Approval Authority Research Articles

Research on the Distribution and Deduction of Environmental Impact Assessment Approval Authority

Research on the Distribution and Deduction of Environmental Impact Assessment Approval Authority

An evaluation of the commonly used portable medical sensors performance in comparison to clinical test results for telehealth systems

Background and ObjectiveOne of the primary challenges faced by telehealth systems is the accurate transmission of patient information to remote doctors. In this context, portable medical sensors deployed at the remote patients' end play a crucial role in measuring vital information. There are many sensors available in the market. However, the accuracy of the sensors has been always a concern. The objective of this study is to verify different sensors and create awareness for using accurate sensors to avoid misdiagnosis for the patients’ safety. MethodsThis study considered the test result of a Japanese clinical pathology laboratory as the reference gold standard. The clinical pathology laboratory uses 1) Hexokinase UV method for blood glucose, 2) Enzymatic Determination method for cholesterol, 3) Automatic Analyzer (EDTA-2 K) of Hemoglobin, and 4) Uricase POD method for uric acid. To assess the performance of a medical sensor, its test results were compared to the gold standard test results obtained from the laboratory using the same sample. A Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) threshold of less than 0.2 was established as the criterion for determining whether the medical sensor's performance fell within an acceptable range. ResultsAmong the eight most commonly used blood glucose devices in the Asian market, only one device was deemed acceptable with NRMSE less than 0.2. However, all four devices found in the Japanese market showed their acceptability. In the case of cholesterol, hemoglobin, and uric acid devices, only a limited number of items were available in Asian markets. Some of the hemoglobin and uric acid devices were found to be somewhat acceptable, while all the cholesterol sensors were found erroneous. ConclusionsThis study has clearly shown the issues with the portable medical sensors and recommends the device approval authority of each country to approve sales of the quality sensors only for patients’ safety.

The well-being of nurses working in general practice during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study (The GenCo Study).

Exploration of experiences of nurses working in general practice during the COVID-19 pandemic to evaluate the impact on nurses' professional well-being. An exploratory qualitative study comprised of case studies of three general practice sites in England and a nationwide interview study of nurses working in general practice and nurse leaders. The study was funded by The General Nursing Council for England and Wales Trust. University of York ethics approval (HSRGC/2021/458/I) and Health Research Authority approval was obtained (IRAS: 30353, Protocol number: R23982, Ref 21/HRA/5132, CPMS: 51834). Forty participants took part. Case site data consisted of interviews/focus groups and national data consisted of semi-structured interviews. Data collection took place between April and August 2022. Analysis was underpinned by West etal.'s The courage of compassion. Supporting nurses and midwives to deliver high-quality care, The King's fund, 2020 ABC framework of nurses' core work well-being needs. The majority of participants experienced challenges to their professional well-being contributed to by lack of recognition, feeling undervalued and lack of involvement in higher-level decision-making. Some participants displayed burnout and stress. Structural and cultural issues contributed to this and many experiences pre-dated, but were exacerbated by, the COVID-19 pandemic. By mapping findings to the ABC framework, we highlight the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of nurses working in general practice and contributing workplace factors. The issues identified have implications for retention and for the future of nursing in general practice. The study highlights how this professional group can be supported in the future. The study contributes to our understanding of the experiences of nurses working in general practice during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Findings have implications for this skilled and experienced workforce, for retention of nurses in general practice, the sustainability of the profession more broadly and care quality and patient safety. Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (O'Brien etal. in Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 89(9), 1245-1251, 2014). As this was a workforce study there was no patient or public contribution.

Exploring the geographies of transnational higher education in China

AbstractThis paper contributes to debates about the globalisation of higher education by providing a pioneering geographical exploration of Chinese–foreign cooperation in running transnational higher education, or TNHE, programs. Departing from widespread neoliberal and postcolonial critiques of TNHE, which tend to emphasise liberal market forces and Anglo‐American hegemony in the circulation of academic knowledge, our study examines how the Chinese state’s developmental targets, strategic policies, and political–ideological considerations have shaped the evolutionary trajectory, geographical distribution, and cross‐border connections of China’s TNHE programs. We demonstrate that the place‐based development of TNHE is mediated by governments’ interventionist policies and embedded in existing higher education regimes, especially in the context of East Asian developmental states. By maintaining a higher education system dominated by public universities and by being the ultimate examination and approval authority, the Chinese government both determines the status of TNHE in the national higher education system, constrains the typologies and sources of knowledge flows, and shapes the national landscape of TNHE development. The territorial geographies of TNHE thus reflect complicated interactions between the state and the market, the global and the local, and economic and political/cultural forces.

