De Normalisation Research Articles

Assessment of Heavy Metal Pollution of Agricultural Soil, Irrigation Water, and Vegetables in and Nearby the Cupriferous City of Lubumbashi, (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

Lubumbashi (DR Congo)—the capital of copper mining—has been considered as one of the richest mining regions of the world for more than a decade. These riches have brought along multiple mining companies responsible for soil, river water and vegetable pollution, as in many African cities. The aim of the present study was to quantify and evaluate the pollution levels and the potential sources of soil, irrigation water and vegetable contamination by the metals As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, Co and Zn in the urban gardens of Lubumbashi (DR Congo). The contamination, pollution and enrichment levels of the gardens were determined based on different indices in order to rank the soils. The results show that soils, waters and vegetables present contamination levels that represent a serious concern for human health. All soils presented contamination indices ranging from low (72% of the soils) to very high (3.4% of the soils) metal (copper, lead, zinc) contamination. The Cu and Cd contents varied between 1355 mg/kg et 236 mg/kg, much higher than the World Health Organisation (WHO) thresholds (100 mg/kg for Cu and 2 mg/kg for Cd). Moreover, the water used for crop and garden irrigation presented high Pb (57% of the waters), Fe (52%), Cu (19%) and Cd (10%) contamination levels, above the Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR) U4441 toxicity thresholds (2 mg/kg for Cu; 0.1 mg/kg for Fe and 0.01 mg/kg for Pb) for crop irrigation. Finally, the vegetables produced in these gardens and sold in the local markets had very high metal content (47% contained Cu; 100% contained copper and cobalt) above the WHO standard (10 mg/kg for Cu, 2 mg/kg for Cd and 1 mg/kg for Co) for human consumption. In the face of these issues, it would be preferable to consider cheaper, more sustainable techniques that reduce soil-to-plant metal transfer.

Physico-chemical and Microbiological Characterisation of Pheasant and Salted Fish (Lanhouin) Produced and Sold in Lomé

Aim: To assess the quality of Lanhouin produced and sold in Lomé, physico-chemical and microbiological characterisations were carried out on this commodity. Materials and Methods: 45 samples of pheasant and salted fish obtained from the species Pseudotolithus senegalensis, Balistes capriscus, Scomberomus tritor, Decacttylus galéides, Cheilopognon nigricans were collected at Katanga and at the Kodomé market. The standardised routine methods described by the Association Française de Normalisation were used to search for the suspected germs. Physico-chemical analyses were carried out on 10 of the 45 samples taken and concerned water content, fat and protein levels obtained by the AOAC methods. Results: The results showed that samples have water contents ranging from 51% to 65.85% and fat contents from 1.24% to 2.53%. Protein content varied from 33.41% to 53.69%. Microbiological analyses revealed the absence of salmonella. Hygienic quality of the samples analysed was unsatisfactory at 24.44% in relation to total mesophilic flora, at 88.89% in relation to total coliforms, at 33.33% in relation to Escherichia coli, at 62.22% and 8.89% respectively in relation to Sulphite Reducing Anaerobes and Staphylococcus aureus. Yeasts and moulds were found in all the samples collected, which indicates a potential risk of altering the hygienic and marketable qualities of the products. The presence of lactic acid bacteria found in the Lanhouin could result in the possible presence of biogenic amines. Conclusion: These results imply the need to rigorously apply good manufacturing and hygienic practices in order to improve the sanitary quality of pheasant and salted fish for the well-being of its consumers

Etiological Profiles of Patients With Thrombocytopenia in Central India: A Tertiary Centre Study.

