differentiates between the two approaches to e‐governance: techno‐centric and governance‐centric. Next, the attributes of excellent e‐governance are explored in detail, and illustrated by two case studies. Then, the major issues for bringing excellence to e‐governance initiatives are identified. Last, a methodology under development, called “e‐governance engineering”, is described, which when applied to an e‐governance initiative, will ensure excellence.
Findings
Excellence (or governance‐centricism) in e‐governance requires the initiative to be effectiveness‐driven and not merely efficiency‐driven. This will require the initiative to be led by a “good governance” driven goal/purpose: additionally, the initiative must be outcome‐focused.
Practical implications
There has been a dearth of methodologies for implementing e‐governance initiatives, and an increase in the number of failed e‐governance projects. This paper proposes a methodology, “e‐governance engineering”, which aims to fill this gap and at the same time bring excellence to the e‐governance initiatives implemented.
Originality/value
The paper introduces the notion of “excellence” in e‐governance (e2‐governance), which is supposed to be the goal of all e‐governance initiatives. It also introduces a methodology to accomplish this goal. It is hoped that the methodology will help public administrators and public organisations in successfully designing and implementing e‐governance projects, thereby contributing to enhanced governance at optimal cost.
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Sangeeta Shah Bharadwaj and K.B.C. Saxena
The purpose of this paper is to discuss business processes as building blocks of organizational capabilities and outsourcing of business processes as a viable management approach…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss business processes as building blocks of organizational capabilities and outsourcing of business processes as a viable management approach in building winning relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper develops a conceptual model to successfully implement “global sourcing” of organizational capabilities for the service provider and validates this framework using questionnaire survey methodology.
Findings
The paper identifies business process management and relationship management value propositions as the key dimensions for business process outsourcing (BPO) success. However, these value propositions fall short of building winning relationships.
Research limitations/implications
The research is based on questionnaire survey of Indian BPO service providers. A survey of BPO clients may further strengthen the proposed framework and make the findings more conclusive.
Practical implications
The proposed framework helps both the BPO client and the service‐provider organizations in understanding the critical role of relationship management in realizing the intended BPO service outcomes.
Originality/value
The paper establishes the importance of capability service provision by the service provider as value proposition.
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K.B.C. Saxena and Sangeeta S. Bharadwaj
The purpose of this paper is to discuss business processes as building‐blocks of organisational capabilities and outsourcing of business processes as a viable management approach…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss business processes as building‐blocks of organisational capabilities and outsourcing of business processes as a viable management approach to building strategic organisational capabilities.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper develops a conceptual framework based on “strategic partnering” to successfully implement “global sourcing” of organisational capabilities and validates this framework using multiple case studies research.
Findings
The paper identifies business process management, relationship management and the outsourcing value propositions as the key dimensions for business process outsourcing (BPO) success.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is based on case studies of seven European clients and ten Indian service providers of BPO services. A larger survey of BPO clients and service providers may further strengthen the proposed framework and make the findings more conclusive.
Practical implications
The proposed framework helps both the BPO client and the service provider organisations in understanding the critical role of relationship management in realising the intended BPO service outcomes. It also helps the BPO clients and the service providers to understand the risk and business value implications of BPO value proposition.
Originality/value
The paper addresses a dearth of literature on BPO service provision and establishes the need for dyadic study of BPO services from both the client and the service provider perspective simultaneously for understanding the dynamics of this emerging service sector.
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This paper presents the findings based on a survey conducted to examine the status and extent of the use of computer‐based technology (CBT) to support “quality”, including such…
Abstract
This paper presents the findings based on a survey conducted to examine the status and extent of the use of computer‐based technology (CBT) to support “quality”, including such aspects as quality control, quality assurance and quality management, in Hong Kong. Five main categories of CBTs, namely decision support systems (DSSs), group support systems (GSSs), executive information systems (EISs), expert systems (ESs) and artificial neural networks (ANNs), in support of quality are surveyed. The survey findings indicate that CBT usage to support quality in Hong Kong is low, particularly ESs and ANNs. This is partly due to a lack of awareness regarding the potential of CBTs in supporting quality among their potential users, and partly because of a lack of availability of suitable software to support their use. This paper represents a first attempt to examine the real‐life use of CBTs in support of quality. Based on the research findings, we have identified several opportunities for further research and suggested a number of research directions for CBTs to support “quality”in practice.
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This chapter examines the world of risk management within fintech. It initiates by emphasizing the crucial role of technology and risk assessment in shaping the fintech landscape…
Abstract
This chapter examines the world of risk management within fintech. It initiates by emphasizing the crucial role of technology and risk assessment in shaping the fintech landscape. It discusses various risk categories prevalent in fintech operations, elucidating the nuances of technology, operational, compliance, strategic, and reputational risks. A comparative analysis across different fintech sub-sectors unveils their distinct risk profiles. The narrative extends to proactive risk management frameworks, contrasting prominent models like the COSO ERM, FAIR Risk Quantification, and NIST Cybersecurity Frameworks. Integral defense measures are scrutinized, encompassing data encryption, access controls, vulnerability assessments, and incident response plans. This chapter underscores the significance of building operational resilience through robust technology infrastructure, regular system updates, disaster recovery planning, and business continuity measures. Ultimately, this chapter culminates in a comprehensive summary, offering pragmatic recommendations to fortify technology risk management in fintech.
