Quality Assurance Issues Research Articles

DELEGATED CASH CIRCULATION MODEL: EFFICIENCY OF AUTHORIZED BANKS

Despite the intensive introduction of IT technologies in the banking sector, resulting in the intensive development of non-cash payments, even with the constant increase in non-cash payments, the money supply outside banks is constantly increasing, thus the problem of ensuring quantity and quality of cash. Until 2016, the responsibility for ensuring the quality of cash in circulation and its exchangeability was assigned to the National Bank of Ukraine, one of the functions of which is to ensure the state monetary policy. In search of an effective policy in the organization of cash circulation, the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine in 2016 initiated the transition to a delegated model of cash circulation, which involves participation in cash circulation directly by the National Bank and authorized banks and SIT companies under the rules and under its control. The author of the article analyzes the results of implementation of the delegated model of cash circulation strategy in issues of cash quality assurance, its sufficiency outside banks, completeness of authorized banks’ functions in securing applications of commercial banks for reinforcement and acceptance of cash surpluses, sufficiency of developed measures. In researching the topic, the author concluded that there is currently a risk of losing control over the quality of cash in circulation, as well as providing cash in the required amount at the request of commercial banks due to imperfect relations between the regulator and authorized banks and technical and organizational unpreparedness. parties of authorized banks. According to the author, one of the reasons for the slow transition to the delegated model of cash circulation is that it is profitable for authorized banks to work for themselves, using the reserves of the National Bank. The solution of this problem by the National Bank is possible by making certain adjustments to the regulatory documentation.

Improving ECC Ozonesonde Data Quality: Assessment of Current Methods and Outstanding Issues

AbstractWe review the current state of knowledge of ozonesonde uncertainty and bias, with reference to recent developments in laboratory and field experiments. In the past 20 years ozonesonde precision has improved by a factor of 2, primarily through the adoption of strict standard operating procedures. The uncertainty budget for the ozone partial pressure reading has contributions from stoichiometry, cell background current, pump efficiency and temperature, sensing solution type, and volume. Corrections to historical data for known issues may reduce biases but simultaneously introduce additional uncertainties. This paper describes a systematic approach to quantifying these uncertainties by considering the physical and chemical processes involved and attempts to place our estimates on a firm theoretical or empirical footing. New equations or tables for ozone/iodine conversion efficiency, humidity and temperature corrections to pump flow rate, and altitude‐dependent pump flow corrections are presented, as well as detailed discussion of stoichiometry and conversion efficiencies. The nature of the so‐called “background current” is considered in detail. Two other factors particularly affecting past measurements, uncertainties and biases in the pressure measurement, and the comparison of sonde profiles to spectrophotometric measurements of total column ozone, are also discussed. Several quality assurance issues remain, but are tractable problems that can be addressed with further research. This will be required if the present goal of better than 5% overall uncertainty throughout the global ozonesonde network is to be achieved.

Quality Assurance in the molecular diagnostic laboratory

Molecular diagnostics is currently playing an imperative role in the clinical microbiology laboratory. Quality assurance and quality control issues have often remained underdeveloped in our country and are still critical. To relate patient results to these, molecular diagnostics carry values in clinical diagnosis, therapeutic drug monitoring and remission and those results need to be comparable across time and methods. This may be achieved either by producing the identical value across methods and test versions or by using reliable and stable reference materials in the medical laboratories engaged with molecular tests. The establishment of international standards and reference materials, assessment and maintenance of technical competencies, regulatory oversight and best practices considerations are thus of utmost importance. This review focuses on general and specific issues relevant for quality assurance and quality control in the routine molecular diagnostics laboratory.
 Bangladesh J Med Microbiol 2021; 15 (1): 30-34

A functional modeling approach for quality assurance in metal additive manufacturing