Introduction Platelet-related disease may result from an abnormal platelet count, namely thrombocytopenia or thrombocythemia, or altered platelet function, and thus is associated with bleeding or with thrombotic manifestation. Thrombocytopenia is defined as a subnormal number of platelets i.e. less than 1,50,000/µL in the peripheral blood. It can lead to inadequate clot formation and increased risk of bleeding and is a common indication for bone marrow aspiration and biopsy. Methodology The study was a hospital-based prospective observational study from January 2019 to June 2020. All cases of thrombocytopenia which were diagnosed first on haematology analyser (platelet counts <150,000/µL) and confirmed subsequently by peripheral smear with/without bleeding manifestations due to thrombocytopenia were taken up for the study. The aims and objectives of this study were to find out the epidemiological spectrum and prevalence of thrombocytopenia according to age and sex along with the correlation of haematological and bone marrow findings of such patients. Result This study comprised 100 cases of thrombocytopenia, with acute leukaemia accounting for the majority (28/100), followed by dimorphic anaemia (15/100), megaloblastic anaemia (11/100), hypocellular marrow, infection, and other conditions.All cases (100%) displayed the clinical symptom of widespread weakness and pallor, which was followed by fatiguability (72%) and dyspnoea (48%). Many thrombocytopenic individuals also had lymphadenopathy and hepatomegaly, the last two least common appearances. Lymphadenopathy and hepatomegaly which were the last two least common presentations were present in a significant number of thrombocytopenic patients. Conclusion The study of bone marrow is helpful in the diagnosis of thrombocytopenia cases. Bone marrow examination is a simple, safe outpatient procedure and yields an impressive amount of diagnostically valuable data in a wide variety of disorders of thrombocytopenia.An evaluation of the patient's bone marrow unquestionably aids in the early diagnosis and treatment of their ailment.

Correct approximation of IEEE 754 floating-point arithmetic for program verification

Verification of programs using floating-point arithmetic is challenging on several accounts. One of the difficulties of reasoning about such programs is due to the peculiarities of floating-point arithmetic: rounding errors, infinities, non-numeric objects (NaNs), signed zeroes, denormal numbers, different rounding modes, etc. One possibility to reason about floating-point arithmetic is to model a program computation path by means of a set of ternary constraints of the form and use constraint propagation techniques to infer new information on the variables’ possible values. In this setting, we define and prove the correctness of algorithms to precisely bound the value of one of the variables x, y or z, starting from the bounds known for the other two. We do this for each of the operations and for each rounding mode defined by the IEEE 754 binary floating-point standard, even in the case the rounding mode in effect is only partially known. This is the first time that such so-called filtering algorithms are defined and their correctness is formally proved. This is an important slab for paving the way to formal verification of programs that use floating-point arithmetics.

Performance impact of precision reduction in sparse linear systems solvers.

It is well established that reduced precision arithmetic can be exploited to accelerate the solution of dense linear systems. Typical examples are mixed precision algorithms that reduce the execution time and the energy consumption of parallel solvers for dense linear systems by factorizing a matrix at a precision lower than the working precision. Much less is known about the efficiency of reduced precision in parallel solvers for sparse linear systems, and existing work focuses on single core experiments. We evaluate the benefits of using single precision arithmetic in solving a double precision sparse linear system using multiple cores. We consider both direct methods and iterative methods and we focus on using single precision for the key components of LU factorization and matrix–vector products. Our results show that the anticipated speedup of 2 over a double precision LU factorization is obtained only for the very largest of our test problems. We point out two key factors underlying the poor speedup. First, we find that single precision sparse LU factorization is prone to a severe loss of performance due to the intrusion of subnormal numbers. We identify a mechanism that allows cascading fill-ins to generate subnormal numbers and show that automatically flushing subnormals to zero avoids the performance penalties. The second factor is the lack of parallelism in the analysis and reordering phases of the solvers and the absence of floating-point arithmetic in these phases. For iterative solvers, we find that for the majority of the matrices computing or applying incomplete factorization preconditioners in single precision provides at best modest performance benefits compared with the use of double precision. We also find that using single precision for the matrix–vector product kernels provides an average speedup of 1.5 over double precision kernels. In both cases some form of refinement is needed to raise the single precision results to double precision accuracy, which will reduce performance gains.

Virucidal efficacy of an ozone-generating system for automated room disinfection

Besides conventional prevention measures, no-touch technologies based on gaseous systems have been introduced in hospital hygiene for room disinfection. The whole-room disinfectant device Sterisafe Pro, which creates ozone as a biocidal agent, was tested for its virucidal efficacy based on Association Française de Normalisation Standard NF T 72-281:2014. All test virus titres were reduced after 150 and 300 min of decontamination, with mean reduction factors ranging from 2.63 (murine norovirus) to 3.94 (simian virus 40). These results will help to establish realistic conditions for virus inactivation, and assessment of the efficacy of ozone technology against non-enveloped and enveloped viruses.