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Mahfooz Alam, Mahak, Raza Abbas Haidri and Dileep Kumar Yadav
Cloud users can access services at anytime from anywhere in the world. On average, Google now processes more than 40,000 searches every second, which is approximately 3.5 billion…
Abstract
Purpose
Cloud users can access services at anytime from anywhere in the world. On average, Google now processes more than 40,000 searches every second, which is approximately 3.5 billion searches per day. The diverse and vast amounts of data are generated with the development of next-generation information technologies such as cryptocurrency, internet of things and big data. To execute such applications, it is needed to design an efficient scheduling algorithm that considers the quality of service parameters like utilization, makespan and response time. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a novel Efficient Static Task Allocation (ESTA) algorithm, which optimizes average utilization.
Design/methodology/approach
Cloud computing provides resources such as virtual machine, network, storage, etc. over the internet. Cloud computing follows the pay-per-use billing model. To achieve efficient task allocation, scheduling algorithm problems should be interacted and tackled through efficient task distribution on the resources. The methodology of ESTA algorithm is based on minimum completion time approach. ESTA intelligently maps the batch of independent tasks (cloudlets) on heterogeneous virtual machines and optimizes their utilization in infrastructure as a service cloud computing.
Findings
To evaluate the performance of ESTA, the simulation study is compared with Min-Min, load balancing strategy with migration cost, Longest job in the fastest resource-shortest job in the fastest resource, sufferage, minimum completion time (MCT), minimum execution time and opportunistic load balancing on account of makespan, utilization and response time.
Originality/value
The simulation result reveals that the ESTA algorithm consistently superior performs under varying of batch independent of cloudlets and the number of virtual machines’ test conditions.
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Mahfooz Alam, Raza Abbas Haidri and Mohammad Shahid
Load balancing is an important issue for a heterogeneous distributed computing system environment that has been proven to be a nondeterministic polynomial time hard problem. This…
Abstract
Purpose
Load balancing is an important issue for a heterogeneous distributed computing system environment that has been proven to be a nondeterministic polynomial time hard problem. This paper aims to propose a resource-aware load balancing (REAL) model for a batch of independent tasks with a centralized load balancer to make the solution appropriate for a practical heterogeneous distributed environment having a migration cost with the objective of maximizing the level of load balancing considering bandwidth requirements for migration of the tasks.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve the effective schedule, load balancing issues should be addressed and tackled through efficient workload distribution. In this approach, the migration has been carried out in two phases, namely, initial migration and best-fit migration. Using the best-fit policy in migrations helps in the possible performance improvement by minimizing the remaining idle slots on underloaded nodes that remain unentertained during the initial migration.
Findings
The experimental results reveal that the proposed model exhibits a superior performance among the other strategies on considered parameters such as makespan, average utilization and level of load balancing under study for a heterogeneous distributed environment.
Originality/value
Design of the REAL model and a comparative performance evaluation with LBSM and ITSLB have been conducted by using MATLAB 8.5.0.
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Zhibang Qiao, Shanshan Lv, Jiyou Gu, Haiyan Tan, Junyou Shi and Yanhua Zhang
The purpose of this paper is to obtain high-solids-content and low-viscosity starch adhesive, and improve bonding strength of the pure starch adhesive.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to obtain high-solids-content and low-viscosity starch adhesive, and improve bonding strength of the pure starch adhesive.
Design/methodology/approach
Maize starch was treated by hydrochloric acid solution with different concentrations, and acid-thinned starch adhesive was prepared. Polyisocyanate as a crosslinking agent was added to improve water resistance of the pure starch adhesive.
Findings
The physical and chemical properties of the acid-thinned starch adhesive were characterised. Acid hydrolysis did not change structure of starch granules, but increased its crystallinity. After acid modification, starch granules became less smooth and some fragments appeared. Acid treatment had little influence on thermal stability of starch, when acid hydrolysis was not strong. High concentration of HCl solution led to starch granules being destroyed, resulting in decrease in bonding strength. The optimal HCl concentration was 0.5 mol/L. Polyisocyanate addition was beneficial to improve the bonding strength of the acid-thinned starch adhesive.
Research limitations/implications
Acid hydrolysis changed the properties of the starch adhesive.
Practical implications
Acid hydrolysis decreased viscosity of the starch adhesive and improved its solids content, which had a positive effect on the application of the starch adhesive.
Social implications
It was helpful to develop an environment-friendly, natural polymer-based wood adhesive.
Originality/value
The properties of acid-thinned starch and acid-thinned starch adhesive were studied.