Purpose Due to the complexity of and variations in additive manufacturing (AM) processes, there is a level of uncertainty that creates critical issues in quality assurance (QA), which must be addressed by time-consuming and cost-intensive tasks. This deteriorates the process repeatability, reliability and part reproducibility. So far, many AM efforts have been performed in an isolated and scattered way over several decades. In this paper, a systematically integrated holistic view is proposed to achieve QA for AM. Design/methodology/approach A systematically integrated view is presented to ensure the predefined part properties before/during/after the AM process. It consists of four stages, namely, QA plan, prospective validation, concurrent validation and retrospective validation. As a foundation for QA planning, a functional workflow and the required information flows are proposed by using functional design models: Icam DEFinition for Function Modeling. Findings The functional design model of the QA plan provides the systematically integrated view that can be the basis for inspection of AM processes for the repeatability and qualification of AM parts for reproducibility. Research limitations/implications A powder bed fusion process was used to validate the feasibility of this QA plan. Feasibility was demonstrated under many assumptions; real validation is not included in this study. Social implications This study provides an innovative and transformative methodology that can lead to greater productivity and improved quality of AM parts across industries. Furthermore, the QA guidelines and functional design models provide the foundation for the development of a QA architecture and management system. Originality/value This systematically integrated view and the corresponding QA plan can pose fundamental questions to the AM community and initiate new research efforts in the in-situ digital inspection of AM processes and parts.

EVALUATION OF RESEARCH ACTIVITIES OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS ACADEMIC STAFF AS PART OF THE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION QUALITY ASSURANCE

In modern society, the issue of quality assurance by higher education institutions is of particular importance. One of the aspects of the internal quality assurance system is to monitor the level of professional competence of teachers, ensuring openness, transparency of evaluation indicators. In their turn, indicators of research activities of teachers, such as citations in scientometric databases Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar directly affect the ranking of higher education institutions in international and Ukrainian rankings. Therefore, the issue of formation and implementation of systems for the analysis of professional activity of teachers, in particular research, which allow monitoring and evaluation of key performance indicators of research activities of academic staff, is particularly relevant. The paper analyzes the experience of Ukrainian and foreign universities in implementing systems for presenting the professional activities of teachers, analyzing the research activities of academic staff and building ratings of professional and research activities. Modern higher education institutions use various technologies to present the professional activities of teachers in the public domain - Wiki technology, published pages on official websites and developed information systems. The main indicators used in rating the effectiveness of research activities are citation indicators in scientometric databases Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar - citation value, number of documents, h-index, i10-index, therefore, for high-quality presentation of research results in rankings it is important to ensure the visibility of scientific publications - the use of Open Journal Systems, placement of publications in open institutional repositories, electronic libraries, updating profiles of scientists in scientometric and bibliometric databases to update citation indices, etc.

Organizational solutions for ensuring the quality of construction of nuclear power facilities

The issue of quality assurance becomes extremely important in the implementation of investment and construction activities in the field of atomic energy use, since inconsistencies that may arise as a result of improper quality assurance of construction products during the construction of nuclear power facilities of the most representative nuclear facilities (NF) from the point of view of potential danger are not only highly undesirable events, but can also lead to significant environmental, social and political consequences. Solving quality assurance problems is an integral element of the development strategy of any of the industries, including the investment and construction sector. The implementation of such events at nuclear power facilities is currently a priority area of activity, given the increasing interest of foreign countries not only in nuclear power facilities of Russian design, but also in other nuclear facilities of the nuclear cluster.

Raising the quality of designers’ professional training through STEAM and CLIL

The issues of quality assurance in the process of professional training have always been widely discussed. The current research presents the English for Academic Purposes section of the English language course design based on the STEAM approach and the feedback model for its evaluation. The study aims to assess the role of the English language course in building professional competencies with the help of the STEAM instructional design. Qualitative and quantitative methods, a formative pedagogical experiment, and an online survey were conducted. The study shows that interdisciplinary course evaluation can be based on feedback and outcomes indicators. The content and language integrated learning methods are perceived by the students as relevant. STEAM-based course design motivates students to perform fundraising activities for further professional development and continue improving their English language skills. Thus the English language can become a valid and stable base for further interdisciplinary projects in university education. The research found that the majority of the first-year art and design students learned about MOOCs for the first time and took courses to improve their professional skills during the English Language course. The authors conclude that STEAM and CLIL methodologies have much in common and are positively evaluated by both students and academics.