Numerical behavior of NVIDIA tensor cores.

We explore the floating-point arithmetic implemented in the NVIDIA tensor cores, which are hardware accelerators for mixed-precision matrix multiplication available on the Volta, Turing, and Ampere microarchitectures. Using Volta V100, Turing T4, and Ampere A100 graphics cards, we determine what precision is used for the intermediate results, whether subnormal numbers are supported, what rounding mode is used, in which order the operations underlying the matrix multiplication are performed, and whether partial sums are normalized. These aspects are not documented by NVIDIA, and we gain insight by running carefully designed numerical experiments on these hardware units. Knowing the answers to these questions is important if one wishes to: (1) accurately simulate NVIDIA tensor cores on conventional hardware; (2) understand the differences between results produced by code that utilizes tensor cores and code that uses only IEEE 754-compliant arithmetic operations; and (3) build custom hardware whose behavior matches that of NVIDIA tensor cores. As part of this work we provide a test suite that can be easily adapted to test newer versions of the NVIDIA tensor cores as well as similar accelerators from other vendors, as they become available. Moreover, we identify a non-monotonicity issue affecting floating point multi-operand adders if the intermediate results are not normalized after each step.

Clinicopathological overview of thrombocytopenia: A retrospective study in tertiary care hospital

Introduction: Thrombocytopenia is not a disease itself, but a subnormal number of platelets in blood and is one of the most common causes of abnormal bleeding. The patient with thrombocytopenia often presents diagnostic and management challenges. The differential diagnosis is broad because the disorders leading to thrombocytopenia are diverse, with failed production at one extreme and the accelerated destruction at the other. Aims and Objective: To highlight and diagnose thrombocytopenia and investigate the cause of thrombocytopenia in our tertiary care center. Materials and Methods: The present study is retrospective, cross sectional study done on screened 389 thrombocytopenia patients which were came to our hematology lab. All patients of proved thrombocytopenia patients were included in the study over a period of 3 years from May 2013 to April 2016. Pseudo-thrombocytopenia patients were excluded from the study. All these patients were investigated in a systemic manner, causes of thrombocytopenia were ascertained and data was analyzed. Results: The most common affected age group of thrombocytopenia was 3rd decades and 2nd decades respectively with male predominance. The most common cause of thrombocytopenia is anemia, infection, spleenomegaly and alcoholism. Dimorphic anemia, malaria and HIV are the most etiology of anemia and infection respectively. Conclusion: Thrombocytopenia is root cause of abnormal bleeding in many cases. Importance of early and prompt diagnosis of thrombocytopenia is always warranted as treatment differs depending upon the etiology. Thrombocytopenia is multifactorial and a finding that may result from various diseases and clinicopathological approach is important in these cases. Keywords: Thrombocytopenia, Platelets, Etiology, Multifactorial, Clinicopathological.

‘La Tour de Babel,’ 35 years later: challenges and tools relating to the translation of archival terminology from English to French

ABSTRACT In 1985, Michel Duchein published ‘Les Archives dans la Tour de Babel: Problèmes de Terminologie Archivistique Internationale’ in La Gazette des Archives. To this day, his article remains the most articulate expression of the difficulties linked to the translation of archival terminology between French and English. It was written as a reaction to the publication of the Dictionary of Archival Terminology by the International Council on Archives (1984). Departing from Duchein’s work, this article assesses the current situation regarding the translation of archival terminology from English to French. The article mainly considers four existing tools dealing exclusively with archival terminology: the Elsevier Lexicon of Archive Terminology (1964), the International Council on Archives’ Dictionary of Archival Terminology (1984), the Association Française de Normalisation’s Vocabulaire des Archives (1986) and the International Council on Archives’ Multilingual Archival Terminology database (2012- …). This article is based on an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each tool, and on practical tests carried out during the translation of a corpus of texts for Comma, the journal of the International Council on Archives. This article intends to show that the existing tools for translating archival terminology from English to French lack either up-to-date content or reliability.

