TEI and LMF crosswalks

The present paper explores various arguments in favour of making the Text Encoding Initia-tive (TEI) guidelines an appropriate serialisation for ISO standard 24613:2008 (LMF, Lexi-cal Mark-up Framework) . It also identifies the issues that would have to be resolved in order to reach an appropriate implementation of these ideas, in particular in terms of infor-mational coverage. We show how the customisation facilities offered by the TEI guidelines can provide an adequate background, not only to cover missing components within the current Dictionary chapter of the TEI guidelines, but also to allow specific lexical projects to deal with local constraints. We expect this proposal to be a basis for a future ISO project in the context of the on going revision of LMF

Assessing The Level Of Compliance With Iso 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems At Eskom Distribution Project Execution And Plant

DissertationThe literature reviewed for this study indicates that the ISO Quality Management System (QMS) standards can benefit any organisation that complies with them regardless of size. Benefits to complying organisations can be internal or external. Internal benefits include, but are not limited to, improved documentation management, planning of activities and the management of employees. Some external benefits include, but are not limited to, increased competitiveness of the business and customer satisfaction. Research has revealed five ISO QMS versions since its inception in 1987. However, the focus of this research was based on the fourth one, ISO 9001:2008 which has six mandatory procedures, namely: control of documents; control of records; internal audit; control of non-conformity; corrective action; and preventative action. The main objective of this study was to assess the level of compliance with these procedures of QMS to improve Eskom’s QMS. The study was conducted in two departments, namely Project Execution and Plant at Eskom, Bloemfontein only. The following were investigated: level of awareness of QMS requirements; compliance with the six mandatory procedures; which requirements are challenging to employees; the involvement of management; and, lastly, what Eskom should do with non-compliance. The main finding was that despite it being management’s main function to maintain required levels of QMS maturity, reviews were not conducted as mandated by the organisation. As a result, a recommendation was that management involvement in issues of QMS not only be top management’s ordinance, but line managers, as well as the latter, should maintain QMS in their respective departments by monitoring maturity through procedures in place at Eskom

Blockchain Enabled Quality Management in Short Food Supply Chains

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0).Food system (re)localisation involves moving food systems back to local areas and a result are the short food supply chains. Food system (re)localisation is occurring to offset the perceived negative impacts of global food systems. Short food supply chains may face challenges in terms of quality set at national and international levels. Short food supply chains will benefit from technologies that can be developed to meet specific requirements which can be significantly different from those in conventional level food supply chains. One such digital technology is blockchain. This paper aims to present a blockchain based quality management architecture developed for short food supply chains. Requirements for the blockchain architecture are based on existing literature on quality management in food supply chains, with an emphasis on the specifics of quality and re-localisation in short food supply chains. Also considered in the architecture are the characteristic features of blockchain, with some emphasis on trust management and smart contracts. The adoption considerations regarding the resulting architecture are highlighted. It is concluded that the architecture has features relevant to the short food supply chain that differs from conventional food supply chains. Future work regarding implementation and validation of the architecture developed is suggested.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Validation of analytical methods for the WFD “watch list” pilot exercise

Validation of an analytical method is a necessary step in controlling the quality of quantitative analysis. Method validation is an established process which is the provision of documentary evidence that a system fulfills its pre-defined specification or the process of providing that an analytical method is acceptable for its intended purpose. The objectives of the present study were: • to validate a SPE-LC-MS/MS method for the determination of carbamazepine (CBZ), 10,11-dihydro-10,11-dihydroxy-carbamazepine (CBZ-DiOH), sulfamethoxazole (SMZ) and pentafluoropropionic acid (PFPrA) in surface water samples; • to validate a SPE-GC-MS method for the determination of tris (1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TCPP) content in surface water samples. Method validations were performed according to the ISO 17025 requirement and the BT/TF151 WI CSS 99026 document. The calibration curves, working ranges, recoveries, detection and quantification limits, trueness as well as repeatability were determined. The budget uncertainty was also estimated following a top-down approach based on in-house validation data.JRC.H.1-Water Resource

Working the interstices: Adult basic education teachers respond to the audit culture

This paper provides the perspectives of adult basic education (ABE) teachers on how they are responding to curriculum changes which form part of the regulatory regime referred to as the audit culture. The focus is on ABE programs conducted in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia where most accredited ABE courses are delivered. The paper indicates the many tensions ABE teachers experience between the compliance requirements of audits and their professional judgements as experienced ABE teachers. While responses vary, many teachers adopt an approach where they can comply with the prescriptive demands of audits, though often in a minimal fashion, and at the same time teach in a way that fits within their philosophy and practices as ABE teachers. In the classroom these teachers are seen to be `working the interstices (the small `spaces) in the official curriculum. Concern was expressed, however, that future ABE teachers may not adopt such an approa

