Solution For Quality Control Research Articles

Evaluating the efficiency of some methods used for urea determination in serum

The determination of accuracy , precision and efficiency were carried out in this study , Four method were used : one of them was colorimetric (monoxam method) and three enzymatic method as kits which provided by (Biomaghreb, Biosystem, Randox) , In which the comparison between the four methods were carried out by using Relative stardard deviation –RSD%, Error percentage and variation coefficient )CV) for methods under investigation.The more accurate and consensual and efficient was wein original concentration of 50 mg /100 cm3 for methods Monnoxam the number of ready-made processed Biomaghreb companies, Biosystem's, and was more accurate and agree and accuracy to focus the original 40 mg / 100 cm3 to the way many ready-processed from its parent company Randox for used urea standard Solutions.The accuracy, precision and efficiency for the fourth method were higher at 40 mg/dl for standard urea solution , In which the RSD was 0.080% error % was 1.398% and CV was 0.197%.No significant variation were indicate for urea concentration in quality control solution by using the for the fourth method in which the error% was 2.106% , while the higher precision was indicate for the second method in which the RSD 0.001 %.

Hollow-fiber flow field-flow fractionation and multi-angle light scattering as a new analytical solution for quality control in pharmaceutical nanotechnology

The rapid development of nanoproducts in pharmaceutical field highlights the need for robust analytical methods to ensure their quality and stability. Nanoparticles of different nature and composition (NPs) are employed for many purposes, such as the improvement of drug solubility/bioavailability and the controlled delivery of drugs. Among NPs features, particle size distribution (PSD) plays a fundamental role in determining NPs properties. Nevertheless the high development of different NPs, authorities such as the FDA and the European Union highlight the lack of robust characterization methods and quality control for nanomaterials.Among the techniques for the size-characterization of particles, Field-Flow Fractionation (FFF) represents a competitive choice: due to the absence of a stationary phase, the separation mechanism is gentle with total maintenance of the native properties of the analytes. In this paper the microcolumn variant of FFF, the Hollow-Fiber Flow FFF (HF5), is coupled on-line with Multi-Angle Light Scattering (MALS) for the development of methods for the characterization of NPs as quality control in new pharmaceutical field. The HF5-MALS was applied to the size characterization in different preservation conditions of silver polyvinylpyrrolidone-stabilized NPs (AgPVP) used for their antimicrobial activity. The ratio of gyration and hydrodynamic radii of AgPVP was evaluated for fresh and aged NPs, suggesting in this case aggregation rearrangement. The influence of different PVP coating and dilution factor was also studied. Finally the metal ion release was determined in relationship to these shape modifications. The HF5-MALS method is robust and reproducible and it can be considered as an important tool for the development of analytical platform for quality control of NPs.

P20. New software solution for TPS quality control

Introduction In radiation therapy, one of the most time consuming step is due to the Treatment Planning System (TPS) and quality control algorithms for the dose computations. Using Artificial Neural Network (ANN), it is possible to compute the doses inside a phantom resulting from ionizing radiations [1] , [2] . Material and methods More precisely, once the ANN is trained, it can compute a dose for every voxels of the phantom according to the beam characteristics. The main advantage is the computation time: the time-consuming step is the training of the ANN, that has to be performed only once and offline. The execution time, i.e. the dose associated to a voxel, is very low. We present an evolution of the platform presented in [3] , to take into account various field sizes and shapes, and also consider different orientation of the beam to the phantom. To validate the ANN computations, we compare them with Monte Carlo simulations. Homogeneous phantoms are used to validate interpolations on various densities and depth. Then, realistic phantoms are created to validate the dose distribution computed for a square beam in complex areas (head and neck, lungs, prostatic area). Finally, IMRT treatment simulations are validated. Results We compare the results obtained using our approach, the Eclipse TPS (AAA), and Monte Carlo simulations for a 10 cm x 10 cm photon beam on phantoms extracted from clinical data. The same procedure is applied to validate IMRT treatments. To compare the dose distributions, 3D gamma indices are computed, as well as profile extractions. For IMRT treatments, the dose distribution is computed in less than one minute on a traditional computer. Conclusions We have demonstrated the performance of our dose distribution engine for IMRT. Our goal is to provide a fast and accurate solution for TPS quality control. Therefore, we are currently working on the development of arctherapy treatment simulations.