Alleviation of Data Timing Channels in Normalized/Subnormal Floating Point Multiplier

Floating point (FP) multiplication goes down in the scientific application when it sustains the subnormal inputs either in the implementation of software or hardware. Any high-level language executes the FP instructions in the graphics processing unit (GPU) and floating-point unit (FPU) for supporting the normalized numbers alone. In FP multiplication, execution times for normalized and subnormal numbers are not equal. Execution time variations create unintentional delay and data timing channels (DTCs). A circuit is proposed for floating-point multiplication to minimize the unintentional delay for the holistic support of subnormal numbers. In this proposed four-path FP multiplication, the circuit produces the four types of output in four paths having different delays for all cases of input combination. These four paths are establishing the DTCs. A maximum delay path is taken into account to combine and equalize the four paths into a single output path. Two levels of the control circuit combine the four paths to a single path for reducing the DTC effect. To evaluate the performance after path equalization, the proposed FP multiplier is implemented in Stratix-IV and Cyclone-IV FPGAs with a delay of 57.25 and 82.82 ns, respectively. Here, eight pipeline stages reduce the delay and improve the operating speed of the entire circuit. Stage delay and operating speed for this FP multiplier in both FPGA implementations are 12.44 and 16.86[Formula: see text]ns, and 153.19 and 116.78[Formula: see text]MHz, respectively.

Why smart metrology is no longer optional

Smart Metrology is the subject of a work we wrote and published with the Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR, French Standardization Association) in 2016 [1]. In this new work, we offer a very different vision of the role of metrology in industry from the traditional view, which tends to focus on the management of a stock of measuring instruments. The emergence of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence algorithms has caused us to rethink the role of the metrologist: while the job of auditors has more or less been to stick approval labels on instruments. Big Data, by definition, requires reliable data to produce meaningful results. This article sets out to explain why the metrology we are familiar with has been acceptable until now, and why it has become so important to change our approach so as to concentrate on improving performance and managing resources more efficiently. This article is the translation of the article “Pourquoi la Smart Metrology n'est plus une option” that has been published, in French, in the blog www.smart-metrology.com [2].

Final report on AFRIMETS supplementary comparison AFRIMETS. T-S2): platinum resistance thermometer and digital thermometer calibrations over the range -50 °C to 450 °C

A Regional Metrology Organization (RMO) supplementary comparison of platinum resistance thermometer and digital thermometer (AFRIMETS.T-S2) was carried out among AFRIMETS member NMIs namely the National Metrology Institute of South Africa (NMISA), Laboratoire Public d'Essais et d'Etudes - Laboratoire National de Métrologie (LPEE-LNM), Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), and Agence Burkinabé de Normalisation, de la Métrologie et de la Qualité (ABNORM) between Dec 2015 and Sept 2018. The temperature range of the inter comparison is -50 °C to 450 °C. The results of this comparison are reported in this document, along with descriptions of the Artefacts and devices used during measurement. This report also presents the uncertainty budget. The results are analysed and En values are reported.Main textTo reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/.The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCT, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA).

Assessment of electrostatic discharges in insulating venting lines

In the field of protection against an explosion, every plant where flammable chemicals (liquids, gases, powders) are handled should build an explosion protection document. This document is a powerful tool to assess explosion management on the plant. Among other parts, it must include an ignition source analysis that assess the probability of explosion for every single place where a flammable atmosphere is expected.The ignition sources to be considered as listed in various standards such as the EN 1127-1 (Secteur interdisciplinaire de normalisation, 2012) and the IEC 60079-0 (IEC, 2012). The trickiest ignition sources are often static electricity and sometimes, the general measures that could be defined for a fully new plant are extremely difficult to implement on an existing plant.A common case deals with venting lines. Those lines are sometimes made of insulating plastics while a flammable atmosphere remains possible under normal operation. A strong charge build up can be generated on the inside surface of those lines and several hazards might happen. The charge build up in the inside part of the line will generate an electric field in its vicinity and will charge by influence the conductive parts that are not grounded. In that case, a spark discharges can occur in the working area. If a flammable atmosphere takes place at that point, an ignition could occur. The second main hazard would be a propagating brush discharge across the thickness of the venting line. In that case, an ignition of the vapours inside the pipes is possible.This presentation describes an experimental approach to measure the charge build up generated during the different process steps of one chemical firm. The results showed large differences depending on the process step and a hazard of propagating brush discharge was identified at some point.

