eChapters

When it comes to the fow of goods and services from the point of production till they reach the hands of fnal consumers, marketing is defned as “the performance of all business operations involved in that fow.”

Market structure is defned as “those aspects of the market’s organisation that appear to strategically infuence the nature of competition and pricing inside the market.”The market structure is decided by the following factors in general.

1. Number and size of the frms.
2. Degree of product differentiation.
3. Conditions for entry and exit.
4. Flow of market information.
5. Degree of integration.

The economics of distribution “accounts for the sharing of the wealth produced by a community among the agents of the owners of the agents which have been active in its production”.

- Chapman

The division of the national dividend or aggregate national income among the different agents of production viz., rent for land, wage for labour, interest for capital and proft for entrepreneur is termed as distribution in economics.

Factor Market

A factor market is a market where factors of production are bought and sold. Factor markets allocate factors of production, including land, labour and capital, and distribute income to the owners of productive resources, such as wages, rents, etc.

In the factor market it is not acres of land which is being bought or sold but the services of land. Similarly neither the labour nor capital goods are being bought and sold but the services of labour and capital. Thus rent is not the price of land but

Macroeconomics approaches the economic problems in terms of aggregates like national income, general employment level, aggregate demand, aggregate production and so on. The important among the above is national income. The one common thing to all products is value. Therefore, the national income must be expressed in monetary terms. The entire value of the goods and services (output) produced by an economy over time is measured by national income (normally a year). It also serves as a measure of the money generated by production and/or the total amount of expenditures made in order to produce the output.

Significance

The Central Statistical Organization of India has been calculating the country’s gross domestic product. We can measure your academic performance in relation to other students by the percentage of the marks scored by you. Similarly a country’s economic performance has been measured by indicators of national income such as GDP or GNP. Additionally, it is crucial to measure national income for a number of reasons, such as making predictions about how the economy will develop in the future,

Theories of Population

The theory of population is studied because the supply of labour depends upon population and its growth. Observing the abnormal growth of population and consequent fall in the standard of living, Thomas Malthus (1760-1834) an English Clergyman frst studied population growth in various countries of Europe. Later he wrote a book entitled “An Essay on the Principles of Population” in 1798. His his theory is popularly known as Malthusian theory of population. To quote the theory in his own words “By nature human food increases in a slow arithmetic ratio, man himself increases in a quick geometric ratio unless want and vice stop him”

Money

Money has made rapid economic progress possible in this modern age. In the early stages, exchange took the form of barter The direct exchange of one good for another is known as barter. For instance, the potter received paddy from the farmer in exchange for cooking pots. Barter became more challenging as there were more items to trade. Silver and other precious metals were thus utilised as currency. Then the paper currencies were used as legal money, i.e., an instrument of exchange, by the governments.

Definition of Money

Anything that the general public readily accepts as payment for products, services, other assets, and the discharge of debt is referred to as money. Robertson defned money, “as anything that is acceptable in discharge of obligations”.

According to Crowther, “Money is anything that is generally acceptable as a means

Banks and Banking

On account of multifarious activities of modern banks, the Bank and Banking has been defned by several economists as follows:

The defnition of a banker given by Dr. L. Herber and L. Hart is “one who, in the ordinary course of business, honours cheques made upon him by persons from and for whom he receives money on current accounts.”

Chamber’s Twentieth century Dictionary defnes a bank as an, “institution for the keeping, lending and exchanging etc. of money”.

The purpose of a banker, in Crowther’s words, is to produce money by accepting other people’s loans in exchange for his own.

A bank, according to Professor Kent, is “an entity whose main activities entail the collection of the momentarily idle money of the general public for the purpose of advancing to others for consumption.”

Public Finance

Public finance is a branch of economics which deals with the income and expenditure of public authorities such as Central Government, State Government, Corporations, Municipalities etc. Public finance, according to Adam Smith, is the study of the nature and guiding principles of government spending and revenue.

Micro Finance vs. Macro Finance

Microfinance and macro finance represent two types of funding-related activities. The difference lies in their scope. Microfinance is an individual-focused, community-based approach to provide money and/or fnancial services to money to poor individuals or small businesses who lack access to mainstream or conventional resources. 

Tax

A tax is a mandatory fee or fnancial charge levied by any government on an individual or an organization to collect revenue for public works providing the best facilities and infrastructure. The collected fund is then used to fund different public expenditure programs.