EDUCATIONAL POTENTIAL OF THE UDMURT STATE UNIVERSITY INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS CLUB IN STUDYING PROCESS OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

The article focuses on the quality assurance issue of international students training in Russian universities at all levels (degree and non-degree). Lots of higher education institutions of the country admit international students, and they face similar hardships there, affecting their studies: lack of information regarding the country, different climate, lifestyle, living conditions, and the new language to acquire. The paper reviews the research on widely accepted organizational and administrative steps, along with pedagogical decisions, developed by the pedagogical community to support international students in social adaptation. We herewith reveal that the pedagogical support in this respect focuses on the educational potential of socio-cultural environment and is aimed to involve international students in a varied range of extra-curricular cognitive, research and leisure activities. Their life and cognitive foreign cultural experience being applied in the course of teaching Russian as a foreign language clears out the possibility of a broader educational context - social organizations activity. The article considers the International Students Club (UdSU social organization) activities through participation of international students. The grounding technologies to involve international students in team work with Russian students are project and play based learning. The article describes a number of projects and interactive games. The educational environment of this kind has the advantage of Russian and international students interacting and is characterized by multilingualism, equality of participants, informal communication, freedom to implement creative ideas, openness to the newcomers, as well as increased productivity. It contributes to the development of new and diverse speech practices in verbal and written communication, whereas their cognitive activity in discovering new socio-cultural environment helps develop professional skills.

Research and quality assurance of the large valves manufacture for trunk pipelines

This article deals with analysis of the production state of pipeline valves in the Republic of Kazakhstan (RK). As a result of the study, it was found that to ensure high reliability and complete environmental safety of the communications system of pipeline transport, it is necessary to improve the quality of manufacturing pipeline valves and other elements of the pipeline transport system by using new promising developments in the field of mechanical processing, assembly, welding, etc. The relevance of the study is the issues of the large valves manufacturing for pipelines. The design and classification of pipelines, pipe fittings, in particular, valves, have been investigated. It has been established that the most difficult and time consuming to manufacture among pipeline valves is the design of gate valves. The technology of manufacturing large-sized gate valves in the conditions of the Ust-Kamenogorsk reinforcement plant has been investigated and the issues of quality and accuracy assurance in the manufacture of a box assembly have been identified. The results of experimental studies of the milling process of a tapered surface have shown the possibility of using a friction cone cutter for machining holes with curvilinear surfaces of a semi-hull of a large-sized sliding gate valve.

The quality assurance of a national English writing assessment: Policy implications for quality improvement

The purpose of this study was to examine the quality assurance issues of a national English writing assessment in Chinese higher education. Specifically, using generalizability theory and rater interviews, this study examined how the current scoring policy of the TEM-4 (Test for English Majors – Band 4, a high-stakes national standardized EFL assessment in China) writing could impact its score variability and reliability. Eighteen argumentative essays written by nine English major undergraduate students were selected as the writing samples. Ten TEM-4 raters were first invited to use the authentic TEM-4 writing scoring rubric to score these essays holistically and analytically (with time intervals in between). They were then interviewed for their views on how the current scoring policy of the TEM-4 writing assessment could affect its overall quality. The quantitative generalizability theory results of this study suggested that the current scoring policy would not yield acceptable reliability coefficients. The qualitative results supported the generalizability theory findings. Policy implications for quality improvement of the TEM-4 writing assessment in China are discussed.

Perceptions of students on factors that constrain their involvement in quality assurance and promotion in two comprehensive universities in South Africa

The need for student involvement in quality assurance and promotion in higher education has been a topical issue for a couple of decades. This is because students are valuable stakeholders who are at the receiving end of the higher education delivery chain and their contribution to quality assurance processes and promotion cannot be underscored. Various researchers have alluded to the fact that when students participate in quality assurance and promotion processes as joint partners, their desire to see the processes succeed would be re-invigorated. While it is easy to understand and appreciate the value of involving students in quality assurance and promotion processes, the literature reviewed has shown that, in practice, not much is happening in this regard. The article explored the perceptions of students from two comprehensive universities in South Africa on the factors that constrain their involvement in quality assurance and promotion processes in their respective higher education institutions and their possible solutions. Convenience sampling was used to select student respondents at the two selected comprehensive universities. Semi-structured questionnaires were sent to student participants to complete and the responses were coded and analysed using the Thematic Analysis Approach. The results of the study showed that the lack of knowledge on quality and quality assurance issues, lack of engagement platforms and lack of involvement in institutional decision-making processes were some of the challenges constraining the participation of students in processes pertaining to quality assurance. Some of the solutions to mitigate against the challenges proffered by students included having tutorials on quality and quality assurance issues, recognition of students as co-partners in the implementation of all academic processes and creating platforms to enable students, academic staff and management to engage one another on quality and quality assurance related issues.