Squeezing a Matrix into Half Precision, with an Application to Solving Linear Systems

Motivated by the demand in machine learning, modern computer hardware is increas- ingly supporting reduced precision floating-point arithmetic, which provides advantages in speed, energy, and memory usage over single and double precision. Given the availability of such hardware, mixed precision algorithms that work in single or double precision but carry out part of a compu- tation in half precision are now of great interest for general scientific computing tasks. Because of the limited range of half precision arithmetic, in which positive numbers lie between 6 × 10−8 and 7 × 104, a straightforward rounding of single or double precision data into half precision can lead to overflow, underflow, or subnormal numbers being generated, all of which are undesirable. We develop an algorithm for converting a matrix from single or double precision to half precision. It first applies two-sided diagonal scaling in order to equilibrate the matrix (that is, to ensure that every row and column has ∞-norm 1), then multiplies by a scalar to bring the largest element within a factor θ ≤ 1 of the overflow level, and finally rounds to half precision. The second step ensures that full use is made of the limited range of half precision arithmetic, and θ must be chosen to allow sufficient headroom for subsequent computations. We apply the new algorithm to GMRES-based iterative re- finement (GMRES-IR), which solves a linear system Ax = b with single or double precision data by LU factorizing A in half precision and carrying out iterative refinement with the correction equations solved by GMRES preconditioned with the low precision LU factors. Previous implementations of this algorithm have used a crude conversion to half precision that our experiments show can cause slow convergence of GMRES-IR for badly scaled matrices or failure to converge at all. The new conversion algorithm computes ∞-norms of rows and columns of the matrix and its cost is negligible in the context of LU factorization. We show that it leads to faster convergence of GMRES-IR for badly scaled matrices and thereby allows a much wider class of problems to be solved.

Interest Representation in European Standardisation: The Case of CEN and CENELEC

Technical standards are important tools of regulation. They answer market needs, complement legislation and support public policies in highly complex areas. In doing so, technical standards weigh economic and non-economic interests and, therefore, impact on the wellbeing of society as a whole. As technical standards are typically issued to private standardisation bodies operating outside the safeguards of public decision-making, effective interest representation plays a major role in enhancing the legitimacy of private standard-setting and their ‘acceptability’ in the eyes of market players, institutions, and citizens. Regulation (EU) 1025/2012 – the Standardisation Regulation – moves in this direction and calls for effective stakeholder representation in European standardisation. To this end, the Standardisation Regulation enhances the procedural integrity of European standards by subjecting the ‘European Standardisation Organisations’ (ESOs) to the principles of ‘transparency’, and ‘appropriate representation’ and ‘effective participation’ of affected stakeholders. This paper investigates how these principles have been transposed into the internal rules and practice of two out of the three ESOs, namely the ‘Comite europeen de normalisation’ (CEN) and the ‘Comite europeen de normalisation electrotechnique’ (CENELEC). Preliminarily, the paper will give a brief overview of the European standardisation system (Section 2) and its framework of interest representation (Section 3). Within this framework, the paper will highlight the mechanisms of stakeholder involvement in CEN and CENELEC. In particular, the focus will lie on the involvement in standard-setting of the so-called Annex III organisations (A3Os) – i.e., the associations representing ‘societal’ interests and small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in European standardisation. Building on this, the paper will firstly outline how interest representation is currently addressed by the internal rules of the CEN and CENELEC. Secondly, the paper will assess to what extent these rules accommodate the principles of ‘appropriate representation’ and ‘effective participation’ envisaged by the Standardisation Regulation (Section 4). This analysis will be complemented by an overview of the variables that in practice may jeopardise the participation of ‘weak’ interest groups into European standard-setting, with specific reference to A3Os (Section 5). Finally, the paper will highlight a discrepancy between the abstract and actual conditions of stakeholder participation in CEN and CENELEC. In this regard, the ‘ladder of participation’ conceptualized in 1969 by Sherry R. Arnstein will be taken as a testing ground (Section 6). Some final remarks will follow (Section 7).