Direct and Indirect taxes

Types of tax system

1. Proportional tax: No matter the tax base’s relation to income size, the tax rate is always the same proportion. Taxing is according to the proportion of income. In this system poor people will be hit hard.
2. Progressive tax: Distribution of tax in a more just manner. People with higher income are charged with higher rates of tax. Eg. Income tax.
3. Regressive tax: Burden of payment will be more on poor. Taxes are charged from the poor at a higher rate than from rich. Ex. Commodity taxes – Affects poor rather than rich.

Economic System

The three economic problems What, How and to whom to produce are common to all societies or economics. But different countries follow different approaches to solve basic economic problems. These approaches are called economic systems. There are 3 important economic systems.

1. Command economies
2. Market economies and
3. Mixed economies

1. Command economies (Socialist economies): In a system like this, the government controls all aspects of production and distribution. Such a government might be dictatorial or it might be democratic. Main features of socialism are public ownership of means of production, Economic planning, Economic equality, lack of competition, elimination

Confectionery is the art of making confections, which are food items that contains high quantity of sugar and carbohydrates.

Traditional confectionery goes back to ancient times, and continued to be eaten through the Middle Ages into the modern era.

Confections include sweet foods, sweetmeats, digestive aids that are sweet, elaborate creations, and something amusing and frivolous. Confectionery, delicacies or sweetmeats that have sugar as a principal ingredient, combined with coloring matter and flavoring and often with fruit or nuts.

Confections are low in micronutrients and protein but high in calories.

2.1 Manufacturing Process of Sugar

There are a number of steps in producing raw sugar from cane

1. Sugarcane receiving and unloading (receive the cane at the factory and unload it from the transport vehicles)
2. Sugarcane preparation (cutting and shredding cane to prepare it for juice extraction)
3. Extraction of Sugarcane Juice (two technologies are in common use; milling or diffusion)
4. Juice clarification (remove suspended solids from

1.3 Dextrose

Sweets which include dextrose have different eating qualities to those made with sucrose and glucose syrup alone. Recipes should be balanced so that the sucrose to dextrose ratio achieves the required product texture.

The incorporation of dextrose will increase the likelihood that crystallization will occur either on store or during manufacture. Replacement usage levels for dextrose normally lie between 5% and 15% of the Sucrose content

Definition

‘Whipping agent’ are a wide variety of materials to describe their role in confectionery manufacture as a means of holding air introduced into a product, to produce a uniform dispersion of air cells within the confection leading to a lower specific weight and considerable modification to the texture.

Stable foams cannot be obtained by whipping high concentration sugar solutions without the presence of a ‘surface-active’ agent.

Many types of proteins have whipping properties and those used in the sweet industry are:

(a) Egg albumen, crystal powdered and spray dried;

(b) High Bloom gelatine and gelatine hydrolysates;

(c) Skimmed milk in spray dried form;

(d) Whey, or whey in a mixture with skimmed milk;

Release agents are used to grease equipment used for manufacturing certain types of sugar confectionery for easy removal of the sweet.

High-viscosity, purified mineral oil is most commonly used material suitable for all sweet manufacturing purposes. Mineral oil is neutral in taste and has little odour. It should be used carefully: there is a legal limit of 0 2% in the United Kingdom.

Acetylated mono-glycerides have excellent release properties. A number of alternatives based on vegetable oil are available, but the development of rancidity on the film surface on the sweets during storage is the major difficulty in the use of vegetable oil

The first use of milk in a solid chocolate product is commonly attributed to Daniel Peter in 1875. Milk chocolate is the most popular type of chocolate, and milk ingredients are critical in delivering the highly desired properties and taste profile to consumers. Milk ingredients also have a significant effect on chocolate processing.

Milk is one of the most complex raw materials used by the food industry. A typical bovine whole milk has a solids content of about 13.5%, comprising about 3.4% protein, 4.6% fat, 4.7% lactose and 0.7% minerals.

Milk proteins can be classified as either caseins or whey proteins - typically found in milk

These hydrolysates are dried conversion products available in a powdered form. Up to 20 DE they are normally referred to as malto-dextrins or hydrolised cereal solids. Above 20 DE they are more commonly termed spray dried glucose syrup solids.

Applications

Spray dried hydrolysates find application in a wide range of processed and convenience foods. Principally as filler/carrier and sweetness reducer.

They are ideally suited for blending into powdered formulations, and serve the following purposes.

As filler/carrier, they can

(1) Reduce loss of volume in contents on storage or in transit;

(2) Absorb fats and oils to retain free-flowing properties;

A glucose syrup is defined as ‘A purified and concentrated aqueous solution of nutritive saccharides derived from starch’, and having the following characteristics:

1. Dry matter of not less than 70%.
2. A dextrose equivalent (DE), expressed as d-glucose, of not less than 20% based on dry matter.
3. A sulphated ash content of not more than 1% on a dry basis.

