Quality Seal Research Articles

CDIO as a Foundation for Program Accreditation/Certification in Portugal

This document describes two initiatives for accreditation/certification of first and second cycle Bologna programs in Portugal. One initiative was started by the National Agency for Program Evaluation and Accreditation and is mandatory for all Bologna programs. The other initiative was launched by the Portuguese Professional Engineering Association and aims to certify, at the European level, Bologna second cycle engineering programs with the EUR-ACE quality seal. Both initiatives are essentially evidence-based and stress the importance of having an operating quality assurance system to support and monitor program execution. The Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) experience with the CDIO and EUR-ACE frameworks is described and strong points highlighted in this article. In the end, the authors propose that combining CDIO and EUR-ACE may bring added value, because CDIO is more oriented to program operation and EUR-ACE more oriented to program management. The authors also propose the CDIO Syllabus as the link between CDIO and EUR-ACE.

A Selection of Possible Pitfalls on the Usage of Empirical Models in the Rational Seal Design Method of South Africa

A large portion of surfaced roads in Zambia have asphalt as part of their pavement structure. Most of these surfaces and to some extent base layers are in a deplorable state. This situation, coupled with unfavorable economic conditions, leaves highway authorities with a huge backlog on highways sustainability. The past practice of “worst-first” is still a common principle other than maintaining pavements earlier in their service life to reduce life cycle costs. In order to include pavement preservation as a pavement network strategy, road surface sealing is adopted. This paper is focused on a selection of possible pitfalls on the usage of empirical models in the rational flexible road surfacing seal design of South Africa, which is commonly used in Zambia. The aggregates, fillers (dust) and bitumen used in surface seal coats vary to a large extent and with the availability of good quality natural materials becoming less, the challenges in providing good quality seal coats are increasing. Since the emphasis is based on failures rather than successes, few answers are provided on the number of questions that usually arise from seal coat design and the aim is to create awareness on some possible pitfalls for using the rational seal design method. The paper emphasizes on design aspects that are not addressed in the Interim guidelines for the design and construction of seal coats in South Africa (Technical Recommendations for Highways (TRH3, 2007)). A few case studies from recent projects in Zambia are also included and evaluated.

A Selection of Possible Pitfalls on the Usage of Empirical Models in the Rational Seal Design Method of South Africa

A large portion of surfaced roads in Zambia have asphalt as part of their pavement structure. Most of these surfaces and to some extent base layers are in a deplorable state. This situation, coupled with unfavorable economic conditions, leaves highway authorities with a huge backlog on highways sustainability. The past practice of “worst-first” is still a common principle other than maintaining pavements earlier in their service life to reduce life cycle costs. In order to include pavement preservation as a pavement network strategy, road surface sealing is adopted. This paper is focused on a selection of possible pitfalls on the usage of empirical models in the rational flexible road surfacing seal design of South Africa, which is commonly used in Zambia. The aggregates, fillers (dust) and bitumen used in surface seal coats vary to a large extent and with the availability of good quality natural materials becoming less, the challenges in providing good quality seal coats are increasing. Since the emphasis is based on failures rather than successes, few answers are provided on the number of questions that usually arise from seal coat design and the aim is to create awareness on some possible pitfalls for using the rational seal design method. The paper emphasizes on design aspects that are not addressed in the Interim guidelines for the design and construction of seal coats in South Africa (Technical Recommendations for Highways (TRH3, 2007)). A few case studies from recent projects in Zambia are also included and evaluated.