An Internet-of-Things solution for food safety and quality control: A pilot project in China

Abstract Serval shaking-world food safety incidents happened in China recently shows that Chinese are facing with a serious problem of food safety, happened in China recently. Because food supplies are decentralized in many regions and agencies, it is very hard for the Chinese government to supervise these supplies’ businesses. Fortunately, with the help of the technologies of the Internet of Things, the food supplies can become more transparent and safer than before. Hence, on the basis of the Internet of Things, this paper introduces a pilot project in China: the Internet of Agricultural Things (AIoT for short), which integrates state-of-the-art technologies to provide a method to easily track and trace the supply processes of foods. So that, AIoT can counter the food safety problem. In AIoT, we leverage the enhanced technologies of service oriented architecture, global identification and parsing, and electronic pedigree. Especially, AIoT may fuse the sensed data from the supply chains of fresh vegetables to show an intuitive view for users, including end customers. These fusions may help the users make decisions more easily when they are buying foods or supervising the food supplies. In addition, we deploy AIoT in several application scenarios, including Lushang Ltd., the biggest food supplier in Shangdong Province. According to the deployment and evaluation of the whole platform, the enhanced technologies for the Internet of Agricultural Things are proved to be efficient and effective in improving the safety of food supplies.

A nationwide telepathology consultation and quality control program in China: implementation and result analysis.

BackgroundTelepathology may play an important role in pathology consultation and quality control for cancer diagnosis in China, as the country has the largest population of cancer patients worldwide. In 2011, the Pathology Quality Control Center of China and Ministry of Health developed and implemented a nationwide telepathology consultation and quality control program for cancer diagnosis in China. We here report the results of the two-year implementation and experiences.Methodsthe program built an Internet based telepathology platform to connect participating hospitals and expert consultants. The hardware and software used for the platform were validated in previous validation studies in China. The program had three regional centers consisting of Peking Union Medical College, Huasi Medical College of Sichuan and 2nd affiliated hospital of Zhejiang University. It also had 20 provincial consultation centers based in the provincial referral hospitals. 80 provincial or national pathologists served as expert consultants for the program, providing telepathology consultation for cancer diagnosis for more than 60 participating hospitals.Resultsfrom 2011 to July 2013, 16,247 pathology cases were submitted to the platform for consultation. Among them, 84% were due to diagnostic difficulty and 16% were due to request by patients. The preliminary diagnosis provided by submitting pathologists were in agreement with expert opinion in 59.8% of cases but was in disagreement with expert opinion in 24.2% of cases. 16.0% of cases were not provided with preliminary diagnosis. The distribution of pathology cases by system or organ were: digestive system, 17.3%; gynecologic system, 16.7%; head and neck, 15.7%; bone and soft tissue, 10.4%; lung and mediastinum, 8.6%; breast, 7.6%; urinary system, 7.5%; hematopathology, 6.4%; skin, 5.2%; neuropathology, 2.5% and cytopathology, 1.3%. Expert consultants also provided assessment of quality of slide preparation and staining, online lectures and guidance for pathology quality control.Conclusionour results of two years' implementation indicated that telepathology could solve the problem of uneven distribution of pathology resources and provide a solution for countrywide pathology quality control in China. Telepathology could play an important role in improving pathology diagnosis in China.

GMission

As one of the successful forms of using Wisdom of Crowd, crowdsourcing, has been widely used for many human intrinsic tasks, such as image labeling, natural language understanding, market predication and opinion mining. Meanwhile, with advances in pervasive technology, mobile devices, such as mobile phones and tablets, have become extremely popular. These mobile devices can work as sensors to collect multimedia data(audios, images and videos) and location information. This power makes it possible to implement the new crowdsourcing mode: spatial crowdsourcing. In spatial crowdsourcing, a requester can ask for resources related a specific location, the mobile users who would like to take the task will travel to that place and get the data. Due to the rapid growth of mobile device uses, spatial crowdsourcing is likely to become more popular than general crowdsourcing, such as Amazon Turk and Crowdflower. However, to implement such a platform, effective and efficient solutions for worker incentives, task assignment, result aggregation and data quality control must be developed. In this demo, we will introduce gMission, a general spatial crowdsourcing platform, which features with a collection of novel techniques, including geographic sensing, worker detection, and task recommendation. We introduce the sketch of system architecture and illustrate scenarios via several case analysis.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION OF MACHINE VISION

Abstract— Inspection of components using machine vision technologies provides solution for quality and process control. Various applications of Machine vision technologies are automotive, Pharmaceutical, food and beverage, electronics, packages, process control and special application. In this paper dimensional measurement, optical character reorganization, process control using image processing, checking of presence and absence of finished product parts in the production line are discussed. The basic idea of this paper is to make aware of machine vision technology and to improve the production quality, reduce the scrap product due to non-conformity by controlling the manufacturing process through machine vision and also to prevent the value addition for scrap product in the subsequent stage of manufacturing process. various projects discussed in this paper are implemented and proof of concepts are shown to the manufacturer.