Starch has a DE value of zero, whilst dextrose, the final end product of starch hydrolysis, has a DE value of 100. For the lay person, the term dextrose equivalent or DE can be regarded as an indication of how far the conversion process from starch to dextrose has gone. While technically DE is a measure of the total reducing sugars present in a glucose syrup.

Introduction

Botanical name of cocoa is Theobroma cacao and family is Malvaceae. The cocoa bean, also cacao bean or simply cocoa or cacao, is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter are extracted. Cocoa flavour is the most distinct feature of chocolate, thus cocoa beans are the basis of chocolate. Dried cocoa beans are usually processed into cocoa butter, which contains fat between 56% and 58%, made up of a mixture of triglycerides. Cocoa butter with this composition is good for making chocolate and has favourable hardness and a melting point of body temperature. Theobroma cacao originated from the Jungle of the Amazon in Brazil. Theobroma cacao consists of two subspecies: the Cacao, a subspecies known as the Criollo, which can be found in Central and South America, and spharocarpum, which is also called theForastero. The Criollo has superior and fine flavour. The pods are red and the beans have no color. Forastero has a green pod

Dried Cocoa Bean have chemical composition as: The shell (testa) represents 10-14% dry weight of the cocoa bean, while the kernel or cotyledon is made up of most of the remaining 86-90%. The cotyledon confers characteristic flavours and aromas of chocolate and is composed of two types of parenchyma storage cells.

Before processing, the quality ofbeans is evaluated for the following indicators:

1. Degree of fermentation
2. Moisture content (maximum 6%)
3. Number of defects
4. Number of broken beans
5. Bean count (number per 100 g)

Cocoa butter, also called the obroma oil, is a pale-yellow, edible fat extracted from the cocoa bean. It is used to make chocolate, as well as some ointments, toiletries, and pharmaceuticals. Cocoa butter has a cocoa flavor and aroma. Its melting point is just below human body temperature. Cocoa butter that has been refined by neutralization with an alkaline solution and decoloured with for example bentonite, activated carbon etc. Subsequent deodorization can also be applied. The type of process used may affect the quality of the cocoa butter. For example, a too high deodorization temperature or a too severe alkalization can completely alter its setting (solidification) characteristics. High-quality raw materials are needed to make the best quality cocoa butter. The other important factors for high quality are the origin of the beans and the processing conditions used. Press cocoa butter, which is most commonly used in the chocolate industry, is only filtered and (partly) deodorized to obtain the desired flavour. Cocoa butter contains a high proportion of saturated fats as well as monounsaturated oleic acid, which typically occurs in each triglyceride.

The development of a recipe for chocolate should be based on three criteria:

(i) The intended market or use;

(ii) The limitation being placed on material and production costs;

(iii) The desired quality.

The amount of fat present in the chocolate will affect the flow properties, and fat content must therefore be varied according to the intended use.

Some point to remember while manufacturing chocolate:

1. To maintain proper viscosity if fat content is increased then sugar content should also be increased.
2. Milk chocolate requires lower fat content than dark chocolate.
3. Addition of emulsifier like commercial lecithin can save upto 5% of added cocoa butter.

Chocolate is almost unique as a food in that it is solid at normal room temperatures yet melts easily within the mouth. This is because the main fat in it, which is called cocoa butter, is essentially solid at temperatures below 25^oC when it holds all the solid sugar and cocoa particles together. This fat is, however, almost entirely liquid at body temperature, enabling the particles to flow past one another, so the chocolate becomes a smooth liquid when it is heated in the mouth. Chocolate also has a sweet taste that is attractive to most people.

The first known cocoa plantations were established by the Maya in the lowlands of south Yucatan about 600 AD. Cocoa trees were being grown by the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru when the Europeans discovered central America. The beans were highly prized and used as money as well as to produce a drink known as chocolatl. The beans were roasted in earthenware pots and crushed between stones, sometimes using decorated heated tables and mill stones, similar to those illustrated in Figure 1.1.

The art in producing high-boiled sweets with satisfactory shelf life is manufacturing boilings which contain the minimum amount of residual moisture and a satisfactory balance between cane or beet sugar, and glucose syrup or invert sugar syrup. The main physical change during the storage of high-boiled sweets is the formation of small crystals in the confection, usually referred to as graining, due to recrystallisation of sucrose. These spoil the appearance and cause an unpleasant roughness on the tongue.