El sistema de gestión de calidad: elemento para la competitividad y la sostenibilidad de la producción agropecuaria colombiana

En las condiciones de creciente globalización de los mercados, cambio en los hábitos de consumo, frecuente aparición de brotes de enfermedades transmitidas por alimentos (ETAS), las organizaciones sociales y los gobiernos buscan que la producción y provisión de alimentos incluya el aseguramiento de lainocuidad en todos los eslabones de la cadena. Una de las formas para lograrlo, es la implementación de un Sistema de Gestión de Calidad (SGC) con #nes de certi#cación en las unidades productivas agropecuarias; el proceso aborda la #nca desde la óptica de la teoría general de los sistemas, con#gurada por subsistemas productivos y de soporte; en ellos se desarrollan actividades tanto técnicas como administrativas que buscan optimizar los procesos, manteniendo criterios de sostenibilidad y responsabilidad social con el #n de lograr la producción de alimentos con criterios de calidad previamente establecidos. El proceso de desarrollo e implementación del SGC requiere la construcción y puesta en funcionamiento de documentos o manuales soporte en aspectos administrativos, productivos y de organización de productores, que están estructurados para responder a las exigencias de una norma, protocolo o código de conducta, su cumplimiento se verifica a través de auditorías que pueden llevar al otorgamiento de la certi#cación o sello de calidad del producto o servicio, el proceso se puede desarrollar de forma individual por un productor, o por una organización de<br />productores.

A Pillar For Successful Business School Accreditation: Conducting The Curriculum Review Process A Systematic Approach

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) describes their accreditation as the hallmark of business education. According to information at BestBizSchools.com (n.d.), AACSB accreditation represents the highest standard of achievement for business schools worldwide. Being AACSB accredited means a business school is able to continuously pass a strict set of standards that ensure quality. As of December 2010, only 5%, or 607, of the academic business programs globally were accredited by AACSB. This number represents schools in 38 countries where the majority of programs incorporate both undergraduate and graduate education covering business, accounting, or both. An institution must be a member of AACSB in order to apply for accreditation. It is important to note, however, that membership does not imply that the program is accredited (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, n.d.-a). Recent emphasis demanding external validation on the quality of Business Schools has resulted in the promotion of AACSB accreditation as the de facto quality standard. Earning this quality seal of approval, business programs can verify they have met the 21 AACSB standards that cover strategic, participant, and assurance of learning achievements and processes. Programs with AACSB accreditation are encouraged to promote the standard using it to externally validate their quality and to market their programs to external groups including students, employers, and contributors (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, n.d.-b). Despite established standards, no single approach to meeting standards for accreditation is suggested by AACSB. Rather, varying approaches to meeting standards should be developed to fit individual programs of institutions (Bryant & Scherer, 2009). This position by AACSB underscores its recognition of the diversity across accredited programs and allows educators wide latitude in developing and implementing approaches to excellence. Small programs are not disadvantaged so long as their students, faculty, graduates, and the employers who hire them receive the quality outputs that help them meet the external competitive requirements (Olian, 2007). In recognition of member institutions diversity, the AACSB has established the Affinity Group program where school administrators from schools sharing similar characteristics can interact, exchange ideas, and present views on a wide range of issues (Olian, 2007). This allows AACSB member schools, who have varying missions and constituents, to find and link with other programs of a similar nature where creativity and synergy can more easily occur. The AACSB wants the accreditation process to help facilitate creativity in designing business school strategies rather than being viewed as an impediment to a programs push to quality (Romero, 2008).

Dual Micropores in Glass Substrates for Ion Channel and Gap Junction Recording

Despite the commercial success of automated high-throughput patch clamp technologies, instruments on the market typically cannot match the quality of single-channel recordings obtained by traditional patch clamp experiments with glass micropipettes. In automated approaches that use suction to position a cell to a micropore, the inner surface of the pore can be contaminated with proteins in solution prior to seal formation. Traditional patch clamping avoids this problem by applying a positive pressure to the micropipette prior to contacting the cell membrane, which enables significantly higher electrical seal resistances. This research aims to develop a universal platform for high-quality transport assays on glass chips that circumvents the problem of surface contamination and takes advantage of the high seal resistances and low capacitive current noise realized with glass substrates. Femtosecond laser ablation is used to fabricate a pair of micropores in close proximity to each other (distance < 5 µm) in glass, while the access channels to these pores are kept separate. This configuration makes it possible to use one pore for automated positioning of a cell by suction, while the other pore is kept clean by applying positive pressure. Once the cell is pre-positioned onto the first pore, suction may be applied to the second pore to establish a high quality seal that could be used to interrogate individual transmembrane transporter proteins and single ion channel proteins. In addition, this dual micropore configuration may enable the first automated gap junction recordings, bypassing the difficulties of manually positioning two micropipettes.