Challenges in Teaching Palliative Care Module Virtually during COVID-19 Era

With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the global community, routine activities of universities, offices, and industries have been hindered. People are being forced to rethink the ways of working virtually from home for providing education, business, and health services in this social distancing during the COVID era. This sudden shift also posed challenges of online teaching in a private university, in urban Karachi, Pakistan. The Aga Khan University, School of Nursing and Midwifery recently conducted an online palliative care module using a virtual learning environment and Microsoft Teams for Trainee Nurse Interns. Although the first experience of online teaching and learning was a successful venture for faculty and students, in a lockdown situation, numerous challenges were also encountered being a lower middle-income country. The issues of electricity shutdown, Internet connectivity, and quality assurance were anticipated on transition to online pedagogy, but backup plans were formed to make execution promising.

Quality Assurance in Higher Education in the Context of European Approaches

Introduction. Quality assurance issues are among the priorities in the activities of Russian and European universities. In this regard, the authors of the articles explore various approaches to quality assurance in educational organizations; analyze the results of the study related to the assessment of European procedures, models and mechanisms of quality assurance implemented in Russi an universities. Materials and Methods. At the end of 2019, the authors conducted a survey using the Google Docs service of expert representatives across various types of Russian universities. The study involved 104 experts from 50 regions of Russia. The study was based on an expert online survey and statistical analysis of the results. Results. The results of the survey indicate that in Russian universities the most widespread models are quality assurance based on the requirements of state accreditation and a model based on ESG ENQA standards. Higher education institutions give priority to the development of basic documents to guarantee the quality of education at the institutional level without regulating the non-key aspects of education. In most universities, the responsibility for coordinating activities in the field of quality is assigned to the vice-rector (usually for academic studies). Universities are quite actively conducting surveys of students; it is on this group of interested parties that they emphasize the process of implementing feedback on the quality of education. It is common practice to discuss the results of analysis of surveys of stakeholders at the level of academic councils/senates. The most common quality assurance tools include: interviewing students, employers, teaching staff and employees on the quality of education, monitoring the employment and career growth of graduates, and professional and public accreditation. Most respondents indicated such priority problems as the lack of a unified model for ensuring the quality of education and the shortage of qualified personnel in the field of ensuring the quality of education. Discussion and Conclusion. The results of this study may be useful for further improving the quality of education systems in Russian universities in the context of the Bologna process development.

DIGITAL EDUCATION: RISKS AND CHALLENGES IMPACTED BY COVID-19

The article is devoted to the key issues of digital education quality assurance and digital tools implementation during force-majeure like COVID-19 period.

Registration and local production of essential medicines in Uganda

BackgroundUniversal access to high quality essential medicines is critical to sustainable development (SDG 3.8). However low- and middle-income countries struggle to ensure access to all medicines on their national essential medicines lists (EML). Market registration is the first step in determining both access and availability yet the extent to which essential medicines are registered for use at country level is not known. Companies apply for a marketing authorisation, however low price or lack of a market is a disincentive. Local production has been promoted to ensure availability of essential medicines but research in this area is also limited.MethodsThe study took place between 2011 and 2015. We systematically examined the registration status of medicines and vaccines listed in the Ugandan 2012 EML and conducted 20 interviews with regulators, ministry of health representatives, donors, and pharmaceutical producers and analysed quality assurance issues affecting registration, procurement, and local production of medicines in Uganda. In 2017 we conducted a further three interviews to clarify issues around non-registration of essential medicines highlighted by our analysis.ResultsOf the 566 essential medicines and vaccines nearly half (49%; 275/566) had no registered product in 2012. Of the 3130 registered products, just over a quarter (28%; 880/3130) were listed on the EML. Six local producers had registered 138 products of which 40 corresponded to 32 unique essential medicines. Interviews highlighted alternative routes to availability other than registration. Local producers faced considerable barriers to achieving international quality standards required for international procurement of medicines for the domestic market.ConclusionsMonitoring and audit of the registration of essential and non-essential medicines should be a priority nationally and, regionally through harmonisation of registration requirements in the East African Community. National and regional manufacturing plans should consider local production of unregistered essential medicines.