For high-boiled sweets it is impossible, using the normal proportions of cane or beet sugar (sucrose) and glucose syrup, to obtain a product of 97% solids content, which is not supersaturated with respect to sucrose.

In practice, however, one-and-a-half parts of sugar (sucrose) to one part of forty-two DE glucose syrup will produce a high-boiled sweet stable against graining.

15.1 Fondant

The word fondant is said to come from the French verb fondre to dissolve. Confectionery fondants are normally made by boiling a sugar and glucose syrup in order to concentrate it before the mixture is cooled with beating to produce fine sucrose crystals. Some fondants used in baking are made by mixing icing sugar with a sucrose and glucose mixture. The icing sugar has a small particle size because it has been milled whereas the sucrose in a crystallised fondant has small crystals. It is possible to make a fondant using dextrose instead of sucrose. Crystalline dextrose has a positive heat of solution, i.e. heat is absorbed, and this produces a marked cooling effect which goes well with a peppermint flavour, but one which is not particularly attractive economically, but they can be in some other countries.

Lozenges are solid preparations that contain one or more medicaments, usually in a flavored, sweetened base, that are intended to dissolve or disintegrate slowly in the mouth. They can be prepared by molding (gelatin and/or fused sucrose and sorbitol base) or by compression of sugar-based tablets. Molded lozenges are sometimes referred to as pastilles, whereas compressed lozenges may be referred to as troches. They are used for patients who cannot swallow solid oral dosage forms well as for medications designed to be released slowly to yield a constant level of drug in the oral cavity or to bathe the throat tissues in a solution of the drug. Lozenges historically have been used for the relief of minor sore throat pain and irritation and have been used extensively to deliver topical anaesthetics and antibacterial.

Advantages

1. It is easy to administer to both paediatric and geriatric patients.
2. It has a pleasant taste and will extend the time a quantity of drug remains in the oral cavity to elicit local activity.

Tabletting is the area where sugar confectionery and pharmaceutical manufacture come closest, as the machines are similar the process can also be similar. Confectioners normally try to make tablets as hard as possible whereas pharmaceutical tablets are normally made to be fairly soft.

Tablets are made by compressing a powder in a die. Under pressure the powder fuses and is ejected as a tablet. The problem of tabletting is to produce a powder that will flow freely when poured into the die but bonds satisfactorily when compressed. Some materials are available in a directly compressible form. One example is sorbitol, which goes some way to explain the popularity of pressed sorbitol tablets with manufacturers. If directly compressible materials are not being used then the material must be granulated before being tabletted.

Granulation

Tabletting materials can be prepared by a number of different methods as outlined below:

These products were originally flavoured with the herb marshmallow but a modem marshmallow is a foam that has been stabilised by a gelling agent. The traditional material for marshmallows is egg albumen which acts both as a foaming and gelling agent - this gives light, soft gel. Gelatine is now more commonly used, and once again can act as both a whipping and gelling agent. A gelatine marshmallow is soft and rubbery but heavier than an egg albumen one. Further gelling agents, e.g., pectin, agar and starch all give a soft, short textured gel. These gelling agents have the advantage of being vegetable products but have the disadvantage of normally needing a whipping agent as well. Enzyme-modified soya products have also recently become available for this use.

Methods of Marshmallow Manufacturing:

This process involves building up a coating of sugar and sometimes of other things, layer by layer. Panning is one of those processes that the confectionery and pharmaceutical industries have in common.

The coating of confectionery with sugar using a pan is very ancient. Originally, these products were made in an open pan suspended over a fire by chains. Apparently the operator swung the pan by hand, coating the product with sugar syrup which was then allowed to crystallise. The normal modern small-scale method is to use a rotating dragee pan (Fig.No.19.1).

These are elliptical vessels made traditionally of copper, but now more commonly of stainless steel. The pan is equipped to be rotated and usually there is a system for supplying and extracting air and possibly with a system for spraying in the sugar syrup. Typical pan sizes are between 1.5 and 0.9 m in diameter although smaller sizes are used for small-scale work.

Product Characteristics and Packaging Requirements:

The key raw materials for sugar confectionery are sugar (60 - 65%), glucose, citric acid and flavoured essences. Confectionery is hygroscopic in nature and requires protection against the ingress of moisture, and exposure to high temperature (as far as possible).

A candy or confectionery product may be adversely affected by many things. Hard candy, brittles and crunch products are most sensitive to moisture and absorb water vapour fairly rapidly from the atmosphere. Various gums are less sensitive while some creams tend to lose moisture considerably.