Comprehensive Review of the Initial 11 WHO Emergency Use Listed COVID-19 Vaccine Candidates: Mechanisms, Efficacy, and Comparative Attributes for Safety and Well-Being

Since December 2019, the world has witnessed a massive outbreak of a novel coronavirus Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which prompted cross-national collaboration to establish essential diagnostics, effective treatment protocols, and most importantly the design and development of suitable COVID-19 vaccine candidates. This effort has been fueled by collaborations among academic researchers, funding agencies, companies, and regulatory authorities. As a result, more than 242 vaccine candidates are currently under clinical trial, and nearly 50 vaccines have been approved in different countries. In this study, we conduct a comprehensive review of 11 vaccine candidates that have been granted Emergency Use Listing (EUL) by the World Health Organization (WHO). Our review summarizes the mode of synthesis, mechanism of action, approval authority, target age group, efficacy, merits, and gaps of these vaccine candidates. Additionally, we provide comparative attributes of these vaccine candidates to enhance understanding of safety and well-being.

CHALLENGES OF CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT BY ADVERTISING INDUSTRY PLAYERS IN MALAYSIA

This study focused on understanding challenges within creative development of advertising industry in Malaysia. This will be analysed through the adaptation that needed to be made by key industry players from two advertising self-regulatory guidelines in Malaysia which are Malaysia Advertising Codes of Practice and Malaysian (The Code) and Multimedia Content Forum of Malaysia (the Content Forum). Both code of conduct is a crucial part of the advertising regulatory framework as it justifies the mechanism behind industry implementation in any kind of advertising messages intended. Using Sternberg & Lubart (1995) Investment Theory of Creativity, this article analyses the idea behind regulatory bodies' rules, focusing on the role of the contemporary advertising creative quality and whether it generates the ability in moulding freedom or restrictions towards industry players. Through purposive sampling, informants were selected within advertising industry professionals such as advertising agencies and brand experts. The historical context and current state of Malaysia's advertising environment were better understood due to the insights from and in-depth interview conducted between regulatory bodies, brand experts, and advertising agency representatives. Outcome of the findings have developed six key concepts to reflect the challenges such as Relationship between client and advertising agencies, Societal acceptance of the creative work, Invasion of social media in advertising, Limited resources for prestige award submission, Layers of approval authority, and Decreasing creative talent pool within Malaysia.

Pro profits or non-profits? A principal-agent model for analyzing public sector planning decisions and empirical results from planning applications in Hong Kong

This paper introduces a principal-agent analysis of the public sector decisions made by a non-democratic planning body under public scrutiny. The central idea is that divergence between the interests of the principal (citizens), whose objective is to maximize the total value of the land in Hong Kong, and the agent (planning approval authority), whose concern is about Approval Risk, which is the agent's risk of being accused of collusion or even bribery. This principal-agent analysis can be applied to any public-sector decision-making process in a society with the rule of law and freedom of speech. It was found by a logit analysis of 1440 sets of disaggregate data that planning applications by non-profit applicants for uses in Government/Institution/Community (GIC) zones were more likely to be approved than those by for-profit private organizations, in line with the idea of a lower perceived Approval Risk. Amongst the applications by private organizations, proposed high-value land uses were less likely to be approved than those proposed for low-value uses, probably because the former results in potentially higher economic gain for the applicants. The legislative change that took effect in July 2005 has allowed a wider public participation in the planning application process. This policy change was used in this study as a test condition for the effect on planning approvals of an increase in the principal's involvement in the decision-making process. It was found that the policy change did increase the success rate of planning applications made by private organizations, though the impact was mainly on the applications for low-value land uses only. The empirical result shows that the perceived Approval Risk for high-value land uses was too high to be affected by the policy change.

Evaluating EIA implementation in China: An empirical study of 161 EIA judicial cases

To play EIA's role as a preventative and participatory tool, the 2003 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Law was significantly amended in 2016 to optimize EIA approval authority and procedure, raise project developers' violation costs, and clarify public participation rules. This article evaluates how the main provisions of this Law have been enforced in practice by analyzing 161 judicial cases collected. Case analysis reveals the main case typology, plaintiffs, violations concerned, and environmental agencies' losing rate. More specifically, the majority of these 161 cases are brought by project developers, challenging the legality of penalty decisions and disapproval decisions imposed on them. The dominant form of violation is construction without EIA approval, a chronic challenge haunting China's EIA enforcement. The interested parties are admitted with standing in most lawsuits filed against EIA approval, mainly due to the relaxed standing requirements. Nevertheless, the losing rate of environmental agencies in selected EIA cases is higher than that of general environmental cases, raising doubts about the effectiveness of the 2016 EIA Law's efforts to promote a more efficient and prudent approval procedure.