What's in a WordTM? When one electronic document format standard is not enough

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of the standardisation of two largely overlapping electronic document formats between 2005 and 2008, and its implications for future IT standards development. Design/methodology/approach - The document format controversy is researched as an exemplary case study of the institutional rivalries, perspectives and strategic interests at play in standardisation processes. The study adopts a methodological lens of discursive institutionalism in order to explain how actors assume and perform a variety of roles during the controversy. It consults a range of documentary sources, including media commentary, corporate press releases and blog posts, financial reports and technical specifications. Findings - The study shows that: first, intentions to increase competition in the office software market through the standardisation of document formats led to a standards "arms race"; second, this further entrenched the position of a single market actor; and third, the resulting public debate nevertheless has reinvigorated the push for genuinely open standards. Social implications - Information technology standards are often touted as mechanisms for increasing the competitiveness of a market, thereby benefitting consumers and the greater public. In the presence of dominant institutional actors, efforts to standardise can, perversely, undermine this benefit. Increased public scrutiny through online media offers a potential remedy. Originality/value - This research presents a novel account of the controversy over the document format standardisation process, understood through the lens of discursive institutionalism. It also shows the increasing and potentially putative role of online media in the development of ITstandards generally

The EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement as the First Global Europe FTA to Herald a New Era of World Trade?

The first draft of this article was presented at the 1st Joint Symposium between Seoul National University and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (University of Munich) on Current Developments in International Economic Law held in Seoul, Korea from September 21 to 22, 2011. I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Folz and Dr. Philipp M. Reuβ for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper which has been presented at the 2nd German-Korean Conference at Wildbad Kreuth, Germany 2011; publication details thereof unknown at the time of publication of this article.The Global Europe Initiative was the declaration of the European Commission to focus on the competitiveness of the EU in external trade, securing real market access. The EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is the first to be concluded under this new initiative. So far, the EU has concluded Regional Trade Agreements which were accession-oriented or had a particular focus on development issues. As the EU-Korea FTA is the most comprehensive free trade agreement that the EU ever negotiated, it is also a new generation FTA. Not only does it include provisions in terms of eliminating tariffs for goods and services, but the EU-Korea FTA also includes provisions on difficult areas such as investments in services and industrial sectors, as well as on protection of intellectual property, public procurement, competition rules, transparency of regulation and sustainable development. It is significant that in most areas the FTA builds on existing multilateral agreements and declarations within the framework of the WTO Legal System. WTO compliance is an important issue throughout the EU-Korea FTA. The analysis on selected chapters of the Agreement will show that the provisions are built on existing WTO instruments and go substantively beyond them. In the concluding part, the question will be raised if the FTA at hand is compatible with the WTO system and if it is to herald a new era in world trade, shifting from multilateral agreements to a network of bilateral agreements

The determinants of participation in microfinance and its impact on rural welfare: case study of the National Development Bank Botswana's Temo Bokamoso Lending programme in Kweneng District

This thesis investigates the determinants of participation in microfinance programmes and its impact on rural welfare in order to suggest improvements to the level of participation and the effectiveness of the programmes. The level of participation by rural smallholders in Botswana is much lower than expected in spite of the availability of schemes and their ease of access. The study uses one of National Development Bank Botswana's credit schemes in Kweneng District to investigate this problem. A field survey was carried out on 112 smallholder farmers, half of whom are scheme participants, to establish what factors affect the probability of their participation in the scheme. The study applied a logit model to determine which variables significantly affected the probability of participation in the credit scheme. The results indicated that some variables like gender and educational status had little effect on the probability of participation. A number of policy variables which include age, previous experience of credit use, respondents' perception of group collateral, distance from the National Development Bank, access to irrigation and total landholding size were found to have a significant effect. On the welfare effect, more than half of participants in the microfinance credit scheme indicated that their welfare improved as a direct result of the programme. As future research, it would be useful if the study could be extended to all districts of the country to enable the generalization of findings and provide valuable information for agricultural and poverty alleviation policy purposes

Heterogeneous sensor database framework for the sensor observation service: integrating remote and in-situ sensor observations at the database backend

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.Environmental monitoring and management systems in most cases deal with models and spatial analytics that involve the integration of in-situ and remote sensor observations. In-situ sensor observations and those gathered by remote sensors are usually provided by different databases and services in real-time dynamic service systems like the Geo-Web Services. Thus, data have to be pulled from different databases and transferred over the web before they are fused and processed on the service middleware. This process is very massive and unnecessary communication and work load on the service, especially when retrieving massive raster coverage data. Thus in this research, we propose a database model for heterogeneous sensortypes that enables geo-scientific processing and spatial analytics involving remote and in-situ sensor observations at the database level of the Sensor Observation Service, SOS. This approach would be used to reduce communication and massive workload on the Geospatial Web Service, as well make query request from the user end a lot more flexible. Hence the challenging task is to develop a heterogeneous sensor database model that enables geoprocessing and spatial analytics at the database level and how this could be integrated with the geo-web services to reduce communication and workload on the service and as well make query request from the client end more flexible through the use of SQL statements