Errors in Decisionmaking in Emergency Medicine: The Case of the Landscaper’s Back and Root Cause Analysis

Root cause analysis is often suggested as a means of conducting quality assurance, but few physicians are familiar with the actual process. We describe a detailed approach to conducting root cause analysis, with an illustrative case to explain the technique. By studying how root cause analysis is applied to the case of a missed epidural abscess, the reader will see how the process reveals systems improvements that reduce the risk that such a miss will happen again. Following this process will be helpful in using root cause analysis to fix not just individuals' issues but also but systemwide quality assurance issues to improve patient care.

A review of issues of quality assurance and quality accreditation for higher education institutions and the situation in Vietnam

Currently, quality assurance and quality accreditation are very important tasks and are the top concern for higher education institutions. This is because universities can achieve their goals to meet the needs of learners, the community, and society in their educational and training quality to enhance the position of the university through quality assurance activities. Standards of quality assurance and quality accreditation are the best measurement system for the level of quality of education services. Quality assurance can help detect limited issues to adjust and overcome before implementation. The application of quality assurance and quality accreditation is the secret behind the success of most higher education institutions around the world; therefore, quality assurance and quality accreditation are the concern of universities in Vietnam in general and local universities in particular, especially universities in the most disadvantaged regions of Vietnam. This study discusses some of the theoretical issues of quality assurance and quality accreditation; identifies the relationship of quality assurance and quality accreditation with the objectives, quality level, and application of higher education in Vietnam; and at the same time provides some recommendations to help increase the application of quality assurance and quality accreditation in higher education institutions in Vietnam.

Analysis of Risk Factors for Patient Safety Events Occurring in the Emergency Department.

The aim of the study was to describe and analyze the risk factors associated with patient safety events (PSEs), defined as adverse events (AEs), preventable AEs (PAEs), and near-miss events (NMEs), in the emergency department (ED). It was a retrospective cohort study using ED patients' data retrieved from January 2010 to December 2016. Quality assurance issues (QAIs) used as triggers included the following: issues during procedural sedation, death within 24 hours of admission, patients' and physicians' complaints, returns to the ED within 72 hours, and transfers to an intensive care unit within 24 hours. Of 383,586 ED visits, 6519 (1.7%) QAIs were reported with a PSEs incidence of 6.1%. Among the 397 PSEs, 258 were AEs including 82 PAEs, and 139 NMEs. During the 7-year period, we observed a fourfold increase in NMEs, and despite a decrease in the rate of AEs with the highest (3.1%) and lowest (0.8%) incidence in 2011 and 2016, respectively, the incidence of PAEs events remained relatively constant. Unadjusted analysis showed that ED waiting time, boarding time, ED length of stay (LOS), ED disposition, as well as diagnostic and QAIs were significantly related to PSEs (P < 0.05). Multivariable analysis showed that the type of QAIs and diagnostic were associated with PSEs (P < 0.001). Type of QAIs was a risk factor for AEs and PAEs occurrence and factors involved in NMEs were type of QAIs (P = 0.02) and ED LOS (P < 0.001). "The odds of a PSE occurring increased by 0.2% for each additional minute increase in the ED waiting time, by 5.2% for each additional boarding hour, and by 4.5% for each ED LOS hour." This study showed several potential risk factors for PSEs, especially ED LOS, type of QAIs, and diagnostic. Systematic interventions might have more impact on risk of PSE.

Using a rule-based system to define error in the emergency department.

