Evaluation of Conducive Environment for Implementation of Quality Management System in an Organisation

The ISO 9000 quality management system (QMS) is a philosophy. It is a consistent and logical approach, which if implemented and practiced in day-to-day activities, with total support from senior management, can lead to doing things right, first time-every time. Many organisations adopt ISO 9000 system as a milestone in their quest for quality management programme. Effectiveness of a system depends on the attitude of employees who are responsible for its implementation. Therefore, it is essential to know the prevailing environment in an organisation. To measure the attitude of employees, a survey through a wel1-designed questionnaire can be used as an effective tool. The items of questionnaire are framed on the basis of requirements of QMS. Attitude of employees is measured on a five-point scale, for each answer. Agreement or disagreement (positive or negative) directly measures the attitude of an employee on the said aspect Data analysis is carried out for establishing the validity of individual score to the total score of items across, using product moment correlation formula. Based on analysis of data, a comprehensive programme can be worked out for correcting the deficiencies observed through the attitude survey. This can also be used as a base for measuring the improvement of QMS in an organisation

Grain Surface Models and Data for Astrochemistry

AbstractThe cross-disciplinary field of astrochemistry exists to understand the formation, destruction, and survival of molecules in astrophysical environments. Molecules in space are synthesized via a large variety of gas-phase reactions, and reactions on dust-grain surfaces, where the surface acts as a catalyst. A broad consensus has been reached in the astrochemistry community on how to suitably treat gas-phase processes in models, and also on how to present the necessary reaction data in databases; however, no such consensus has yet been reached for grain-surface processes. A team of ∼25 experts covering observational, laboratory and theoretical (astro)chemistry met in summer of 2014 at the Lorentz Center in Leiden with the aim to provide solutions for this problem and to review the current state-of-the-art of grain surface models, both in terms of technical implementation into models as well as the most up-to-date information available from experiments and chemical computations. This review builds on the results of this workshop and gives an outlook for future directions

Virulotyping, Antimicrobial Resistance Profiling and DNA Fingerprinting of Escherichia coli Isolates from Neonatal Calves

Escherichia coli harbors various virulence factors responsible for diarrhea and other diseases in neonatal calves. The antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among the diarrheagenic and non-diarrheagenic E. coli may impose a potential health hazard among the calves and make the antibacterial therapy ineffective. The virulence gene expression among AMR strains plays a crucial role in establishing diarrheal disease with therapeutic complications. This study investigates the diversity of E. coli isolates from neonatal calves. E. coli isolated from the fecal samples were subsequently subjected to pathotyping and virulotyping using the PCR technique. AMR profiling was done by phenotypic and genotypic methods. The ERIC pattern of E. coli pathotypes was compared and correlated with the pattern of AMR and virulence traits. 179 isolates were obtained from 158 fecal samples collected from neonatal calves. Forty-two isolates were pathotypable; predominated by shigatoxigenic E. coli. Seventy-four isolates were ESBL producers. Nineteen isolates were carbapenem resistant and 68 isolates exhibited quinolone resistance. blaAmpC, blaVIM and qnrS were the predominant genes detected among ESBL, carbapenem and quinolone resistance genes, respectively. The present study indicated diverse virulence profiles and the presence of significant ESBL, carbapenem and fluoroquinolone resistance among E. coli pathotypes from calves. The analysis of resistance profiling indicates the risks associated with the indiscriminate antibiotic use among farm animals, which may pose a potential health hazard to livestock owners

Mapping geographical inequalities in oral rehydration therapy coverage in low-income and middle-income countries, 2000-17