Implementation of measurement uncertainties into vehicle noise regulation

The current vehicle noise regulation UN R51.03, does not provide specific considerations for the measurement uncertainties related to the measuring method for external pass-by noise. The measurement method is based on the ISO Standard ISO 362-1:2007. While the ISO system mandates a detailed description of the expected uncertainties, the UN-ECE has not overtaken these uncertainty considerations, as the application of the test method is limited to type-approval and conformity of production measurements, both under control of the vehicle manufacturer in agreement with a type- approval authority. The UN ECE Working Party on Noise and Tyres (GRBP) in Geneva established in 2019 an Informal Working Group on Measurement Uncertainties (IWG MU), to evaluate the measurement uncertainty in general and to propose amendments to regulations to reduce the measurement uncertainty, starting with the most important sound emission regulations UN R51.03 (vehicles) and UN R117.02 (tyres). This paper describes the principal work of the IWG concerning the contribution of the different parameters to the overall expanded uncertainties when testing vehicles according to the specifications in UN R51.03. The identified main contributors to the overall measurement uncertainties are variations due to the test track (site-to-site) and air temperature effects (day-to-day).

The Behavioral Effects of Remote Work on Budget Reporting under Managers’ Approval Authority in Hierarchical Organizations

The Behavioral Effects of Remote Work on Budget Reporting under Managers’ Approval Authority in Hierarchical Organizations

Procedure for Declaring the National Standard in the Field of Volume

This article describes the procedure for declaring national standards, taking as an example the national standard of the liquid volume measurement unit. At the same time, following the analysis of the General Regulation of Legal Metrology GRLM 09:2015 „Standards of Measurement Units. General Principles. The Way of Elaboration, Approval, Registration, Preservation and Use”, the order and responsibilities of those involved in the preparation of the file for the purpose of declaring the national standard of the liquid volume measurement unit were well established. Finally, the component parts of the standard were investigated over a period of time to determine the stability of the measurements and the file was created, which was subsequently submitted to the Central Metrology Authority (CMA) for approval.

Why the Central government prefers to centralize spatial planning approval authority in China? An explanation based on land risk

There are various explanations for the centralization of planning approval authority, but few studies focus on the explanation of selective centralization from a national governance perspective. To address this gap, this paper uses the concept of land risk to identify the reason why central government centralizes the planning approval authority of a prefectural-city in China. An econometric quantitative approach is adopted. The findings suggest that land risk from farmland protection is an important factor affecting centralization. Specifically, the probability of centralization increases by approximately 2% for each unit reduction in per capita farmland area, by 1.6% for every 1% increase in land transfer area and by 1% for each level increase in illegal land use. Furthermore, the cities with high land risk are mainly concentrated in four provinces along eastern coastal China. Additionally, the result is predicted with an overall accuracy of 93%, which proves the validity of the model.

International organizations and corporate governance: the case of the AIIB

ABSTRACT The relationship between the Board and management has been a key issue of corporate governance for Bretton Woods institutions, and there is no exception to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). A new multilateral development bank (MDB) derived from Bretton Woods, the AIIB is now the second largest after the World Bank by membership. The institution of a non-resident Board of Directors in the AIIB deviates from the practice of most leading MDBs, and it was designed to avoid two dilemmas that have long bewildered traditional MDBs: the dual position of the Board members, and the co-managerial issue between the Board and management. The arrangement of the non-resident Board requires that project approval authority be delegated from the Board to the President, and in parallel to such delegation, a robust oversight mechanism should be established with a view to holding the empowered President and management accountable. Efforts to craft an oversight mechanism were made initially in the Accountability Framework, and were completed in the Oversight Mechanism. As it strives for ‘appropriate separation of powers to ensure proper checks and balances’ between the Board and management, the oversight mechanism should not hinder the pragmatic management of the AIIB from serving the changing needs of its members.

Statistical analysis of incidents on onshore CO2 pipelines based on PHMSA database

The development of an integrated network for the management of carbon dioxide requires knowledge and optimization of all Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) aspects, including pipeline transport. Safety is one of the aspects that should be addressed prior CCUS facilities come in operation; the risk for people should be assessed to ensure it is below an acceptable level. In some cases, a quantitative risk assessment (QRA) is required by the approval authority. Normally the risk assessment is based on the use of statistical/historical data. However, for CO2 handling systems the operating experience is limited compared to hydrocarbon transporting systems and, for this reason, hydrocarbon pipeline statistics are normally used as a proxy. The only database that contains records on CO2 pipelines is the PHMSA since in the U.S. several CO2 pipelines have been constructed since the 1970's, essentially for Enhanced Oil Recovery operations. There is limited statistical data available compared to the hydrocarbon pipelines experience and therefore care should be taken when undertaking the frequency analysis. In this work an analysis of incidents data related to the onshore CO2 pipelines in the U.S. between 1985 and 2021 reported by the Pipeline Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation is presented. The aim of the study is to analyze the records contained in the PHMSA database to provide an estimate of a specific CO2 pipeline failure rate to be used in quantitative risk assessments. Concerns and limitations of the data have been also discussed.