Who’s Afraid of Evidence-Based Surgical Practice?

Who’s Afraid of Evidence-Based Surgical Practice?

Quality of Electronic Health Records ‐ Coverage of Potential Information Weaknesses by Major EHR Quality Seals

Objectives: The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) and EuroRec offer the most prominent functional approaches to Electronic Health Record quality certification in the US and Europe. The current study aims at the analysis of these approaches from the perspective of weaknesses in information exchange. Furthermore, the implicit coverage of the information dimension within their functional requirements is analyzed. Methods: The quality frameworks from the CCHIT and EuroRec were compared to a comprehensive and universal categorization of communication errors in order to determine the communication problems anticipated by these two approaches. Results: The approaches of the CCHIT and EuroRec anticipate nearly the same communication errors but their number with regard to the error categorization is rather low. The two approaches include problem classes, such as authorization problems, wrong details in data, data loss, and poor quality content. Areas that are not covered include application errors, errors with regard to information transcription, etc. Conclusion: The current study points out that the approaches of the CCHIT and EuroRec only cover a small part of the possible communication errors with their functional requirements. Therefore, an integration of the identified, missing errors in the requirements proposed by CCHIT and EuroRec should be closely considered.

Opiniões e atitudes dos consumidores em relação a embalagens e rótulos de cachaça

A técnica de grupo de foco foi utilizada para obter informações detalhadas a respeito das opiniões e atitudes dos consumidores em relação a embalagens e rótulos de cachaça. Objetivou-se gerar informações para os produtores do setor de cachaça e aumentar a competitividade desse produto no mercado. Foram realizadas três sessões de 90 minutos com oito participantes em cada. Quatro embalagens de cachaça foram apresentadas, separadamente e, para cada apresentação, foi seguido um roteiro de perguntas, previamente elaborado. Verificou-se que os participantes não aprovam a garrafa de vidro de cor âmbar com tampa metálica tipo coroa (igual à da garrafa de cerveja) para acondicionar cachaça, porém preferem a garrafa de vidro incolor com capacidade igual a 700 mL e com tampa metálica rosqueável e ilustrações do rótulo que estejam relacionadas com o processo produtivo de cachaça. A marca, selos de qualidade, premiações recebidas e as informações a respeito do local onde a cachaça foi produzida, do tempo de envelhecimento e do tipo de madeira do tonel no qual a cachaça foi envelhecida também influenciam na compra de cachaça. Observou-se ainda que os participantes apresentaram um padrão de preferência, sendo a maioria influenciada pelos mesmos fatores, no momento da compra de cachaça.

The development of high quality seals for silicon patch-clamp chips

Planar patch-clamp is a two-dimensional variation of traditional patch-clamp. By contrast to classical glass micropipette, the seal quality of silicon patch-clamp chips (i.e. seal resistance and seal success rate) have remained poor due to the planar geometry and the nature of the substrate and thus partially obliterate the advantages related to planar patch-clamp. The characterization of physical parameters involved in seal formation is thus of major interest. In this paper, we demonstrate that the physical characterization of surfaces by a set of techniques (Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), surface energy (polar and dispersive contributions), drop angles, impedance spectroscopy, combined with a statistical design of experiments (DOE)) allowed us discriminating chips that provide relevant performances for planar patch-clamp analysis. Analyses of seal quality demonstrate that dispersive interactions and micropore size are the most crucial physical parameters of chip surfaces, by contrast to surface roughness and dielectric membrane thickness. This multi-scale study combined with electrophysiological validation of chips on a diverse set of cell-types expressing various ion channels (IRK1, hERG and hNa v1.5 channels) unveiled a suitable patch-clamp chip candidate. This original approach may inspire novel strategies for selecting appropriate surface parameters dedicated to biochips.

