The aim of the present study was to analyse and compare camel milk powder quality and functional properties produced with spray-drying and freeze-drying techniques. Freeze-drying is recognized as an advanced method for the production of high-quality dried products, but it has been a costly process for production of camel milk powder. Spray-drying and freeze-drying of camel’s milk demonstrated that the nutritional characteristics of this product basically remained unchanged compared to fresh milk. The differences were found analysing flowability, solubility and hygroscopicity of camel milk powder samples obtained with freeze-drying and spray-drying technique. Analysed quality indices of camel milk demonstrated that spray-drying has lower impact on camel milk powder physical properties in comparison with freeze-drying.

Free radicals can rapidly and irreversibly oxidize various structures, including unsaturated fatty acids in vegetable oils, which affect the sensory properties. Spectrophotometry is the most widely used method for the determination of free radical scavenging activity (RSA) using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH). Barrier to the further use of classical analytical methods to analyse biologically active compounds in foodstuffs is that equipment requires high cost and has limited mobility. One of solutions is to replace classical methods, such as spectroscopy, with smartphonebased colorimetry. Huawei P30 Lite smartphone was used for colorimetric detection. The free radical scavenging activity (RSA) in vegetable oil was detected using an application ‘Color Picker’, with image matching algorithm for red, green, and blue (RGB) model. RSA was expressed as percentage and measured by the DPPH method. The aim of the study was to determinate the total free radical scavenging activity with smartphone-based colorimetry. For the data comparison and accuracy spectrophotometer as analytical optical instrument was used. Eleven vegetable oils: sea buckthorn, sunflower, rice, macadamia nut, hemp, corn, grape, linseed, rapeseed, olive and milk thistle oils were selected for analysis. The best results with no significant differences (p is greater than 0.05) compared to smartphone-based colorimetry from spectrophotometry were determined using RG values. The poor results were detected by using B value (p is less than 0.05) and were not suitable for determination of RSA. Smartphone-based colorimetry can be used in the determination of the RSA in vegetable oils.

Honey is a naturally supersaturated sugar solution, which tends to crystallize. The crystallization of honey can lead to unwanted fermentation that can have a negative impact to honey quality. The production of honey powder could be an alternative method to prevent honey from fermentation. Honey powder could be used as alternative substitute to liquid honey that would allow to use this product more widely in the food industry. α-amylase activity is one of the most important parameters to evaluate the quality of honey. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of freeze-drying and spray-drying on honey α-amylase activity. Detection of α-amylase activity was carried out by spectrophotometric method. High-performance liquid chromatography was used to determine the content of hydroxymethylfurfural in the powders. The obtained results showed that both drying methods had a negative impact to the enzyme activity in the samples. The lowest activity of α-amylase (8.3 DN) was measured in the spray-dried honey powder. Concentration of hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) in the powders did not exceed required concentration 40 mg kgE−1.

The aim of our study was to describe the histopathological and cytological characteristic of the cow endometrium on the seventh day of the oestrous cycle. In this study, 11 different breeds’ dairy cows (78.18 ± 37.46 months old, in 3.6 ± 2.17 lactation, the mean body condition score 3.4 ± 0.72 (5 points scale)) from Research and Study farm ‘Vecauce’ were selected. All cows were more than 210 days postpartum. Overall health and reproductive tract examination was performed, progesterone (P4) and estradiol (E2) concentration in blood serum were established and the biopsy and cytology samples of endometrium were taken. Mean E2 concentration was 14.92 ± 7.92 pg mLE−1, mean P4 concentration was 13.64 ± 9.44 nmol LE−1. The mean percentage in the cytology slides was established: epithelial cells 89 ± 9%, polimorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) 6 ± 5%. Cytological subclinical endometritis (SE) was confirmed in 5 cows. Histopathological findings (out of 22 samples): endometrium stromal edema in 14, hemosiderin and hemosiderophages in 8, supranuclear vacuolization in 12, pseudodecidual reaction in 12 samples. No subnuclear vacuolization and mitosis in the glandular epithelium were detected. Histopathological examination did not reveal SE. Morphology between the uterine horns with and without corpus luteum (CL) and between cows with serum P4 level higher than 15 nmol LE−1 and lower than 15 nmol LE−1 were not statistically different (p is greater than 0.05). In conclusion, histopatological examination is more reliable diagnostic method for SE. Future investigation should be performed to establish cut-off values for the diagnosis of SE in cows more than 210 days postpartum.

Although the problem of ecosystem diversity loss is of a global nature, the measures to solve it must be implemented at the national level. As a member of the European Union, Lithuania needs to have a clear position regarding the application of proposed socio-economic measures. The problems of lake ecosystem utilisation analysed in the article are based on the scientific knowledge which complies with the specifics of regional natural environment. The aim of the article is to systematize scientific knowledge about modern lake ecosystem services by explaining the fundamental adaptation patterns of ecosystems and their components. The article provides a complex assessment of the services provided by lake ecosystems, reveals management problems related to optimization of the use of lake ecosystems, presents recommendations on the improvement of legislation related to lake ecosystem services, regulations for protected areas, management plans, etc.

