MEAT

Meat is generally defined as the muscle of animals, but in a broader sense it also covers the organs and glands obtained from the word meat includes the flesh of poultry and fish. Different of meat have different of composition (muscle, connective and fatty acid tissue bone, pigment and extractives), the various considerations involved in purchasing meat (inspection, grading, tenderness, fresh cut and processed meat). The type, fat, and tenderness of meat depends genetics, age, diet and exercise of animals.

Meat has four types of meat such as beef, veal, lamb and mutton, and pork. Hundreds of breeding lines specially provide cattle as abundant sources of good quality beef. It originates from cattle are classified according to age and gender such as of based from it, steers, bulls, heifers and cows, and calves. Veal is meat from the young calves of beef cattle between ages of three weeks and three months. It allowed in a pasture is called free-range veal and slightly less tender than traditional fed veal. The lamb and mutton, meat based from sheep but it comes with different of age, for instance lamb of meat less than 14 months old and mutton from over 14 months. Mutton is stronger flavor as the mature of animals, darker and tougher than lamb of meat.

The structure of meat is a combination of water, muscle, connective tissue, adipose (fatty) tissue and bone. The main source of animals has at their muscle, which made of collection muscle called as muscle fibers and membrane sarcolemma outer membrane surrounding it muscle. Muscle fibrils important in muscle contraction and relaxation, separated into segments called sarcomeres by dark bands is Z lines. These segments have two of protein contain such as actin (thin) and myosin (thick). Actinomyosin is forming another protein and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) provided for this contraction.

The connective tissue is a part of ligaments and tendons, it also like glue for muscle cells. The other two main types of tissue are elastin and reticulin is small fibers that forms delicate interlace around muscle cells. The meat has more contain of collagen, meat from older animals and elastin which silver skin at the meat can cause the meat become tougher of tenderness. Adipose tissue is simply tissue which at under skin and abnormal cavity for sensitive internal organs. Cover fat at outside the meat can help moisture of meat. Marbling found within muscle of meat and beef which have well-marbled fetches in a higher price.The species, age and diet can affect for meat and other structure of meat include for the texture and color of fat. Bones as landmarks for various meat cuts from a carcass. Marrow found in the bone such as yellow marrow in long bones and red marrow in the spongy center of other bone (many blood vessels).

The processing of meat means has been changed from original fresh cut. The methods of processing meat are curing, smoking, canning and drying. Ham, sausage, bacon, salami and others, it is example products after processing m meat. The curing process used by saturating with salt.When salt and other flavor mixed into meat, it become more flavorful because the osmosis process which the mechanism whereby fluid refuse through cells into the meat , and for equalized increased ion concentration. The Concentration of salt can influence the meat to absorb the water.The commercial technique used curing solution which mechanically pumped or injection into the meat machine lined for increase the meat weight. The high of sodium content can provide this product become flavor, improve texture, increase the protein’s water binding capacity and reduce fluid losses within packaging process.

The processes canned meat through sterilization remain sealed or pasteurization storage at refrigerator as perishable items. The lastly of process methods is used drying process with dryer under specification conditions of humanity and temperature after cooked or smoke the meat.The process to produce ham is need used the hind leg of a hog from pork meat. It can purchase with canned, water-added, country and picnic of ham. The bacon product is from cured and smoked of the side of a hog.

FOOD SELECTION CRITERIA

1. Sensory Criteria. When most people choose a particular food, they evaluate it using the sensory reactions rather than by considering its nutritional content.
2. Nutritional Criteria. Over the past several decades, emerging awareness of health and nutrition has resulted in six out of ten customers making a major change in their diets. Guidelines that reinforce an emphasis on better health through nutrition include the U.S. Government's Dietary Guidelines and the MyPyramid food guide.
3. Cultural and Religious Criteria. An increasingly diverse population, with greater access to travel and expanded global communication, has resulted in a huge increase in the variety of foods that are available in the market today. Religious criteria will affect what people choose to eat such as Muslim people must eat 'Halal' food and it different with other religion.
4. Psychological and Sociological Criteria. Nowadays, advertising, social conscience and peer pressure can affecting individual's food choices. For example, the controversies surrounding genetically engineered foods and organic foods.
5. Budgetary Criteria. Cost helps determine the types of food and brands that are bought and frequency of restaurant patronage. A shortage of time for food preparation or eating out can result in greater use of convenience foods and "fast foods", even if they are often more expensive and less nutritious.