The 2009 Version of the Cancer Protocols of the College of American Pathologists: A Continuing Journey From “Guidelines for Pathologists” to “Standards for Multidisciplinary Comprehensive Cancer Care”

The 2009 Version of the Cancer Protocols of the College of American Pathologists: A Continuing Journey From “Guidelines for Pathologists” to “Standards for Multidisciplinary Comprehensive Cancer Care”

Establishing strategic CSR in SMEs: an Austrian CSR quality seal to substantiate the strategic CSR performance

AbstractIntegrating CSR into their strategy system can help enterprises to produce a competitive advantage. This can both add to their long‐term prosperity and help increase overall sustainability, provided they use a broad, dynamic approach to CSR that is compatible with strategic management. SMEs in particular often feature excellent responsibility performance, without realizing it and without trying to benefit from it.In Austria, as in other countries, SMEs often suppose CSR to be a domain of large enterprises: too bureaucratic, expensive, time‐consuming and complex. This paper presents a case from Austria, the development of an official CSR Quality Seal directed at SMEs to help them communicate their sustainability performance effectively and display a visible sign for their stakeholders. The seal was devised to meet objections to the application of standardized CSR tools in industry, especially in SMEs. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

¿Cómo son las páginas webs de los laboratorios farmacéuticos dirigidas a los usuarios?

Objective To describe the content and structure of the websites of pharmaceutical companies (PC) with health information to patients. Design Descriptive, cross-sectional. Main measurements health topics treated, and 9 sections: objectives and target population; editorial policy, authoring, updating of content, personal data protection, interactivity, accessibility, advertising labels. Setting Internet. Participants All PC websites with patient health information in Spanish. Results We studied 60 sites found. Most common: 19.3% neurology, mental health and 12% digestive diseases. Few specify the address of the person responsible for the site (51.7%), responsible for quality (10%) or the authors of the text (15%). Nearly 2/3 show the date of publication of content (66.7%), but only 13.3% updated. Privacy and data protection are mentioned in 65%, with only 28.3% allowing control of the use of personal data. Only 10% allow expressing doubts online and 1/3 of the sites have frequently asked questions. A total of 41.7% omitted to say their information does not replace medical advice. Educational materials (for children) can be downloaded in 11.7%. Almost all (93.3%) adapted their language to the recipient, but none are accessible to disabled people. The majority (86.7%) have the company logo on all pages. Only 16.7% are fronts for advertising, and only 9 sites have a quality seal (HONcode). Conclusions Pages are designed to give superficial information on a disease than directly advertise a particular brand or active ingredient. However, their reliability has to be low due to the authors and sources of information being unknown. If Internet health information was truthful and backed up by authors or appropriate information sources, the Internet could well be a genuine health education tool.

Yield and olive oil characteristics of a low-density orchard (cv. Cordovil) subjected to different irrigation regimes

Abstract The impact of different irrigation scheduling regimes on the quantity and quality of olive oil from a low-density olive grove in southern Portugal was assessed during the irrigation seasons of 2006 and 2007. Olive trees were subjected to one of the following treatments: A—full irrigation; B—sustained deficit irrigation (SDI) with 60% of ETc water applied with irrigation; C—regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) with irrigation water applied at three critical phases: before flowering, at the beginning of pit hardening and before crop harvesting and D—rain-fed treatment. Olive oil yield was significantly higher than rain-fed conditions in 2006, an “on year” of significant rainfall during summer. No significant yield differences were observed in the following “off year”. Among the irrigated treatments, olive oil production of treatment B was 32.5% and 40.1% higher in 2006 and 2007, respectively than the fully irrigated treatment A, despite receiving 49% less irrigation water. Such strategy could allow for an efficient use of water in the region, of very limited available resources, and for modest but important oil yield increase. Nonetheless, on the “on year” of 2006 treatment C used 13.9% of the water applied to treatment B and produced only 23.9% less olive fruits which could also make it illegible as the next possible strategy to use for irrigating olive trees in the region, provided that water is secured latter in the summer, a period of vital importance for oil accumulation and very sensitive to water stress as the poor results of 2007 revealed. The different treatment water regimes did not impact on the chemical characteristics of olive oils that were within the set threshold limits. Similarly, the sensory characteristics of the olive oils as well as bitterness and pungency were negligible for all treatments allowing them to be assessed as of “superior quality”.Overall, irrigation treatments had no influence on the commercial value of produced oils, being all classified as “extra virgin”. Such funding may be of vital importance to farmers willing to further their irrigation area, save water and still retain the protected designation of origin (PDO) seal of quality for their oil.