The history of evolution reveals that life on Earth has gradually gone enriching itself by adding more and more varieties to it. A variety of organisms as of today exhilaratingly blossoms in the biosphere. The organisms are divided into three broad categories based on their distinctive characteristics, viz. plants, animals, and microorganisms. The other broad categories all the organisms on Earth are placed in are the five kingdoms, viz. Protista, Monera, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia. These kingdoms encompass living organisms based on their cell type (prokaryotic or eukaryotic), cell number (unicellular or multicellular), genetic recombination type (binary fission, asexual or sexual type), or feeding behavior or mode of nourishment (autotrophic or heterotrophic).

Agrobiodiversity is a key resource for humanity. All of the food retirements humanity depends on are fulfilled by agrobiodiversity. Not only this, fodder, fiber, firewood, and many other basic needs of humankind are also met by agrobiodiversity. Human’s dependence on agriculture - not only for survival and sustenance but also for socioeconomic progress, maintenance and celebration of cultural ethos, physical, intellectual, emotional, ethical, and aesthetic development, and psychological contentment and happiness - is inevitable.

Agrobiodiversity is critical for food security for the entire humanity as well as for the food sovereignty of a country. If we are to usher in a sustainable future - that is, a future to be witnessed by healthy, vibrant, and happy humanity (Singh 2019) - there is no choice other than protecting, conserving, and augmenting agrobiodiversity.

All of nature’s biodiversity is not visible. Biodiversity can also not be studied and/ or understood by looking at and analyzing it with the naked eye. A great proportion of the planet’s biodiversity flourishes in the ecosystems not directly accessible to us and the organisms in the sizes our eyes cannot record. The soil biodiversity is more interesting and more varied than we have understood and appreciated. The biodiversity in the soil - together with the physical environment - constitutes what we can call the pedosphere. Biodiversity in the pedosphere is distinguishable from that of the biodiversity above the soil surface. One is nonplussed by an understanding of some of the unbelievable features and functions of the pedosphere biodiversity.

The Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) held on the occasion of the historical Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 underlined the significance of biodiversity conservation for various tangible and non-tangible benefits as well as one of the key factors for sustainability. However, the conservation of soil biodiversity for realizing sustainability

Nutrition is the basis for life to prosper and sustain in the biosphere. There are two modes of nutrition in all species: self-nourishment and crossnourishment. Self-nourishment goes on in the category of organisms known as autotrophs. Cross-nutrition is maintained by the category of consumers categorized as heterotrophs. The autotrophs nourish themselves by utilizing inorganic molecules and energy available in nature, while the heterotrophs derive the nutrients that the autotrophs ‘manufacture’ for themselves. In other words, the heterotrophs derive nutrients from organic molecules. These organic molecules are derived either from the autotrophs directly or from the consumers dependent on autotrophs.

Autotrophs derive energy in its free form (e.g. light) or that available in inorganic molecules (e.g., CO, 

A large number of genetic resources, species, and ecosystems are under severe threat. Many species have gone extinct and many more are being pushed towards extinction. Most of the ecosystems have also gone into what we can call functional extinction. The major factors becoming threats to biodiversity are anthropogenic. Human activities, in essence, are not benevolent for biodiversity to flourish in natural systems. Burgeoning human populations are the root cause of biodiversity destruction. Changing human lifestyles fed by a materialistic economy are further acting as catalysts for the ever-increasing human populations to destroy biodiversity evolved over millions of years amid terrestrial conditions favorable for the origin and prevalence of an astonishing variety of life forms on Earth.

There is hardly any threat to biodiversity due to natural factors except those inherent in the designs of natural evolution. A species at a certain point of time in its evolutionary history is destined to vanish, but the void in nature created due to this loss is filled by the evolution of new life forms. Not only the void is filled, the nature gradually goes on enriching itself 

Most of the ecosystems prevailing on Earth have ceased to be virgin. They are now modified following anthropogenic designs. The Blossoming of a community in its climax stage is a rare sight. As human intervention with nature has gone on increasing, all types of biodiversity - genetic, species and community, and alpha, beta, and gamma - have been put under stress. The Earth has already lost much of its diversity due to anthropogenic factors and now it seems to be under severe stress due to climate change, which is also largely due to human-induced environmental disruptions.