Working Example on 70m Long Ultra High Performance Fiber-Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC) Composite Bridge

In 2016 the Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR — French Standard Institute) has published the world first design standards for ultra-high-performance fibre reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) structures (i.e. NF P18-710:2016). This document is the national additional to Eurocode 2 for concrete structure design. To-date, there are several UHPFRC bridges have been designed using this standard. The design approach for UHPFRC structures are relatively similar to conventional concrete design. This paper presents the working example on the design of 70m span ultra-high-performance fibre reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) composite bridges. The working example mainly focus on (i) the material properties used in the structural analysis software – MIDAS CIVIL; (ii) the output results on the design forces at the critical sections (i.e. design moment effect, MEd and shear force effect, VEd); (iii) the stresses and midspan displacement of the post-tension UHPFRC U-girder at transfer and at different construction load historyand (iv) the design moment resistance (MRd) and design shear resistance (VRd) of the composite section.

More than just teddy bears: Unconventional transmission agents in the operating room

IntroductionSurgical site infection (SSI) following orthopedic surgery can have a substantial impact on patients and families. The rate remains high, ranging from 0.5% to 8.5% in pediatric spine surgery. It is common to allow children to bring a teddy bear (or similar toy) to the surgical ward to help reduce the stress of surgery. We hypothesize that despite their known benefits for children, teddies would increase the bacterial load in the surgical room. MethodsA blinded descriptive study was conducted from June 2015 to September 2016. The study included children entering the hospital through the emergency ward for a traumatic cause requiring surgery. Patients admitted for infectious problems and those who had been hospitalized less than 6 months before the inclusion date were excluded. A picture of the teddy was taken and stored in a blind fashion. The AFNOR (Association française de normalisation) standardized rules for bacteriological surface control and the ISO/DIS 14698 protocol were strictly followed. Two independent observers performed blind bacteriologic analyses of the teddy bears with bacteria identification and colony counts. Photos of the teddy bears were then analyzed by two blinded, independent observers: one doctor and one parent from outside the hospital. Cleanliness and fluffiness of the toy was evaluated using a numeric scale. ResultsBacteria were identified on 100% of the 53 teddies included. The mean number of bacteria was 182.5±49.8 CFU/25 cm2. Eight teddies (15.1%) tested positive for potential pathogenic bacteria (two staphylococcus aureus, one acinetobacter ursingii, four acinetobacter baumannii, one pseudomonas stutzeri). Three teddies (5.7%) tested positive for fungi. The median cleanliness score was 2 (interquartile range (IQR)=1) if rated by the doctor and 2 (IQR=1) if rated by the parent. No statistical difference was found between these two values in the global teddy bear population. We found no any statistical link between the number of CFUs and the cleanliness scores given by the doctor. The median fluffiness score given by the parent was 2 (IQR=1). Looking at the correlative CFUs, we found a statistically significant difference between each stage of fluffiness with a higher stage showing higher CFU (P<0.0001). ConclusionDespite their documented benefits for the child, teddy bears are not appropriate in the surgical room.

Most probable number technique in Escherichia coli count using ISO 16649‐3, ISO 7251, and rapid test enumeration device (TEMPO EC) methods in milk and dairy products