This study is based on the authors’ research started in 2017 that resulted in the development of theoretical strategic and tactical models for the construction of a prototype for automated assessment of tourism economic impact in specific regions, including regions of national parks (NP), as well as for other studies. The aim of the research was testing the performance of the prototype in a research e-environment using the travellers’ survey data obtained in a study in 2019 on the national parks’ target groups (visitor behaviour) during the Gauja National Park (GNP) Travellers’ Days. The prototype was based on the open-source platform Drupal, MySQL used as a database management system (DMS). Drupal united with the Jupyter Notebook platform. The methodological substantiation of the test study is based on aspects of consumer behaviour. A quantitative study with details of qualitative research has been performed. Simple data sampling was used in the data acquisition, but in the analysis – induction, deduction approach, synthesis, data sorting and segmentation, determination of mean values and their expression in proportion; a comparative analysis was performed and conclusions characterizing the sample were made. After completing the prototype performance testing, the authors’ main findings indicate that the prototype’s performance efficiency in terms of time consumption is 23.3 times higher than equivalent work in MS Excel. The prototype has yielded quantitative results from the calculations, and that allows the formulation of the GNP’s Travellers’ Days visitor profile, which is characterized by a sample of the surveys.

The culture industry and its human resources have been little researched in Latvia, yet research on the culture industry is important, because the industry makes a significant contribution to economic growth by promoting employment and the development of competitive regions. The culture industry encompasses libraries, folk art, theatre, music, museums, the creative industry and other sub-industries, yet in recent years those working in all the culture subindustries faced various challenges, including: a low remuneration and insufficient monetary and non-monetary bonuses, resulting in lower job satisfaction and a high personnel turnover. Accordingly, the aim of the research is to develop recommendations for hiring and retaining human resources by examining challenges in managing human resources in the culture industry. The authors conducted a survey among the personnel of the Board of Culture of Jelgava municipality. The survey found that the main challenges faced by the administration of the Board of Culture were an uncompetitive remuneration, the aging of the personnel and generational change as well as inefficient and insufficient motivation for working. The research has developed two scenarios for recruiting: ‘promotion of creativity and non-monetary motivation’ that aim to publicly appreciate human resources, so that they would feel important and significant as well as facilitate creativity, innovation and collective solidarity, while for the purpose of retaining human resources in a long-term and decreasing their turnover, the second scenario ‘competitive remuneration and the differentiation by position category’ aims to gradually raise the remuneration and differentiate it for all categories of personnel.

Company capital is essential in running business and creating value added for the stakeholders, including economy. How the view on company’s capital structure has evolved from theoretical perspective in the 20th century is needed to be assessed, in order to determine what concepts and theories, if any are relevant in the 21st century. Many theories have competed their way and transformed during the 20th century, while some, i.e. trade-off, signalling and stakeholder theories are still relevant in the 21st century. There are also new trends in the 21st century, new terms and quests shifting from determining and analysing optimal company’s capital structure to sustainable finance, taxonomy and also sustainability in capital structure. Therefore, the aim of this research: to establish existing main theories impacting and analysing company’s capital structure and to examine the theoretical shift of the theories based on the needs in the 21st century. Authors defined company’s capital structure and determined that during the years 1989–2020, number of research publications has grown significantly, thus validating the need to reassess theoretical background of capital structure theories in the 20th century, as well as to help to determine the trends still relative and emerging from the theoretical and practical aspects to company’s capital structure in the 21st century.

A survey of 8985 records on all fires in Latvia in 2019 gathered by State Fire and Rescue Service was performed to find out if gathered data is suitable and complete for establishment of statistical database for fire protection engineering. The purpose of the survey is to assess suitability of provided content for further studies of the characteristic building fire occurrence probabilities in different building occupancy classes and to obtain solid background for calculations of national values of fire activation partial safety factors which could be implemented in National Annex of Eurocode 1 part 1–2. Study contains data about the total number of building fires with relevance to their occupancy types and review of recorded fire causes for residential buildings that provide overall insight on typical causes of fires in dwellings.

Small rivers are important in terms of water quantity and quality as these rivers collect and deliver water to medium and large rivers downstream. Due to low water flow and high connectivity to adjacent land, small rivers are highly vulnerable to changes caused by natural and anthropogenic factors. This paper aims to assess the chemical and ecological quality of two small rivers including the Slocene and Age as related to dominant land use cover in the contributing area of these water bodies. The effects of land-use patterns and concentrations of chemical substances TN, NO3**- -N, NH4**+ -N, TP and PO4**2- -P in river waters will be determined. The highest concentration of total nitrogen (TN) as measured in the Slocene River was 21 mg LE−1 in spring, while the lowest concentration of TN was 0.86 mg LE−1 in autumn. The highest concentration of total phosphorus (TP) in the Slocene River was 0.14 mg LE−1 in late summer, the lowest was 0.03 mg LE−1 in late autumn. Similarly, in the Age River, the highest concentration of TN was 4.90 mg LE−1 in spring, while TN the lowest concentration of TN was 0.51 mg LE−1 in late autumn. The highest concentration of TP in the Age River was 0.3 mg LE−1 in summer, while the lowest 0.05 mg LE−1 in autumn.