Creating Consumer Confidence or Confusion? The Role of Product Certification in the Market Today

Product conformity assessment system changes in various countries have impacted the role of certification marks. The author explores whether the perceived value of product certification marks can sustain their high costs. The author further emphasizes the need, from both economic and legal perspectives, for manufacturers to implement global compliance strategies to ensure compliance with applicable regulations, selection of proper certification marks, and an efficient path through the conformity assessment process

Creating Consumer Confidence or Confusion? The Role of Product Certification in the Market Today

Product conformity assessment system changes in various countries have impacted the role of certification marks. The author explores whether the perceived value of product certification marks can sustain their high costs. The author further emphasizes the need, from both economic and legal perspectives, for manufacturers to implement global compliance strategies to ensure compliance with applicable regulations, selection of proper certification marks, and an efficient path through the conformity assessment process

Speleothem U-series constraints on scarp retreat rates and landscape evolution: an example from the Severn valley and Cotswold Hills gull-caves, UK

Modelling landscape evolution requires quantitative estimates of erosional processes. Dating erosional landscape features such as escarpments is usually difficult because of the lack of datable deposits. Some escarpments and valley margins are associated with the formation of mass-movement caves, sometimes known as ‘gull’ or ‘crevice’ caves, which are typically restricted to within 0.5 km of the valley margin or scarp edge. As in other caves, these mass-movement cavities may host speleothems. As gull-caves develop only after valley incision, uranium-series dating of speleothems within them can provide a minimum age for the timing of valley excavation and scarp formation. Here we present data from several gull-caves in the Cotswold Hills, which form the eastern flank of the Severn valley in southern England. U-series ages from these gull-caves yield estimates for both the minimum age of the Cotswold escarpment and the maximum scarp retreat rate. This is combined with data from geological modelling to propose a model for the evolution of the Severn valley and the Cotswold Hills. The data suggest that the location of the escarpment and regional topography is determined not by valley widening and scarp retreat, but by the in situ generation of relief by differential erosion

Gone Fishing: I–O Psychologists’ Missed Opportunities to Understand Marginalized Employees’ Experiences With Discrimination

This article focuses attention on research examining workplace discrimination against employees from marginalized groups.We particularly consider the experiences of seven different groups of marginalized individuals, some of which have legal protection and some of which do not but all of whom we feel have been overlooked by the field of industrial–organizational (I–O) psychology. We briefly describe the importance of studying each group and then delineate the brief amount of research that has been conducted. Finally, we make recommendations for I–O psychologists in terms of research and advocacy. Overall, we argue that I–O psychologists are missing an opportunity to be at the forefront of understanding and instigating changes that would result in maximizing the fairness and optimization of these often forgotten employees and their experiences in the workplace

A proposed framework for consensus-based lung tumour volume auto-segmentation in 4D computed tomography imaging.

This work aims to propose and validate a framework for tumour volume auto-segmentation based on ground-truth estimates derived from multi-physician input contours to expedite 4D-CT based lung tumour volume delineation. 4D-CT datasets of ten non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients were manually segmented by 6 physicians. Multi-expert ground truth (GT) estimates were constructed using the STAPLE algorithm for the gross tumour volume (GTV) on all respiratory phases. Next, using a deformable model-based method, multi-expert GT on each individual phase of the 4D-CT dataset was propagated to all other phases providing auto-segmented GTVs and motion encompassing internal gross target volumes (IGTVs) based on GT estimates (STAPLE) from each respiratory phase of the 4D-CT dataset. Accuracy assessment of auto-segmentation employed graph cuts for 3D-shape reconstruction and point-set registration-based analysis yielding volumetric and distance-based measures. STAPLE-based auto-segmented GTV accuracy ranged from (81.51  ±  1.92) to (97.27  ±  0.28)% volumetric overlap of the estimated ground truth. IGTV auto-segmentation showed significantly improved accuracies with reduced variance for all patients ranging from 90.87 to 98.57% volumetric overlap of the ground truth volume. Additional metrics supported these observations with statistical significance. Accuracy of auto-segmentation was shown to be largely independent of selection of the initial propagation phase. IGTV construction based on auto-segmented GTVs within the 4D-CT dataset provided accurate and reliable target volumes compared to manual segmentation-based GT estimates. While inter-/intra-observer effects were largely mitigated, the proposed segmentation workflow is more complex than that of current clinical practice and requires further development

Using the past to constrain the future: how the palaeorecord can improve estimates of global warming