AbstractThe aim of the study was to compare of International Standard Organization (ISO) 7251, ISO 16649‐3 most probable number (MPN) assay for the enumeration of Escherichia coli group to the Tempo EC automated method using a variety of spiked milk and milk product foods. Foods evaluated in this study included wet pasta (crema), milk, ayran, and ice cream. The spiked food samples were diluted at three inoculation levels such as low, medium, and high. A comparison of the results indicated that automated system approximated the inoculation level to an automated system. In this study, TEMPO EC, ISO 16649‐3, and ISO 7251 methods are compliant for MPN E. coli count in high, medium, and low contamination level studies. Nevertheless, for precise results, performing primary validation studies by ISO, Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR), and/or Association Of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) will give more reliable results.Practical applicationsIn Turkish Food Codex Microbiological Criteria Communique, it is requested to perform studies of E. coli analysis method in milk and milk products as per ISO 16649‐3. However, in the revised version of ISO 16649‐3, it is stated in the scope of the standard that this method does not provide a full assessment for all products particularly for milk and milk products and that ISO 7251 method should be used in these samples. As it is required in new methods, it has been intended to perform comparative analyses to low, medium, and high inoculation level with rapid the TEMPO EC card and conventional test methods by ISO, AFNOR, and/or AOAC. If the use of TEMPO EC, laboratory response time will improve with automation reducing the time for enumeration of E. coli from 4 days to 24 hr, especially critical for evaluation of perishable foods and outbreak events.

Two uncertainties in simulating spatially varying seismic ground motions: incoherency coefficient and apparent propagation velocity

The main focus of this paper is on uncertainties associated with the selection of the incoherency coefficient and apparent propagation velocity in the simulation of asynchronous seismic excitations based on the provisions of CEN [Comite Europeen de Normalisation] (Eurocode 8: Design of structures for earthquake resistance—part 2: bridges, BS EN 1998-2:2005, Brussels, Belgium 2005). To this effect, the importance of utilizing appropriate values of these two parameters in the simulation of spatially varying seismic excitations is highlighted, and practice-oriented recommendations are provided for their selection. In addition, preliminary probability distributions are proposed for the consideration of the effect of uncertainty in the selection of the apparent propagation velocity for reliability (fragility) analyses. The effect of multi-support input motions on the seismic response of bridges is also discussed.

Ground motion prediction equations for Algeria and surrounding region using site classification based H/V spectral ratio

The present work is exclusively based on recorded data provided by the Algerian and the European strong ground-motion database. These data contain 1391 records homogeneously processed with more than 700 records in Algeria and the rest from essentially the Mediterranean region, with distance and magnitude ranging from 5 to 150 km and 3.0 to 7.4 respectively. An emphasis is given to the proposal of appropriate ground motion prediction equation (GMPE) for Algeria and surrounding region considering site classification. This latter is based on the predominant period computed using average horizontal to vertical spectral ratio response (H/V). Four site categories are defined according to Zhao et al. (Bull Seismol Soc Am 96:914–925, 2006) classification scheme. Due to the insufficient number of records for very soft soil, one considers three soil classes for the computation of the empirical predictive spectral ground motion relations: rock, firm and soft. Two cases are studied; the first one considers only local data (52.84% with 3.0 ≤ M ≤ 6.8) which serves to illustrate the limits of considering only the country’s borders, while in the second case, the regional data is added (47.16% with M ≥ 5.2) to investigate its influence on the reliability and the robustness of the developed model. A truncation distance criteria is applied with respect to the magnitude and the distance values associated with each data. The obtained results show that (1) the model based on local data overestimates the predicted accelerations for larger magnitude, while the model based on regional data is in good agreement with the last published models; (2) among the four soil classes, the amplitudes and the shapes of the mean H/V spectral ratios are significantly different. Furthermore, the peaks in the period range are reasonably similar to those of site periods defined for each site class by Zhao et al. (2006); (3) the standard deviation decreases compared to the original rock/soil classification scheme and the obtained mean site coefficients for stiff and soft soil are in good agreement compared to those defined in EC-8 (CEN, Eurocode 8, design of structures for earthquake resistance—part 1: general rules, seismic actions and rules for buildings. EN 1998-1: 2004. Comite Europeen de Normalisation, Brussels, 2004); (4) at short distance, the proposed GMPE for Algeria predicts relatively smaller spectral acceleration compared to recent published models possibly due to the differences in the lower magnitude bounds of these models; (5) in addition to the proposed model, this study makes in evidence that Boore et al. (Earthq Spectra 30:1057–1085, 2014) and Akkar et al. (Bull Earthq Eng, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-013-9461-4 ) models are appropriate for the computation of the seismic hazard in Algeria.