Continuous loss of biodiversity at an alarming rate is posing a serious threat to life on earth. With this dismal state of the environment, we cannot usher in a sustainable future. We do not have the right to snatch the future from our younger generations. The Earth belongs to our children more than it does to us. The Earth belongs to future generations more than it does to present generations. Conservation of biodiversity is a matter of ethics. Ethics has the human face of biodiversity. Economic attributes of biodiversity have importance, but ethics of life 

Sustainability does not denote a fixed state of things. It is a dynamic phenomenon: a phenomenon that tends to advance towards a higher state of being. The range of a journey of sustainability extends from nothing to everything, from a simple system to a more complex system, or from an unstable or less stable system to a stable or more stable system. Speaking in ecological terms, the transformation of unproductive desert land into a forest in ecological climax over time is how the phenomenon of sustainability works.

The term ‘sustainable development’ was first of all used in 1980 in the World Conservation Strategy (IUCN-UNEP-WWF 1980). However, this term was brought into the focus of the world for the first time in the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) Report, popularly known as the Brundtland Commission Report Our Common Future in 1987. Sustainable Development in the WCED Report has been defined as Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.

There are many bacteria and fungi which produce biofilms. These are made up of living, reproducing microorganisms. These microbes form communities and adhere tightly to the surfaces and are resistant to many antibiotics. Many pathogenic microorganisms form biofilms which are difficult to be removed and are harmful.Such microbial colonies produce an extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) to protect them. The dental plaque was the first documented evidence of microbial biofilms. When such microorganisms get a moist environment they attach themselves to any object and reproduce forming an attachment by secreting a slimy, glue-like substance. It is possible with metals, plastics, natural materials, medical implants, kitchen counters, contact lenses, walls of a hot tub or swimming pool. Initially it was the investigation of many scientists to show the presence of biofilms

Beneficial effects of biofilms have also been shown (Rosche et al., 2009) especially in agriculture (Bogino et al., 2013; Berlanga and Guerrero, 2016) where it can be utilized as a biological control agents. They are used as biofertilizers to enhance crop production (Timmusk et al., 2017), hazardous pollutants can be removed (Irankhah et al., 2019). 

Microbial life abounds on a solid substrate. Water and some nutrients are sufficient to allow the microbial construction called biofilm. Biofilm-associated infections (BAI) can enhance chronic infections in which the bacterial pathogens can persist causing cross-contamination of the food products.

Giaouris et al. (2014) worked on the meat processing and biofilm formation by foodborne bacteria. Work on seafoods has been well worked by Mizan et al. (2015). Habimana et al. (2010) studied them in feed industry on Salmonella versus host resident flora strains. Lin et al. (2017) have studied the characteristics of some food borne pathogens. In a study by Rao et al. (2020) cold atmospheric plasma can be a solution to prevent biofilms.Ferriol-Gonzalez et al. (2020) worked out that bacteriophages can be helpful to remove biofims. According to Przekwas et al. (2020) in early stage of growth of the biofilm use of ascorbic acid can be helpful for the removal of biofilms. Apples can be protected from pathogenic bacteria by protecting them using harmless bacteria. It leads towards the development of alternative foodborne-pathogen-control strategies. Listeria monocytogenes is a big concern in the NE part of India.

Biofilms play an important part in biotechnology, immunology, biofouling and biodeterioration (Fleming and Wingender, 2001; Dunne, 2002). When the pathogenic cells adhere to the surface, it has been found that the transcription of the EPS genes get stimulated (Dunne, 2002). If EPS gene expression are monitored it can provide a good understanding of biofilm phenotypes (Allison and Sutherland, 1997; Helm and Naumann, 1995; Petersen et al., 2005). EPS serves many functions. It also enables the bacteria to capture nutrients (Pontefract,1991).The formation of biofilm goes through a mechanism which is different from species to species. Even the matrix thickness can be different from 0.2 to 1.0pm depending on the species and doubling time of the cells as thickness of 10 to 30 nm has been found in some bacteria species (Sleytr,1997). The cells secrete polysaccharides, proteins, nucleic acids and glycoproteins. Adherence on solid surfaces by microorganisms is a very complicated process that depends mostly on extracellular molecule production (Czaczyk and Myszka, 2007). The biosynthesis of EPS provides an optimal environment in which genetic material between the cells can be exchanged. This is needed for cell identification and the antigenic properties are helpful in serological characterization of the cells. Among the various compounds of extracellular carbohydrates are acetate esters, pyruvtes, formates, succinates, polysaccharides and proteins (Sutherland, 2001a).