IntroductionThe evaluation of peer‐reviewed cases for error is key to quality assurance (QA) in emergency medicine, but defining error to ensure reviewer agreement and reproducibility remains elusive. The objective of this study was to create a consensus‐based set of rules to systematically identify medical errors.MethodsThis is a prospective, observational study of all cases presented for peer review at an urban, tertiary care, academic medical center emergency department (ED) quality assurance (QA) committee between October 13, 2015, and September 14, 2016. Our hospital uses an electronic system enabling staff to self‐identify QA issues for subsequent review. In addition, physician or patient complaints, 72‐hour returns with admission, death within 24 hours, floor transfers to ICU < 24 hours, and morbidity and mortality conference cases are automatic triggers for review. Trained reviewers not involved in the patient's care use a structured 8‐point Likert scale to assess for error and preventable or non‐preventable adverse events. Cases where reviewers perceived a need for additional treatment, or that caused patient harm, are referred to a 20‐member committee of emergency department leadership, attendings, residents, and nurses for consensus review. For this study, “rules” were proposed by the reviewers identifying the error and validated by consensus during each meeting. The committee then decided if a rule had been broken (error) or not broken (judgment call). If an error could not be phrased in terms of a rule broken, then it would not be considered an error. The rules were then evaluated by 2 reviewers and organized by theme into categories to determine common errors in emergency medicine.ResultsWe identified 108 episodes of rules broken in 103 cases within a database of 920 QA reviewed cases. In cases where a rule was broken and therefore an error was scored, the following 5 major themes emerged: (1) not acquiring necessary information (eg, not completing a relevant physical exam), N = 33 (31%); (2) not acting on data that were acquired (eg, abnormal vital signs or labs), N = 25 (23%); (3) knowledge gaps by clinicians (eg, not knowing to reduce a hernia), N = 16 (15%); (4) communication gaps (eg, discharge instructions), N = 17 (16%); and (5) systems issues (eg, improper patient registration), N = 17 (16%).ConclusionThe development of consensus‐based rules may result in a more standardized and practical definition of error in emergency medicine to be used as a QA tool and a basis for research. The most common type of rule broken was not acquiring necessary information. A rule‐based definition of medical error in emergency medicine may identify key areas for risk reduction strategies, help standardize medical QA, and improve patient care and physician education.

EVALUATION OF EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE INSTITUTION OF GENERAL SECONDARY EDUCATION

Abstract. In recent decades, the issue of the humanitarian sphere, in particular education, has been in the focus of attention of politicians, public figures, scientists, teachers, parents, because it is education that determines the future of the world, of each country, and its results directly affect the state of affairs in all other spheres of human life - political, socio-economic, cultural and scientific. Personal development is recognized as the main goal, the key indicator of modern progress, and therefore it puts forward new requirements to education, to its quality, in particular, to the quality of educational activities, as a part of a holistic pedagogical process.&#x0D; The state documents, decrees of the President of Ukraine, the Order of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the concepts define the priorities of the development of education of Ukraine in general and educational activities in particular, the main provisions of strategic changes, the corresponding legal and regulatory framework has been created and updated, practical reformation of the branch is carried out in accordance with the Conceptual Principles of Secondary School Reform «New Ukrainian School», the Conceptual Principles of National-Patriotic Education of Ukraine and the Strategy of National-Patriotic Education of Ukraine, etc.&#x0D; At the same time, the situation in educational activities, the pace and content of transformations do not sufficiently meet the needs of the individual, the government and the society. This demands updating of education and sets the task for the government to ensure the priority of pedagogical tasks, including educational ones, the urgency of solving current problems of education and personal development through improving the quality of education, the quality of pedagogical activities, including educational ones. Chapter 5 of the Act «On education» addresses the issue of quality assurance in education, noting the need to establish an internal system of quality assurance in educational institutions. Development of such system in general secondary education institutions (GSEI), definition of policies and procedures, principles, directions, tools for assessing the quality of GSEI activity are ongoing. In this context, we consider it necessary to propose a model for assessing the quality of educational activities of GSEI, developed on the basis of a qualimetric approach.&#x0D; The article defines such directions of assessment of the quality of educational activity of GSEI, as: the quality of personal development of students, the quality of development of students team, the quality of professional activity of teachers as an educators, the quality of educational environment and the conditions for ensuring educational activity.