Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Quality System (quality + system)
Selected AbstractsThe role of banned substance residue analysis in the control of dietary supplement contaminationDRUG TESTING AND ANALYSIS, Issue 9 2010Dr Catherine MG Judkins Abstract The potential for contaminated dietary supplements to result in a failed doping test remains a concern for athletes, trainers, and sporting authorities despite improvements to regulatory guidelines. Previous surveys of readily available supplements confirm that many are contaminated with steroids and stimulants prohibited for use in elite sport. Suggested responses to this issue include the complete avoidance of all supplements. Many athletes, however, use nutritional supplements to achieve effective training and also to ensure that daily nutritional requirements are met (e.g. recommended levels of vitamins and minerals). This ensures that the use of supplements is and will remain the norm for a range of sports. As a result, an alternative approach of rigorous testing of materials destined for use by elite athletes has been introduced in several countries. While the testing of final product for banned substances may help mitigate the problem, it will not help to remove the underlying issue of contamination. In this article we describe an alternative approach that uses appropriate quality assurance procedures backed up by testing to remove sources of contamination. The decrease in the incidence of contamination amongst supplement companies adopting such a system is explained, and contrasted with the relatively high incidences of contamination found in products that are not part of a quality system. These findings are of key importance to both supplement manufacturers and those involved in advising athletes about supplement use. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Processes governing river water quality identified by principal component analysisHYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES, Issue 16 2002I. Haag Abstract The present study demonstrates the usefulness of principal component analysis in condensing and interpreting multivariate time-series of water quality data. In a case study the water quality system of the lock-regulated part of the River Neckar (Germany) was analysed, with special emphasis on the oxygen budget. Pooled data of ten water quality parameters and discharge, which had been determined at six stations along a 200 km reach of the river between the years 1993 and 1998, were subjected to principal component analysis. The analysis yielded four stable principal components, explaining 72% of the total variance of the 11 parameters. The four components could be interpreted confidently in terms of underlying processes: biological activity, dilution by high discharge, seasonal effects and the influence of wastewater. From analysing the data of single stations separately, these processes were found to be active throughout the complete reach. Considering the oxygen budget of the river, the variance of biological activity, representing the counteracting processes of primary production and microbial degradation, was found to be most important. This principal component explained 79% of the observed variance of oxygen saturation. In contrast, the analysis of a reduced data set from the 1970s showed that oxygen saturation was then dominated by discharge and temperature variations. The findings indicate that the oxygen budget used to be governed directly by the emission of degradable matter, whereas nowadays eutrophication is most important for extreme oxygen concentrations. Therefore, controlling eutrophication has to be the primary goal, in order to mitigate the rare episodes of pronounced oxygen over- and undersaturation in the future. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Quality Audit in Financial Investment ServicesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AUDITING, Issue 2 2000Stanislav Karapetrovic This paper discusses the following two questions: What is a ,Quality Audit'? Why and how does it apply to financial investment services? ,Quality' in this important field of service is understood as the perception of the investor about achieving satisfactory returns, under generally accepted risks, within a planned time. The service provider normally assures this quality with due care mostly in information gathering, communication and investment decision-making. Once this quality assurance is adequately formalized and documented, a ,quality audit' can be performed. The ISO 9000 international standards and guidelines describe a quality system that can be applied to provide meaningful quality assurance in investment services. Respective quality audits are described in the ISO 10011 Quality Audit Guideline. The development of quality assurance systems and quality audits for compliance and improved performance presents benefits to both the client and the investment service provider. [source] European best practice in blood transfusion: improvement of quality-related processes in blood establishmentsISBT SCIENCE SERIES: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTRACELLULAR TRANSPORT, Issue 1 2007Christian Seidl Transfusion medicine is an expanding field comprising the interaction between several medical disciplines. Looking at the ,vein to vein process' covering the donation of blood by the voluntary donor up to the application of blood components to patients, modern blood transfusion services comprise a large variety of sociomedical functions. The production of standard cellular blood components, such as erythrocyte and thrombocyte concentrates, plasmatic blood components as well as special cellular components such as blood stem cells, mesenchymal cells or granulocytes will require an extensive laboratory testing repertoire to monitor product quality and safety. The European blood legislation has defined several key quality elements to achieve good manufacturing practice in the field of blood transfusion. In addition, GMP/GLP and ISO standards are used inter alia by blood establishments. Following the call for proposal in the field of public health by the European Commission, a consortium of blood establishments from 16 European member, acceding and EFTA states has been established in order to survey the individual quality management systems used by the participants and to developed guidelines for quality systems. These guidelines are aimed at assisting blood establishments in preparing for government inspections as required by Directive 2002/98/EC. They could also be used to adapt existing procedures to comply with current EU requirements and/or to prepare for accreditation and certification of these institutions. Major benefits from those quality management systems are (1) the definition of an overall quality policy, (2) improved personnel responsibility, qualification and training, (3) error and risk assessment system, (4) continuous improvement, (5) improved resource management, (6) performance improvement. The definition of cost,benefit relation between certification and accreditation of blood establishments will depend on the individual institution itself and the amount of processes covered. With the release of the new EU Directive 2005/62/EC, there are currently EU requirements available that describe in detail relevant processes to be covered by quality system following good practice used in blood establishments. A future challenge for transfusion medicine would be optimizing the synergetic effects expressed by the EU directive, GMP and ISO standards. [source] Consumer preference for production-derived quality: analyzing perceptions of premium chicken production methodsAGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 3 2009Brian Innes The authors assess consumer interest in a food product containing production-derived attributes. They use the French Label Rouge system in the Ontario chicken market as an example of a producer-controlled quality system. Conjoint analysis reveals a significant proportion of respondents value nonprice attributes; medication and housing had the highest importance scores, followed by price and brand ownership. Cluster analysis of the part-worth utilities revealed three consumer segments: price conscious consumers; consumers focused on naturalness; and those focused on animal health. Segments do not appear to differ on the basis of socioeconomic and demographic profile of respondents. However, multiitem scales reflecting attitudes towards production systems vary significantly across segments. Price-conscious respondents show agreement with use of medication and express concern over quality. Respondents in the naturalness segment express concern over quality, locality of production and impact of production methods on own health. Animal-health-conscious respondents show agreement with the use of medications, concern over quality, locality and impact of production methods on own health, but neutrality towards byproducts and traditional production methods. [EconLit citations: D120, Q130]. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] A novel audit model for assessing quality in non-regulated researchQUALITY ASSURANCE JOURNAL, Issue 2 2009S. G. Volsen Abstract The need for Quality standards in non-regulated research is a matter of considerable current debate. Whilst a number of such guidelines have been developed over recent years, their successful implementation remains a challenge to all. In order to assess whether research standards are indeed improving on the bench following the instigation of such a quality system, a question posed by both senior management and scientists alike, an independent compliance programme is required. However, given the lack of predicate rules, naivety to audit process and general sensitivity to external scrutiny within the scientific ranks, then work in this ,Grey Area' generates high exposure for the conventional GLP, GCP or GMP auditor. We have developed, tried, and tested a highly effective, novel audit model for assessing the quality of non-regulated research. This simple system can be applied successfully irrespective of scientific discipline or field. Whilst common principles will always apply during any quality system audit, the refinements and idiosyncrasies we describe here will, as we have found, help underpin success. Our intentional assumption is that this is a first time endeavour for the quality professional. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||