Utility to Consumers and Consumer Acceptance of Information on Beef Labels in Southern Chile

Credence attributes (production system, animal welfare, traceability, among others) have acquired importance for meat products in developed countries, representing information that must be included on label. A personal survey was administered to 770 consumers in the Bio-Bio and La Araucania Regions, Chile, to determine the utility of information contained on the label and acceptance of information referred to as credence attributes, as well as to distinguish different consumer segments. The packaging and expiry dates were the most useful aspects of the current information. The greatest degree of agreement with respect to information that should be included was a quality seal, type of animal, handling regarding animal welfare, production system and feeding. Using cluster analysis, three segments were distinguished. The largest (49.2%) agreed most strongly with including information about feeding, transport conditions, slaughtering, traceability, and production system. The second group (34.4%) was indifferent to information about transport, slaughter and traceability. The smallest segment (16.4%) disagreed with including information on slaughtering. Therefore, the information currently present on meat labels was useful for consumers, who would also value having information on the credence attributes associated with cattle production, such as production system, feeding and animal welfare.

Patientenorientierung im Internet – qualitative Bewertung von Internetseiten für Multiple-Sklerose-Betroffene

Over the last years, the importance of the internet concerning patient information and communication has increased. This tendency is especially seen among patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). However, in spite of its popularity the internet lacks of regulations with respect to quality and sufficiency for the medical communication process. There is a need for an evaluation of the quality of websites and for the development of quality tools. Analysis of 3 information provider groups (patient organisations, commercial and private providers) from Germany revealed only a moderate quality of websites for patients with MS and no statistically significant differences regarding website quality. For websites of patient organisations there was a tendency showing a higher differentiation and there are some websites of good quality. The implementation of a mandatory certification for patient websites or of a general seal of quality should be discussed.

Stochastic evaluation of fluvial to marginal marine sealing facies

Hydrocarbon top seal analyses are particularly difficult in fluvial and marginal marine settings. Although these settings often contain beds comprised of a low-permeability, clay-rich lithology associated with high quality seals, their presence does not guarantee an effective seal because individual beds within the stratal unit may be laterally discontinuous. Lateral facies changes, truncation of fine-grained beds, or the presence of crevasse splays may provide cross-stratal migration pathways, reducing the effective sealing capacity to a magnitude less than the closure height. To evaluate probable bed seal capacities in such a setting, we have calculated 75 statistically equivalent geologic models of a heterogeneous bed seal based upon facies interpretations derived from measured data. Measured capillary and hydraulic properties of rocks in each facies were then fit to Gaussian distributions. We populated the geologic models with flow properties by randomly selecting from these distributions. Two realizations of the rock property distributions were performed for each of the 75 object-based geologic models. Gas charge was simulated in each of the rock property model trials using a percolation-based hydrocarbon migration software program. The results of the simulations return a probability distribution of bed seal capacities, measured in equilibrium gas column heights, from which cumulative frequency diagrams and percentile rankings may be derived. Channel amalgamation by incision juxtaposing levee overbank and/or channel facies formed the most common type of cross-stratal leak point. A factor of 10 difference in the P50 seal capacity was observed by varying the net volume fraction of channels from 10% to 30%. Higher seal capacity realizations were found to have a low density of channels near the structural crest, a variable which outweighs all other stochastic parameters. These results highlight the importance of a risking-based methodology to account for variability in bed seal stratigraphy in fluvial to marginal marine settings.

