An assessment of the business value of traceability practices in the italian fishery processing industry

Traceability is often perceived by food industry executives as an additional cost of doing business, one to be avoided if possible. However, a traceability system can in fact comply the regulatory requirements, increase food safety and recall performance, improving marketing performances and, as well as, improving supply chain management. Thus, traceability affects business performances of firms in terms of costs and benefits determined by traceability practices. Costs and benefits affect factors such as, firms’ characteristics, level of traceability and ,lastly, costs and benefits perceived prior to traceability implementation. This thesis was undertaken to understand how these factors are linked to affect the outcome of costs and benefits. Analysis of the results of a plant level survey of the Italian ichthyic processing industry revealed that processors generally adopt various level of traceability while government support appears to increase the level of traceability and the expectations and actual costs and benefits. None of the firms’ characteristics, with the exception of government support, influences costs and level of traceability. Only size of firms and level of QMS certifications are linked with benefits while precision of traceability increases benefits without affecting costs. Finally, traceability practices appear due to the request from “external“ stakeholders such as government, authority and customers rather than “internal” factors (e.g. improving the firm management) while the traceability system does not provide any added value from the market in terms of price premium or market share increase.

Predictive Ability of NGAL as a Marker of Renal Damage: evaluation of Multiple Clinical Settings

Introduction. Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin (NGAL) belongs to the family of lipocalins and it is produced by several cell types, including renal tubular epithelium. In the kidney its production increases during acute damage and this is reflected by the increase in serum and urine levels. In animal studies and clinical trials, NGAL was found to be a sensitive and specific indicator of acute kidney injury (AKI). Purpose. The aim of this work was to investigate, in a prospective manner, whether urine NGAL can be used as a marker in preeclampsia, kidney transplantation, VLBI and diabetic nephropathy. Materials and methods. The study involved 44 consecutive patients who received renal transplantation; 18 women affected by preeclampsia (PE); a total of 55 infants weighing ≤1500 g and 80 patients with Type 1 diabetes. Results. A positive correlation was found between urinary NGAL and 24 hours proteinuria within the PE group. The detection of higher uNGAL values in case of severe PE, even in absence of statistical significance, confirms that these women suffer from an initial renal damage. In our population of VLBW infants, we found a positive correlation of uNGAL values at birth with differences in sCreat and eGFR values from birth to day 21, but no correlation was found between uNGAL values at birth and sCreat and eGFR at day 7. systolic an diastolic blood pressure decreased with increasing levels of uNGAL. The patients with uNGAL <25 ng/ml had significantly higher levels of systolic blood pressure compared with the patients with uNGAL >50 ng/ml ( p<0.005). Our results indicate the ability of NGAL to predict the delay in functional recovery of the graft. Conclusions. In acute renal pathology, urinary NGAL confirms to be a valuable predictive marker of the progress and status of acute injury.