Quality Control (QC) procedures for Australia’s National Reference Station’s sensor data—Comparing semi-autonomous systems to an expert oceanographer

The National Reference Station (NRS) network, part of Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), is designed to provide the baseline multi-decadal time series required to understand how large-scale, long-term change and variability in the global ocean are affecting Australia’s coastal ocean ecosystems. High temporal resolution observations of oceanographic variables are taken continuously across the network’s nine moored stations using a Water Quality Monitor (WQM) multi-sensor. The data collected are made freely available and thus need to be assessed to ensure their consistency and fitness-for-use prior to release. Here, we describe a hybrid quality control system comprising a series of tests to provide QC flags for these data and an experimental ‘fuzzy logic’ approach to assessing data. This approach extends the qualitative pass/fail approach of the QC flags to a quantitative system that provides estimates of uncertainty around each data point. We compared the results obtained from running these two assessment schemes on a common dataset to those produced by an independent manual QC undertaken by an expert oceanographer. The qualitative flag and quantitative fuzzy logic QC assessments were shown to be highly correlated and capable of flagging samples that were clearly erroneous. In general, however, the quality assessments of the two QC schemes did not accurately match those of the oceanographer, with the semi-automated QC schemes being far more conservative in flagging samples as ‘bad’. The conservative nature of the semi-automated systems does, however, provide a solution for QC with a known risk. Our software systems should thus be seen as robust low-pass filters of the data with subsequent expert review of data flagged as ‘bad’ to be recommended.

A Strategy for Logistic Quality Control in Micro Bulk Production

A continuous trend to function integration, miniaturization and densification opens new opportunities in industry and research. To manufacture micro products, tools, materials and technologies have to be scaled down from the macro to the micro domain. Thereby, a downscaling of classical processes leads to unexpected process behavior, so called size effects. Additionally, new challenges arise for in-process quality inspection based on the dimension of the micro products which requires microscopic solutions for reliable quality control. To handle these challenges in mass production, new strategies for the planning of logistic processes with a focus on logistic quality parameters are necessary. This contribution introduces a closed-loop quality control strategy for bulk production in micro cold forming. A discrete event simulation model incorporating characteristics of optical quality inspection and general process parameters allows the quantification of the system's performance.

Towards the Integration of Mobile Augmented Reality within an Aluminium Process Fault Detection and Diagnosis System

Mobile Augmented Reality (AR), which mixes the real world and the virtual world on hand-held devices, is a growing area of the manufacturing industry. Since mobile AR can be used to augment a users view of an industry plant, it provides alternative solutions for design, quality control, monitoring and control, service, and maintenance in complex process industries, such as the aluminium smelting industry. The objective of this paper is to discuss the integration of mobile AR within an aluminium industrial plant, in order to achieve effective fault detection and diagnosis. The possible integration of mobile AR within an aluminium fault detection and diagnosis system is shown with regard to four main functions, namely (1) plant information system, (2) fault history, (3) interactive troubleshooting, and (4) statistical analysis results. This paper opens up possible future works, where the potential use of mobile AR can be explored as an additional user interface component, for increasing the effectiveness of process monitoring within the aluminium smelting process.

Interferencia de la bilirrubina en la medición del paracetamol por el método del indofenol en el analizador Dimension® EXL™

BackgroundBlood levels of acetaminophen (paracetamol) are measured routinely in large acetaminophen overdoses or when poisoning is suspected, in order to predict the likelihood of hepatotoxicity. However some cases of spurious acetaminophen levels have been reported in jaundiced patients. Material and methodsThe interference of bilirubin in acetaminophen measurements was studied on the Dimension® EXL™ by preparing a primary mixture of bilirubin at 800 mg/dL, which was spiked to a quality control solution with high acetaminophen concentration in order to get a bilirrubin concentration of 40 mg/dl on the mixture. Acetaminophen concentration was measured in the mixture with bilirubin and in reference solution without bilirubin. Interference was assessed and quantified by diluting the bilirubin solution to achieve final concentrations of 20, 10, 5, 2.5, 1.25 and 0.625mg/dl (342, 171, 85.5, 42.75, 21.37 and 19.69μmol/l). A graph of the interference was obtained showing the bias of acetaminophen concentrations with reference solution vs. increasing bilirubin concentrations. ResultsAcetaminophen concentrations in both solutions followed Gaussian distributions. The t test showed significant negative interference at bilirubin concentrations higher to 5mg/dl (85.5μmol/l), which means that blood acetaminophen concentrations must be interpreted with caution in cases of hyperbilirubinemia.