The biofilm formation is usually assayed by using Congo Red Agar (CRA) plate test. According to a method developed by Freeman et al., (1989) the isolates are stored in nutrient agar slants and screened for biofilm formation ability using CRA plates. Biofilm forming strains are observed as dark black colonies while others as red colonies on the CRA plates. Recently, the concept of these biofims have changed with new imaging technologies, biochemical methods and molecular ecosystem biology tools. A biofilm structure can be observed in 3-D form to the nano-scale level (Neu and Lawrence, 2015). A lot of studies are being conducted on the physiology of the biofilm cells, the genotypic and phenotypic variation among the biofilm community, as well as the biofilm metabolome, proteome and transcriptome (Raes and Bork, 2008). This will help in the the development of efficient methods to control deleterious biofilms (clinical biofilms, food contaminants, biofouling on industrial equipment and on ship hulls) and to enhance and modulate beneficial ones

According to Li and Tian (2012) a pure-culture planktonic growth of bacteria is rarely found in natural environments.There is a physical interaction between the bacterial cells in biofilms (Kolenbrander, 2002; Watnick and Kolter,2000).The bacteria can organize into groups and can form well-organized communities. They also communicate for coordinated activities (Davey and O toole,2000; Watnick et al., 2000; Nadell et al., 2009). Quorum-sensing mechanisms are common in prokaryotic and single-celled eukaryotic organisms like fungi (van Bodman et al, 2008; Sordi and Muhlschlegal, 2009). For any biofilm structure to develop a high level of cell density is important (Kolenbrander et al., 2002; Kuramitsu et al., 2007 and Webb et al., 2003) and also for checking the effect of antibiotics against planktonic organisms in exponential growth phase using MIC and MBC.This can predict the antibiotic efficacy against rapidly dividing bacteria in acute infections. Papanna, Shobharani and Agrawal Renu (2010) studied the interception of quorum sensing signal molecule

Biofilms are resistant to antibiotics even at high concentrations (Costerton et al., 1999).This could happen when the diffusion of the antibiotic within the biofilm matrix is inefficient and results in slow growth rate of biofilm cells (Davey et al., 2000), there could be the presence of persistent cells and antibiotic-resistant small-colonies (Hogan and Kolter, 2002; Kolenbrander, 2000).Studies have proved that antibiotics can inhibit biofilm formation. An antibiotic azithromycin, is known to inhibit Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm. Biofilm colonies become resistant at higher concentrations of the antibiotics whereas at low concentrations these can be induced (Mah and OToole, 2001). P.aeruginosa is commonly present in the lungs of patients infested with cystic fibrosis. The clinical isolates show resistance to azithromycin (MIC>64 pg/ ml).However, low doses of azithromycin have shown improvement in lung function in patients with cystic fibrosis (Borriello et al., 2004). If antibiotics are given at low concentrations (below the MIC) than it induces biofilm formation in a variety of bacterial species. Sub-MIC concentrations of tobramycin can induce biofilm formation in P. aeruginosa. The use of antibiotics in agriculture, as growth promoters have shown to expose bacteria to low levels of the drugs and has caused havoc (Smith et al., 2002). Rachid et al. 

According to Fereshteh et al. (2020) microorganisms use biofilm to protect themselves against the harmful effects of the host body immune system and the surrounding environment. This helps them to survive against the anti-microbial agents. Inhibition of bacterial biofilm formation is very time consuming and expensive. Newer computational tools have been found to be a good option to predict the inhibition of biofilm peptides. In a computational prediction tool a large number of peptide sequences can be screened to select the peptides for validation. Vectors are extracted from the peptide primary structure and classification algorithms are carried out which includes SVM, random forest and k-nearest neighbour to evaluate their performance. Using a combination of features, helps in good evaluation. National Institute of Health (NIH) has found out that 80% of bacterial pathogens form biofilms and their multicellular structure makes them resistant to the hosts’ defense systems and traditional antimicrobials than planktonic bacteria. Recently, the use of Antimicrobial peptides

Joana et al.(2016) have written a critical review on biofilms and have discussed newer methods to study biofilms. These have given a deep knowledge on the physiology, structure and composition of biofilms. More polar amino acids were present in ABPs but QSPs were made up of higher number of neutral amino acids.This helps in recognition. Web application WebLogo help in generating sequence logos (Crooks et al., 2004). The uncharged polar amino acid is present at the first, third and fifth positions.The basis of SVM model is on the amino acid composition of the peptides. The Weka model is based on selected eight inputs which is trained on the NT5 dataset and is accurate, sensitive and specific.Peptide drugs are FDA approved and a total of 242 sequences of biotech peptides/proteins are available at the Drug Bank database. To identify potential anti-biofilm activity for characterization the peptide sequences are submitted on the module of dPABBs. The prediction outcomes are displayed under the ‘Putative ABPs’ section(http://ab-openlab.

Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic pathogen giving rise to nosocomial infections causing threat to public health. Studies of biofilm-forming genes was done in A. baumannii isolates by PCR technique. To study the relationships of genes a technique based on PCR sequences along with multilocus sequence typing (MLST) were utilized (Saeed et al., 2020). Goudarzi, Mehdi et al. (2019) studied the genetic diversity and biofilm formation analysis of Staphylococcus aureus causing urinary tract infections in Tehran, Iran. The biofilm forming and adhesion encoding genes were studied along with distribution of different agr and spa types in S. aureus isolates by PCR screening and multiplex PCR. The workers found that the ability to produce biofilm was higher among MRSA strains as compared to MSSA strains. The most prevalent biofilm forming gene was icaD (77.3%), followed by icaA (76%), icaB (57.3%) and icaC (50.7%). Acinetobacter baumannii is a nosocomial pathogen which is commonly present in hospitals and is a causal organism of many diseases. A. baumannii isolates have been known as multidrug-resistant (MDR). For controlling such serious organism only molecular techniques have been found to be effective. 

Ali Demirci et al., (2014) studied the reactors with biofilms which are used to produce many value added products. These include organic acids, alcohols, enzymes, antibiotics, bacteriocins and many more. Many bioreactor designs favor the biofilm formation in a reactor. The biofilm reactors are utilized for fermentation and bioconversion of large amount of biomass. Recently, the biofilm reactors have been applied for production of many value-added products with novel designs. According to Ercan and Demirci (2015) the biofilms can cause both detrimental and beneficial effects in the environment. Biofilms in bioreactors has many advantages due to the membrane fouling which reduces the cost. Higher biomass density can be utilized and the operation is more stable.Biofilm reactors are commercially being utilized for waste water treatment, bench and pilot-scale production of value-added products. In order to run the biofilm reactor at optimum conditions it is important to understand the fundamentals of biofilm formation, the different properties

With recent work it has become clear that bacterial societies are very complex. Gene expression in bacterial communities are heterogenous. The heterogeneous gene expression contributes towards the biofilms in fluctuating environments which needs to be understood.Technique like single-cell analysis can help in the investigation of more complex communities. Recently, Jahid and Ha, (2012) have written a review on microbial biofilms of produce and the future challenges to food safety many outbreaks have been observed involving food- borne pathogens. Therefore, there is an urdent need for the safety of foods especially against microbial attacks and biofilm formation as they cause a risk to public health. Medically, the pathogenic microorganisms form biofilm- associated with the epithelial or endothelial lining which are embedded in the lungs, intestinal or vaginal mucus layer, the teeth or other medical implant surfaces or formed intracellularly (Dewasthale et al., 2018). Teichoic acids are characteristic major components of the cell surface in Gram-positive bacteria.

Cataract is a common cause of visual impairment and blindness in dogs and has a wide variety of aetiologies, as well as the disabling effect on the animal. Cataracts present important welfare considerations for the owner. Visual impairment in dogs may lead to increased nervousness, aggression and reluctance to exercise, all of which may adversely affect the owner-pet relationship (1). The only effective mean of treatment for cataract is surgical extraction of diseased lens (2).

Although vision is one of the important faculties for any living individual, dogs have very well developed olfactory lobe and have great sense of smell. They can move about easily in limited area familiar to them even with impaired vision. Cataract surgery was therefore not a common procedure in animals for many years. Quite often however,

(A) Anatomy of Lens

The lens is anoptically clear, avascular, biconvex structure of crystalline appearance with an anterior surfaceless curved than the posterior surface, placed between the iris and the vitreous. It is suspended by the suspensory ligament of the lens which is attached to the ciliary body and equator of the lens.

The lens consists of a central nucleus surrounded by the lens fibres and anterior epithelium, encapsulated in an elastic lens capsule. The anterior surface of the lens is in contact with the posterior surface of the iris whereas posterior surface is in contact with the vitreous. As the adult lens does not have a blood supply, its metabolic needs are met by the aqueous humour. The lens is composed of 65% water, 35% protein with scant amounts of electrolytes. The proteins can besubdivided into soluble proteins,

The speed with which changes in the eye can take place is challenging. Ophthalmic problems do not lend themselves to casual examination or ‘trial and error’ therapy. Therefore, to perform safe cataract surgery with good quality outcome, uniform minimum standard of diagnostic and clinical practice needed to be in place.

Although cataract can be diagnosed by routine gross examination ofthe affected dog even then it is mandatary to develop a routine ophthalmic examinations in a consistent and organized manner to make a confirmatory diagnosis and plan the surgical technique for a favourable prognosis. A sequential examination starting right from history up to electroretinography may be performed as under:

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