Foods fermented with lactic acid bacteria are an important part of the human diet. Lactic acid bacteria play an essential role in the preservation of food raw materials and contribute to the nutritional, organoleptic, and health properties of food products and animal feed. The importance of lactic acid bacteria in the production of foods throughout the world has resulted in a continued scientific interest in these micro-organisms over the last two decades by academic research groups as well as by industry. This research has resulted in a number of important scientific breakthroughs and has...

How has 'agency' - or the ability to define and act upon one's goals - contributed to global long-term economic development during the last 150 years? This book asserts that autonomous decision making, and female agency in particular, increases the potential of a society to generate economic growth and improve its institutions.

Inspired by Amartya Sen's capabilities approach and looking at this in comparison to contemporary economic theory, the collection of chapters tackles the issue of agency from the micro level of household and family formation and asks how this applies to...