Climate sensitivity is defined as the change in global mean equilibrium temperature after a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration and provides a simple measure of global warming. An early estimate of climate sensitivity, 1.5-4.5{\deg}C, has changed little subsequently, including the latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The persistence of such large uncertainties in this simple measure casts doubt on our understanding of the mechanisms of climate change and our ability to predict the response of the climate system to future perturbations. This has motivated continued attempts to constrain the range with climate data, alone or in conjunction with models. The majority of studies use data from the instrumental period (post-1850) but recent work has made use of information about the large climate changes experienced in the geological past. In this review, we first outline approaches that estimate climate sensitivity using instrumental climate observations and then summarise attempts to use the record of climate change on geological timescales. We examine the limitations of these studies and suggest ways in which the power of the palaeoclimate record could be better used to reduce uncertainties in our predictions of climate sensitivity.Comment: The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Progress in Physical Geography, 31(5), 2007 by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. \c{opyright} 2007 Edwards, Crucifix and Harriso

Differential protein profiling as a potential multi-marker approach for TSE diagnosis

Rona Barron - ORCID: 0000-0003-4512-9177 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4512-9177This "proof of concept" study, examines the use of differential protein expression profiling using surface enhanced laser desorption and ionisationtime of flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF) for the diagnosis of TSE disease. Spectral output from all proteins selectively captured from individual murine brain homogenate samples, are compared as "profiles" in groups of infected and non-infected animals. Differential protein expression between groups is thus highlighted and statistically significant protein "peaks" used to construct a panel of disease specific markers. Studies at both terminal stages of disease and throughout the time course of disease have shown a disease specific protein profile or "disease fingerprint" which could be used to distinguish between groups of TSE infected and uninfected animals at an early time point of disease. Results Our results show many differentially expressed proteins in diseased and control animals, some at early stages of disease. Three proteins identified by SELDI-TOF analysis were verified by immunohistochemistry in brain tissue sections. We demonstrate that by combining the most statistically significant changes in expression, a panel of markers can be constructed that can distinguish between TSE diseased and normal animals. Conclusion Differential protein expression profiling has the potential to be used for the detection of disease in TSE infected animals. Having established that a "training set" of potential markers can be constructed, more work would be required to further test the specificity and sensitivity of the assay in a "testing set". Based on these promising results, further studies are being performed using blood samples from infected sheep to assess the potential use of SELDI-TOF as a pre-mortem blood based diagnostic.https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2334-9-1889pubpub

Comparative genomics of the emerging human pathogen Photorhabdus asymbiotica with the insect pathogen Photorhabdus luminescens

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Gram-negative bacterium <it>Photorhabdus asymbiotica </it>(Pa) has been recovered from human infections in both North America and Australia. Recently, Pa has been shown to have a nematode vector that can also infect insects, like its sister species the insect pathogen <it>P. luminescens </it>(Pl). To understand the relationship between pathogenicity to insects and humans in <it>Photorhabdus </it>we have sequenced the complete genome of Pa strain ATCC43949 from North America. This strain (formerly referred to as <it>Xenorhabdus luminescens </it>strain 2) was isolated in 1977 from the blood of an 80 year old female patient with endocarditis, in Maryland, USA. Here we compare the complete genome of Pa ATCC43949 with that of the previously sequenced insect pathogen <it>P. luminescens </it>strain TT01 which was isolated from its entomopathogenic nematode vector collected from soil in Trinidad and Tobago.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that the human pathogen Pa had a smaller genome (5,064,808 bp) than that of the insect pathogen Pl (5,688,987 bp) but that each pathogen carries approximately one megabase of DNA that is unique to each strain. The reduced size of the Pa genome is associated with a smaller diversity in insecticidal genes such as those encoding the Toxin complexes (Tc's), Makes caterpillars floppy (Mcf) toxins and the <it>Photorhabdus </it>Virulence Cassettes (PVCs). The Pa genome, however, also shows the addition of a plasmid related to pMT1 from <it>Yersinia pestis </it>and several novel pathogenicity islands including a novel Type Three Secretion System (TTSS) encoding island. Together these data suggest that Pa may show virulence against man via the acquisition of the <it>pMT1</it>-like plasmid and specific effectors, such as SopB, that promote its persistence inside human macrophages. Interestingly the loss of insecticidal genes in Pa is not reflected by a loss of pathogenicity towards insects.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results suggest that North American isolates of Pa have acquired virulence against man via the acquisition of a plasmid and specific virulence factors with similarity to those shown to play roles in pathogenicity against humans in other bacteria.</p