User-friendly solutions for microarray quality control and pre-processing on ArrayAnalysis.org

Quality control (QC) is crucial for any scientific method producing data. Applying adequate QC introduces new challenges in the genomics field where large amounts of data are produced with complex technologies. For DNA microarrays, specific algorithms for QC and pre-processing including normalization have been developed by the scientific community, especially for expression chips of the Affymetrix platform. Many of these have been implemented in the statistical scripting language R and are available from the Bioconductor repository. However, application is hampered by lack of integrative tools that can be used by users of any experience level. To fill this gap, we developed a freely available tool for QC and pre-processing of Affymetrix gene expression results, extending, integrating and harmonizing functionality of Bioconductor packages. The tool can be easily accessed through a wizard-like web portal at http://www.arrayanalysis.org or downloaded for local use in R. The portal provides extensive documentation, including user guides, interpretation help with real output illustrations and detailed technical documentation. It assists newcomers to the field in performing state-of-the-art QC and pre-processing while offering data analysts an integral open-source package. Providing the scientific community with this easily accessible tool will allow improving data quality and reuse and adoption of standards.

Method of accurately measuring silicon sphere density difference based on hydrostatic suspension principls

The micro density difference between silicon single crystal spheres is not only important for the research on the redefinition of Avogadro constant based on quantum standard, but also a key solution for quality control for the production of silicon single crystal with ultra-high purity in semi-conductor industry. To overcome the complexity of non-contact laser interferometer method and improve the accuracy of hydro-weight method, a method based on the hydrostatic suspension principle is realized. The silicon single spheres to be measured are immersed into mixture liquid including 1,2,3-tribromopropane and 1,2-dibromoethane, and floated freely by adjusting the temperature and pressure of the liquid. The micro density difference between two silicon single crystal spheres is calculated based on a mathematical model by using liquid temperature, pressure, and central floatation height difference in the floatation condition. The stable constant temperature liquid with maximal error ± 100 μ K is realized by two-cycle water bath and PID control system. The floatation height of silicon single crystal sphere is determined by binary image and iterative algorithm. The stable suspension is achieved by the PID pressure control system, and the temperature fluctuation due to Joule-Thomson effect is reduced. By means of linearity between changes of temperature and pressure in hydrostatic suspension model, the compressibility of mixture liquid is measured. The experimental results show that the influence from liquid surface tension is avoided by using the hydrostatic suspension method, and accurate measurement of density difference between silicon single crystal spheres can be achieved with an uncertainty of 2.1× 10-7 (expand factor k=1).

Self-Formation of Optic Cups and Storable Stratified Neural Retina from Human ESCs

In this report, we demonstrate that an optic cup structure can form by self-organization in human ESC culture. The human ESC-derived optic cup is much larger than the mouse ESC-derived one, presumably reflecting the species differences. The neural retina in human ESC culture is thick and spontaneously curves in an apically convex manner, which is not seen in mouse ESC culture. In addition, human ESC-derived neural retina grows into multilayered tissue containing both rods and cones, whereas cone differentiation is rare in mouse ESC culture. The accumulation of photoreceptors in human ESC culture can be greatly accelerated by Notch inhibition. In addition, we show that an optimized vitrification method enables en bloc cryopreservation of stratified neural retina of human origin. This storage method at an intermediate step during the time-consuming differentiation process provides a versatile solution for quality control in large-scale preparation of clinical-grade retinal tissues.