Debunking the Master of the High Court's Assumed Approval Authority Over a Redistribution Agreement in a Deceased Estate

A redistribution agreement is one of the available methods to assist the executor in winding up a deceased estate. It may be used to overcome impractical situations and/or statutory limitations that might occur during the estate administration process. The heirs and legatees and, in some instances, a surviving spouse may then agree to the reshuffling of their inheritance awards. The Chief Registrar of Deeds issued a directive that places a burden on the Master of the High Court in approving the "acceptance" of the agreement as part of the registration application for the transfer of immovable inheritance property. This was in response to a legal opinion from the office of the Chief State Law Advisor, incorporated in a 2010 internal Master's directive on instruction of the Chief Master. It directed that a redistribution agreement is deemed enforceable only after the Master "duly examined and approved" its legality. However, the Master's practice of approving a redistribution agreement is not a rule of law and cannot supersede the provisions of a statute. This article investigates whether the Master, as a "creature of statute", is acting within the parameters of its statutory administrative acts and functions involving a redistribution agreement.

Debunking the Master of the High Court's Assumed Approval Authority Over a Redistribution Agreement in a Deceased Estate

A redistribution agreement is one of the available methods to assist the executor in winding up a deceased estate. It may be used to overcome impractical situations and/or statutory limitations that might occur during the estate administration process. The heirs and legatees and, in some instances, a surviving spouse may then agree to the reshuffling of their inheritance awards. The Chief Registrar of Deeds issued a directive that places a burden on the Master of the High Court in approving the "acceptance" of the agreement as part of the registration application for the transfer of immovable inheritance property. This was in response to a legal opinion from the office of the Chief State Law Advisor, incorporated in a 2010 internal Master's directive on instruction of the Chief Master. It directed that a redistribution agreement is deemed enforceable only after the Master "duly examined and approved" its legality. However, the Master's practice of approving a redistribution agreement is not a rule of law and cannot supersede the provisions of a statute. This article investigates whether the Master, as a "creature of statute", is acting within the parameters of its statutory administrative acts and functions involving a redistribution agreement.

Residents transitioning between hospital and care homes: protocol for codesigning a systems-level response to safety issues (SafeST study)

IntroductionThe aim of this study is to develop a better understanding of incident reporting in relation to transitions in care between hospital and care home, and to codesign a systems-level...

The impact of administrative simplification on outward foreign direct investment: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

ABSTRACT Using firm-level data from China from 2007 and 2014, this study assesses the impact of administrative simplification on the performance of an outward foreign direct investment. Results estimated by the difference-in-difference method indicate that the administrative simplification has a positive impact on OFDI. The delegation of approval authority can promote the growth of firms’ OFDI in China. This result is robust after addressing the concerns of the endogeneity and sample selection bias. Moreover, results of extension studies show that the growth of OFDI contributed by administrative simplification plays a negative role in firms’ export performance. Finally, the policy effect of administrative simplification on OFDI is stronger for non-SOEs than SOEs.

Regulatory capture in China’s IPO regulation and proposed solutions

ABSTRACT Regulatory capture is a global phenomenon and there are many rethinks of financial regulatory capture in the U.S. after the 2008 financial crisis through the perspectives of deregulation and liberalism. China’s IPO regulation system is being transformed from central-planning IPO regulation to a market-oriented information disclosure regime. Used to be an agency with huge examining and approval authority, CSRC becomes a severe place of officials’ bribery and corruption. Thus, CSRC’s regulatory capture problem is worth being researched in the reform era.

Why Has China Overinvested in Coal Power?

In spite of ambitious investments by the Chinese government in renewable energy sources, the country’s investment in coal power accelerated in recent years, raising concerns of massive overcapacity and undermining the central policy goal of promoting cleaner energy. In this paper, we ask why this happened, focusing on policies that incentivized excessive entry in the coal power sector and using a simple economic model to illustrate the policies’ effects. Using coal-power project approval records from 2013 to 2016, we find the approval rate of coal power was about 3 times higher after approval authority was decentralized, with larger effects in regions producing more coal. We estimate that local coal production accounts for an additional 54GW of approved coal power in 2015 (other things equal), which is about 1/4 of total approved capacity in that year.