Reference:

Brown, A. (2008). Understanding Food Principles & Preparation. The Thomson corporation: United States.

TYPES OF FOOD AND BEVERAGE OUTLETS

The hospitality offers employment to people of differing personalities, backgrounds and skills through a wide diversity of the types of outlets serving food and beverages.

Cafe offer teas, coffees, soft drinks, snacks and often light meals usually from breakfast to early suppers. They require fast service to ensure a fast turnover of customers.

Cafeterias are often attached to institutions such as museum or educational establishments or maybe recreational facilities such as golf. They offer light refreshments, teas, coffees, and soft drinks, and snacks.

Food halls/Food courts are becoming popular especially in shopping centres. Food outlets serving a wide  variety different types of fast food surround a common central dining area.

Public houses are food outlet that offer meals range from simple bar snacks to informal restaurant-style service.

Casual dining restaurants (bistros) offer casual appearance and atmosphere. There are service staff dealing with customer in professional way.

Ethnic restaurants offer service may be as much a part of the cultural experience to the customer.

Functions (receptions/banquets/conventions). The number of guests and the style of function can vary based on the customer.

Fine dining restaurants usually have a suitably comfortable impressive ambience for the fine cuisine on offer.




Reference:
Brown, G., Hepner, K., & Deegan, Alan. (1994). Introduction to Food and Beverage Service. Pearson Education Limited: England.

List and describe the most common threats against contemporary information systems.

1.  The multi-tier client/server computing environment: The vulnerabilities exist at each layer and in the communication between the layers. The user often unauthorized access and introduce errors.
2.   The communications lines: The common threats are tapping, sniffing, message alteration, theft and fraud and radiation.
3. The Corporate Servers: The most common threats are hacking, viruses and worms, theft and fraud, vandalism and denial-of-service attacks.
4.   The Corporate Systems: The most common threats are theft of data, copying data, alteration of data, hardware failure and software failure. 

Why are information systems vulnerable to destruction, error and abuse?

Information system is vulnerable to destruction, error and abuse because it is one type of digital data. Digital data are vulnerable to destruction, misuse, error, fraud, and hardware or software failures. When large amounts of data are stored in electronic form, they are vulnerable to many more kinds of threats than when they existed in manual form.  The Internet is designed to be an open system and makes internal corporate systems more vulnerable to actions from outsiders. It also are more vulnerable because it virtually open to anyone. Hackers can unleash denial-of-service (DoS) attacks or penetrate corporate networks, causing serious system disruptions. Wi-Fi networks also can easily be penetrated by intruders using sniffer programs to obtain an address to access the resources of the network. Computer viruses and worms can disable systems and Web sites. Software presents problems because software bugs may be impossible to eliminate and because software vulnerabilities can be exploited by hackers and malicious software. Therefore, end users often introduce errors.

QUESTION: Write your opinion on having career as a hotelier.

According Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2005), hotelier will be defined as a person who owns or manages a hotel. We will thinks that hotelier is a person who responsible in the management of the hotel operation itself. The people that contribute in order to managed a hotel business start from the top level management until department manager. The other thing that we should know before giving an opinion on having career as a hotelier, we must have the knowledge and information about the hotel business. What is the hotel business all about? Hotel business is many things that contribute to the service that deliver to the guest. All employees in a hotel provide service to the guest such as front desks, maids, chefs, bartenders and others.

            From my opinion, having career as a hotelier have their pros and contras itself. It depends on the individual itself on how his or her desire in their satisfaction of works. Some people would like to work in the challenging job. Therefore they are willing to works in the hotel business. This is because hotel business is one of challenging industry. In order to be a good hotelier, the person should have a good attitude, skill, knowledge, experience and other positive behavior as a human. All the positive characteristics are important in order to deal with the guests that have many behavior and want. The guest that comes to our hotel for consumed or experience the service always have higher expectation to the service. So, the hotelier must provide a good service to them in whatever situation that they are facing.

            Other than that, having career as a hotelier also is good in order to gain knowledge and experience about the service, product, management, operation, and how to deal with people, problems, and others. Hotelier also will develop many skills while they are working such as communication skill, inter-personal skill, problem solving skill and other skill that related to the work task. From that, the hotelier will get more knowledge and experience by them. They will get the knowledge because of the problem that happens in the hotel because of guest complaint or dissatisfaction. They must thinks and find the solution to solve the problems that occur. This will help hotelier in the critical thinking process and strategic management process.