PA.NET International Quality Certification Protocol for blood pressure monitors

Although standard validation protocols provide assurance of the accuracy of blood pressure monitors (BPMs), there is no guidance for the consumer as to the overall quality of a device. The PA.NET International Quality Certification Protocol, developed by the Association for Research and Development of Biomedical Technologies and for Continuing Medical Education (ARSMED), a nonprofit organization, with the support of the Italian Society of Hypertension-Italian Hypertension League, and the dabl Educational Trust denotes additional criteria of quality for BPMs that fulfilled basic validation criteria, published in full in peer-reviewed medical journals. The certification is characterized by three phases: (i) to determine that the device fulfilled standard validation criteria; (ii) to determine the technical and functional characteristics of the device (e.g. operativity, display dimension, accessory functions, memory availability, etc.) and (iii) to determine the commercial characteristics (e.g. price-quality ratio, after-sale service, guarantee, etc.). At the end of the certification process, ARSMED attributes a quality index to the device, based on a scale ranging from 1 to 100, and a quality seal with four different grades (bronze, silver, gold and diamond) according to the achieved score. The seal is identified by a unique alphanumeric code. The quality seal may be used on the packaging of the appliance or in advertising. A quality certification is released to the manufacturer and published on www.pressionearteriosa.net and www.dableducational.org. The PA.NET International Quality Certification Protocol represents the first attempt to provide health care personnel and consumers with an independent and objective assessment of BPMs based on their quality.

What Californians Understand about Privacy Online

The volume of online commerce grows every year, in absence of a federal law setting baseline protections for the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. Instead, information collected by websites are governed by individual policies.In order to gauge Californians' understanding of policies and default rules in the online environment, we commissioned a representative survey of adults in the State (N=991). The telephonic survey of Spanish and English speakers was conducted by the Survey Research Center of University of California, Berkeley.A gulf exists between California consumers' understanding of online rules and common business practices. For instance, Californians who shop online believe that policies prohibit third-party information sharing. A majority of Californians believes that policies create the right to require a website to delete personal information upon request, a general right to sue for damages, a right to be informed of security breaches, a right to assistance if identity theft occurs, and a right to access and correct data.These findings show that California consumers overvalue the mere fact that a website has a policy, and assume that websites carrying the label have strong, default rules to protect personal data. In a way, consumers interpret privacy policy as a quality seal that denotes adherence to some set of standards. Website operators have little incentive to correct this misperception, thus limiting the ability of the market to produce outcomes consistent with consumers' expectations. Drawing upon earlier work, we conclude that because the term privacy policy has taken on a specific meaning in the minds of consumers, its use should be limited to contexts where businesses provide a set of protections that meet consumers' expectations.

Aktuelle Bestandsaufnahme externer Qualitätssicherungsverfahren im Bereich geriatrischer Rehabilitation

Seven standardized external quality assurance (QA) procedures are currently being applied in geriatric rehabilitation in Germany. Five of these procedures are case-based (Gemidas, GiB-DAT, KODAS, EVA-Reha, Evaluation Procedures of the Medical Review Board of Saxony), and two are institution-based (Quality Seal for Geriatric Rehabilitation in Rhineland-Palatinate, Quality Seal for Geriatrics BAG KGE). The institution-based procedures focus on the quality dimensions "structure" and "process", whereas the case-based procedures mainly focus on the collection of administrative data, and to a limited extent on the quality dimensions "outcomes" and "patient satisfaction". The outcome quality parameters used in the case-based QA procedures are usually the "place of discharge" versus the "place of residence", the "improvement in coping with daily activities" (mostly based on the Barthel Index), and the "improvement in mobility and gait" (based on the Timed Up & Go). So far, outcomes to be specified at the beginning of rehabilitation measures have only been defined in few procedures, and only to a basic degree or on a trial basis. In the institution-based procedures, the data are mainly collected by external data collectors, whereas in the case-based procedures, they are collected by the service providers themselves. In most procedures, data processing and analysis are performed independently of the participating service providers but only partly independently of the agency responsible for the procedure and the whole group of service providers. In the case-based procedures, risk adjustment techniques are not routinely applied in comparisons between institutions. Attempts to implement standardised QA procedures in geriatric rehabilitation may be based on existing procedures and should use this appraisal for developing them further, however taking more into account QA aspects specific to geriatrics.