Volume 22 Number 1 2019

Development of Beta (β) Carotene Enriched Drinking Yoghurt by Incorporating Carrot (Daucus carota) Pulp and Orange (Citrus sinensis) Juice

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Development of Beta (β) Carotene Enriched Drinking Yoghurt by Incorporating Carrot (Daucus carota) Pulp and Orange (Citrus sinensis) Juice Senarathne, Y.S.M.; Wickramasinghe, I. Beta (β) carotene is a natural antioxidant which is omnipresent in yellow, green vegetables and fruits. The main objective of this study was to develop a β carotene enriched drinking yoghurt by incorporating carrot pulp and orange juice. The mixing ratio of carrot pulp, orange juice and yoghurt base was selected by analyzing the data gathered from a preliminary sensory trial with respect to appearance, colour, taste, mouth feel, and overall acceptability of drinking yoghurt samples. The product was developed according to the selected best formula and was subjected to analysis of chemical composition and shelf life evaluation. The sample containing 10% carrot pulp, 10% orange juice and 80% yoghurt base was selected as the best formula. Coliform, yeast and mold were absent after 35 days. The β-carotene content, antioxidant capacity and pH of the developed product were 0.495±0.001 mg/100 g, 55.245±0.008% and 4.416±0.005 respectively. Collectively these results suggest that, the developed drinking yoghurt has 35 days of shelf life with high nutritional value including pro-vitamin A which is a natural antioxidant.

Physico-chemical Characterization of Cookies Supplemented with Sugarcane Bagasse Fibres

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Physico-chemical Characterization of Cookies Supplemented with Sugarcane Bagasse Fibres Vijerathna, M.P.G.; Wijesekara, I.; Perera, R. Sugarcane bagasse is a by-product of sugarcane processing and it is rich in insoluble dietary fibers. The objective of this study was to develop cookies enriched with sugarcane bagasse as a fiber source with no added sugars. Bagasses with or without peel were collected from a jaggery manufacturing plant and they were dried, grinded, and sieved to obtain powder (moisture content, 3%). The fiber content (%, wet weight basis) of bagasse powders with and without peel were 12.43±0.30 and 8.61±0.38, respectively. Furthermore, the bagasse with peel contained the highest total phenolic content (1270.89±3.36 µg GAE/ g) than bagasse without peel (721.41±0.33 µg GAE/g). In addition, water holding capacities (WHC) of with peel and without peel bagasse were 4.85±2.91 and 8.04±1.78 g of water/g of bagasse powder, respectively. These two types of bagasse powders at 0% (control), 5%, and 10% (w/w) ratios were enriched to develop cookies. Texture analysis revealed that bagasse with peel enriched cookies were shown optimum hardness compare to the bagasse without peel cookies. According to the sensory evaluation, the 5% bagasse with peel enriched cookies showed the highest overall acceptability than other bagasse enriched cookies but lesser overall acceptability than the control. Collectively, these results suggest that the potential incorporation of sugarcane bagasse (with peel at 5%, w/w) is acceptable in cookies manufacturing.

Effect of Supplementation of Palm Kernel Cake (PKC) with Enzyme Xylanase on Performances and Gut Microbiota of Broiler Chickens

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Effect of Supplementation of Palm Kernel Cake (PKC) with Enzyme Xylanase on Performances and Gut Microbiota of Broiler Chickens Okukpe, M.K.; Aderibigde, T.A.; Atleh, J.O. Recent development of antibiotics-resistance pathogens in poultry which poses threat to human health has necessitated the search for alternative to Antibiotic Growth Promoters (AGPs) to improve gut microflora in poultry diets. One of the alternatives to AGPs is probiotics which are beneficial organisms. Prebiotics, are by-products of digestion of polysaccharides which poultry do not have enzymes to digest are food for probiotics. Advent of enzymes makes this digestion possible. The prebiotic potentials of enzyme supplemented High Fibre Feedstuffs (HFFs) are not known. This study was conducted to assess the prebiotics potential of xylanase enzyme supplemented Palm Kernel Cake (PKC) on broiler chickens (in-vivo). In the absence of xylanase supplementation, there was significant increase in feed intake (P>0.05), significant decrease in weight gain (P<0.05) and significant increase in feed conversion ratio (P>0.05). There were significant interaction between dietary levels of Palm Kernel Cake and enzyme supplementation on Feed Intake, Weight Gain and Feed Conversion Ratio parameters (p<0.05). Enzyme supplementation irrespective of dietary level of PKC caused a reduction in cost of raising 1kg of broiler Chickens. It can be deduced that enzyme supplementation of PKC helped in increasing and improving protein, ether extract and fibre digestibility. The result obtained for the weights of vital organs showed that the birds were in good health conditions. Analysis of gut microflora (Fungi and Bacteria) showed that dietary levels of PKC (10%, 20% or 30% inclusion) with supplementation of enzyme xylanase enhanced the growth of beneficial microbes which resulted in inhibition or elimination of the opportunistic/ pathogenic microbes. The result of the cost benefit analysis also showed that 10% inclusion level of PKC supplemented with xylanase enzyme resulted in reduction of the cost of production with the best improved broiler performance. Use of enzymes is therefore recommended when HFFs are required as prebiotic source in the gut of broilers.

A New Multi-Objective Ant Colony Optimisation Algorithm for Solving the Quadratic Assignment Problem

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

A New Multi-Objective Ant Colony Optimisation Algorithm for Solving the Quadratic Assignment Problem Ariyasingha, I.D.I.D.; Fernando, T.G.I. The multi-objective quadratic assignment problem (mQAP) is an NP-hard combinatorial optimisation problem. Real world problems are concerned with multi-objective problems which optimise more objective functions simultaneously. Moreover, QAP models many real-world optimisation problems, such as network design problems, communication problems, layout problems, etc. One of its major applications is the facility location, which is to find an assignment of all facilities to all locations in the way their total is minimised. The multi-objective QAP considers multiple types of flows between two facilities. Over the last few decades several meta-heuristic algorithms have been proposed to solve the multi-objective QAP, such as genetic algorithms, Tabu search, simulated annealing, and ant colony optimisation. This paper presents a new ant colony optimisation algorithm for solving multiple objective optimisation problems, and it is named as the random weight-based ant colony optimisation algorithm (RWACO). The proposed algorithm is applied to the bi-objective quadratic assignment problem and evaluates the performance by comparing with some recently developed multiobjective ant colony optimisation algorithms. The experimental results have shown that the proposed algorithm performs better than the other multi-objective ACO algorithms considered in this study.