Asphalt Mixture Beams Used in Bending Beam Rheometer for Quality Control

This paper introduces the use of asphalt mixture beams in the bending beam rheometer (BBR) for quality control with a project in Utah as a case study. A good solution for quality control, the BBR test can be performed by materials laboratory staff at highway agencies and private materials laboratories because it is reasonably priced, is rugged-tested, uses limited material, is conditioned quickly, is available, and is familiar to staff at materials laboratories for everyday mix design and quality control. The paper begins with a literature review of past research work in support of using BBR tests to measure properties of asphalt mixture beams. An asphalt construction project in Utah was selected to demonstrate the applicability of using asphalt mixture beams in the BBR for quality control. Field samples obtained from the project in Utah were shipped to the laboratory, where comparisons of low-temperature properties of asphalt mixtures were done with the BBR. Results easily showed an anomaly on two paving days, when the m value (slope of the curve) was higher than normal. Because of this irregularity, further testing was initiated with the indirect tension test performed at the Asphalt Institute; the test confirmed the results from the BBR. On the basis of results and demonstration, it is clear that using asphalt mixture beams in the BBR is feasible for quality control to evaluate the performance of constructed materials. The application of using asphalt mixture beams in the BBR can be easily adopted by highway agencies to facilitate quality control operations in asphalt construction.

Rapid analyses of oil and fat content in agri‐food products using continuous wave free precession time domain NMR

Time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR) is one of the most popular solutions for quality control in the food industry. Despite the recognized success of TD-NMR in quality control and quality assurance, the speed by which samples can be characterized by TD-NMR techniques is still a concern, primarily when considering online or high-throughput applications. Therefore, to enhance the speed of TD-NMR analysis, we developed rapid methods based on steady-state free precession of nuclear spins, which we denoted continuous wave free precession (CWFP). CWFP substantially increases the sensitivity of TD-NMR compared with free induction decay or spin-echo detection, which are traditionally used. The objective of this paper was to present the physical background of CWFP and review its recent developments and applications in fat and oil quantifications in agri-food products.

An Improving Approach for 6σ-Based Multi-Process Machining Environement

In the 6σ-based product quality management system, influencing factors of 5M1E (man, machine, material, method, measure and environment) are the key points to ensure the quality of products reach 6σ level. However, because the traditional quality control methods only focus on the factors of machine, material, method and measure but ignore the factors of man and environment and their relationship on product quality, the 6σ level objective of product quality cannot be implemented well. As such, this study proposes an improving approach for 6σ-based multi-process machining environment whose objective is to build the connection relationship and model among operating environment, workers and product quality. Through adjusting the values of operating environmental parameters, the behaviors of workers on machines can be controlled and the product quality can be improved. This study provides a new solution for 6σ-based product quality control and management.

BioSig: the free and open source software library for biomedical signal processing.

BioSig is an open source software library for biomedical signal processing. The aim of the BioSig project is to foster research in biomedical signal processing by providing free and open source software tools for many different application areas. Some of the areas where BioSig can be employed are neuroinformatics, brain-computer interfaces, neurophysiology, psychology, cardiovascular systems, and sleep research. Moreover, the analysis of biosignals such as the electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocorticogram (ECoG), electrocardiogram (ECG), electrooculogram (EOG), electromyogram (EMG), or respiration signals is a very relevant element of the BioSig project. Specifically, BioSig provides solutions for data acquisition, artifact processing, quality control, feature extraction, classification, modeling, and data visualization, to name a few. In this paper, we highlight several methods to help students and researchers to work more efficiently with biomedical signals.

Report on the Barbados Workshop

Report on the Barbados Workshop

Detecting moisture loss of carrot samples during storage by hyperspectral imaging system

Moisture-content is one of the most significant properties to determine quality of carrot during storage. The optical measurement methods of moisture content promise non-destructive, non-contact and fast solution for quality control, for monitoring quality changes during storage and also for real-time classification tasks. The high absorption coefficient of water makes NIR analysers a commonly used tool for accurate moisture analysis. Hyperspectral system is able to detect the spatial distribution of reflectance spectrum as well. In case of finding correlation between the moisture-content of carrot and the reflectance spectral data, a hyperspectral system would be suitable for testing quality. Experiments were made to investigate spectral changes of different cultivars and different tissues of carrot stored under different conditions. Moisture-decrease of pieces and also the spectral data of carrot slices were recorded. Statistical analysis of the data has shown the optimal intensity function to describe moisture-content. Eliminating homogeneous spectral changes caused by destructed tissues, only a narrow interval of NIR range was sensitive to the moisture-decrease of xylem tissues. The equipment and the measurement procedure were able to identify carrot tissues and detect their changes during drying. For non-destructive applications of the system, further experiments are needed to inspect the behaviour of rhizodermis.