            The contras that maybe influence people did not willing to be hotelier is because of the time of working. They cannot work with the working hours those more than eight hours in a day. They also cannot work in the shift working hour. As we know, hotel business is one of the business that operated 24 hours every day and do not be able to close. This business is one types of business that will gain more profit but needs more time to be managing. This reason will affect people in order to choose hotelier as their career in the future.

            Other than that, people may not to work as a hotelier because of the pressure that they will gets from the job task. This career need people work under pressure because as hotelier, they did not know what will happen in the future. They maybe facing with the big problem related to the service, guest, facilities, operation, management, employees and others. The entire problems that occur need them to investigate and try to find the solution. It will make them to thinks critically in order to provide good service and to show good image of their hotel to the guest.

            As a conclusion, if we choose to have a career as a hotelier, we should do as best as we can. This is because we will gain something that will fulfill our satisfaction in doing the right things in our jobs. In order to choose the best career for us, we must choose based on our ambitious and desire. This is important to ensure that we will give a good performance in doing our job done with successful result. 

Question: How would you set service standards for intangible services?

            

The role of service standards is shortened form of the phrase “standards of service”. It is typically to answer questions such as how often will the service be provided, how long should it take to receive the service, and what does service provider do when one service not satisfy by customer. Thus, service standards inform people about what kind of service they can expect from an organization. This is usually done in the form of a statement that describes what level of service will be provided to consumer.

In essence, a service standard is a criterion adopted by an organization in order to define how they should behave with respect to their customer. Intangible services will be defined as services that are giving directed at people’s mind and intangible assets. The intangibility can consist of both mental and physical dimensions (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2011). The mental intangibility cannot be easily visualized and understood such as education and psychotherapy. While physical intangibility cannot be touched or experienced by the other senses such as accounting and banking service.

How to set service standards for intangible services? Organizations that want to set service standards for their service should know about the type of indicator. A service standard is a type of indicator. National Treasury (2004) defines an indicator as a measure of "how well an expenditure programme (or main division of a vote) is delivering its output and contributing towards meeting the outcomes that organization wants to achieve." In other words, an indicator is a measure or signal or benchmark that indicates the level of achievement or performance of the service itself. Indicators are what we observe or measure in order to verify whether, or to what extent, progress is being made (United Nations Development Programme, 1999).

There are five steps that will be apply in order to set service standards for intangible services which are defined the quality that the organizations want, set the target group, define the target area or place, set the quantity and lastly set the time period. For example, to set standards for student registration courses service that given by university must define the quality of service first which is accurate and correct courses must be register. Then, set the target group of the service which is accurate and correct courses must be register for new student in the university. The next steps is to define the target area or place which is the accurate and correct courses must be register using online systems at university website. Lastly, set the quantity or time period of the service which is the accurate and correct courses must be register at university website system within 2 weeks after student registration.

Other than that, the service standards that developed by an organization should incorporate five different aspects. Those aspects are description of the service, service pledge or commitment, delivery target, the cost of the service and reference to the relevant complaint and redress mechanisms. The description of the service is referring to the detail of the service that the organization wants to produces to the customer such as guest check-in procedure in a hotel. The service pledge or commitment refers on how hotel guest will be treated and describe of the service delivery that hotel promise to meet such as our front office staff must be knowledgeable, courtesy, friendly, and responsive. Delivery target refers to the performance of the hotel in deliver their service such as guest will be check-in to their room within less than 10 minutes. The cost of the services is referring to the fee such as the hotel provides room rate at reasonable price. Lastly, the reference to the relevant complaint from the guest will be deal as soon as possible and if need to follow up; the hotel will be response within specific time.

As a conclusion, there are many ways in order to set service standards for intangible services. The main point in setting service standards are the organization must know their main target or goal that they want to achieved. They must set the service standards based on their service type and target market. All the service standards that establish by an organization must be following by their staff in order to satisfy their customer regarding service that delivers to them. Customer satisfaction is very important to the service provider because they are deal with people with many character and behavior during service encounter. The more customers satisfy with the service, the better quality of the service itself.