Background Oral rehydration solution (ORS) is a form of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) for diarrhoea that has the potential to drastically reduce child mortality; yet, according to UNICEF estimates, less than half of children younger than 5 years with diarrhoea in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) received ORS in 2016. A variety of recommended home fluids (RHF) exist as alternative forms of ORT; however, it is unclear whether RHF prevent child mortality. Previous studies have shown considerable variation between countries in ORS and RHF use, but subnational variation is unknown. This study aims to produce high-resolution geospatial estimates of relative and absolute coverage of ORS, RHF, and ORT (use of either ORS or RHF) in LMICs. Methods We used a Bayesian geostatistical model including 15 spatial covariates and data from 385 household surveys across 94 LMICs to estimate annual proportions of children younger than 5 years of age with diarrhoea who received ORS or RHF (or both) on continuous continent-wide surfaces in 2000-17, and aggregated results to policy-relevant administrative units. Additionally, we analysed geographical inequality in coverage across administrative units and estimated the number of diarrhoeal deaths averted by increased coverage over the study period. Uncertainty in the mean coverage estimates was calculated by taking 250 draws from the posterior joint distribution of the model and creating uncertainty intervals (UIs) with the 2 center dot 5th and 97 center dot 5th percentiles of those 250 draws. Findings While ORS use among children with diarrhoea increased in some countries from 2000 to 2017, coverage remained below 50% in the majority (62 center dot 6%; 12 417 of 19 823) of second administrative-level units and an estimated 6 519 000 children (95% UI 5 254 000-7 733 000) with diarrhoea were not treated with any form of ORT in 2017. Increases in ORS use corresponded with declines in RHF in many locations, resulting in relatively constant overall ORT coverage from 2000 to 2017. Although ORS was uniformly distributed subnationally in some countries, within-country geographical inequalities persisted in others; 11 countries had at least a 50% difference in one of their units compared with the country mean. Increases in ORS use over time were correlated with declines in RHF use and in diarrhoeal mortality in many locations, and an estimated 52 230 diarrhoeal deaths (36 910-68 860) were averted by scaling up of ORS coverage between 2000 and 2017. Finally, we identified key subnational areas in Colombia, Nigeria, and Sudan as examples of where diarrhoeal mortality remains higher than average, while ORS coverage remains lower than average. Interpretation To our knowledge, this study is the first to produce and map subnational estimates of ORS, RHF, and ORT coverage and attributable child diarrhoeal deaths across LMICs from 2000 to 2017, allowing for tracking progress over time. Our novel results, combined with detailed subnational estimates of diarrhoeal morbidity and mortality, can support subnational needs assessments aimed at furthering policy makers' understanding of within-country disparities. Over 50 years after the discovery that led to this simple, cheap, and life-saving therapy, large gains in reducing mortality could still be made by reducing geographical inequalities in ORS coverage. Copyright (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.Peer reviewe

Investigating strangeness enhancement with multiplicity in pp collisions using angular correlations

A study of strange hadron production associated with hard scattering processes and with the underlying event is conducted to investigate the origin of the enhanced production of strange hadrons in small collision systems characterised by large charged-particle multiplicities. For this purpose, the production of the single-strange meson KS0 and the double-strange baryon Ξ± is measured, in each event, in the azimuthal direction of the highest-pT particle (“trigger” particle), related to hard scattering processes, and in the direction transverse to it in azimuth, associated with the underlying event, in pp collisions at s = 5.02 TeV and s = 13 TeV using the ALICE detector at the LHC. The per-trigger yields of KS0 and Ξ± are dominated by the transverse-to-leading production (i.e., in the direction transverse to the trigger particle), whose contribution relative to the toward-leading production is observed to increase with the event charged-particle multiplicity. The transverse-to-leading and the toward-leading Ξ±/KS0 yield ratios increase with the multiplicity of charged particles, suggesting that strangeness enhancement with multiplicity is associated with both hard scattering processes and the underlying event. The relative production of Ξ± with respect to KS0 is higher in transverse-to-leading processes over the whole multiplicity interval covered by the measurement. The KS0 and Ξ± per-trigger yields and yield ratios are compared with predictions of three different phenomenological models, namely Pythia8.2 with the Monash tune, Pythia8.2 with ropes and EPOS LHC. The comparison shows that none of them can quantitatively describe either the transverse-to-leading or the toward-leading yields of KS0 and Ξ±.publishedVersio

ϒ production in p–Pb collisions at √sNN=8.16 TeV

ϒ production in p–Pb interactions is studied at the centre-of-mass energy per nucleon–nucleon collision √sNN = 8.16 TeV with the ALICE detector at the CERN LHC. The measurement is performed reconstructing bottomonium resonances via their dimuon decay channel, in the centre-of-mass rapidity intervals 2.03 < ycms < 3.53 and −4.46 < ycms < −2.96, down to zero transverse momentum. In this work, results on the ϒ(1S) production cross section as a function of rapidity and transverse momentum are presented. The corresponding nuclear modification factor shows a suppression of the ϒ(1S) yields with respect to pp collisions, both at forward and backward rapidity. This suppression is stronger in the low transverse momentum region and shows no significant dependence on the centrality of the interactions. Furthermore, the ϒ(2S) nuclear modification factor is evaluated, suggesting a suppression similar to that of the ϒ(1S). A first measurement of the ϒ(3S) has also been performed. Finally, results are compared with previous ALICE measurements in p–Pb collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV and with theoretical calculations.publishedVersio