A CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVE REGARDING PRODUCT LIABILITY

This study analyses a current and highly important problem because we are in front of an unrecorded growth of the production volume in parallel with its diversification. Due to the fact that the introduction in production of the new products is preceded by the subsequent execution of some manually manufactured prototypes, the products are manufactured afterwards on an industrial scale. Under these circumstances there is the possibility of small errors which affect the consumer’s behaviour towards the new products. That is why, in auditing the focus is on the careful supervision of the opinions of the consumers and especially of the shortcomings of some products indicated by consumers in order to remove these from the manufacturing line. Under these circumstances, a very tight connection is required between the producers and the consumers, and a special liability of the producers towards those products. At the same time this is also a worldwide concern for the regulation of the products responsibility which has already been adopted by some large manufacturing countries. The recent example of USA was followed by the European legislation. That is why American organisations which export to Europe have to be warned because the law of product liability has been adopted in many European countries. The insurance companies are usually paying the initial losses for the cases of product liability. The manufacturer of a product has to protect itself from the risk of being brought to trial or at least to reduce the risk to a level where he could afford a reasonable profit or a continuous growth. In order to meet this objective, we need a product liability prevention program. This study analyses the product liability prevention program and presents some of the essential common elements for such a program. Therefore, one can argue that in order to have an effective product liability prevention program, some operations are required as for example: organisation, education, new revision of the products, initial revision of the products, periodical control of production, warranties control, warning of the contracts, complaints and claims, revocation plan, subrogation, risk criteria, standards, services control, reparation, etc. All these elements are described according to their own characteristics, as well as to the specific situation from the USA economy. There have also been outlined some characteristics of these elements which could allow for a product liability prevention program in other countries. That is why these elements have an important role in the economy of this material and underline once again the theoretical and practical importance of the studied problem.logistics, consumer’s behaviour, product liability prevention program, risk criteria, standards

Building Research Skills: Course-Integrated Training Methods

An enriched syllabus has been experimentally introduced to undergraduate level students enrolled in a geotechnical engineering course. Two research assignments have been integrated in the course, which require students to find information on a geotechnical engineering topic using both print and electronic resources available at the university library and on the Internet. Aiming to foster the development of technical information literacy and communication skills, the students are required to prepare a report based on a specific set of guidelines, followed by oral presentations of the topics researched. Between the two assignments, a lecture on the subject of identifying and using information resources for geotechnical engineering is included in the syllabus. Preliminary results of the study are presented along with directions for designing and implementing an enriched curriculum for geotechnical engineering courses

Effect of undergraduate research output on faculty scholarly research impact

Objective – In the context of the ongoing discourse about the role of Institutional Repositories (IRs), the objective of the study is to investigate if there is any evidence of a relation between undergraduate student activity in an IR and the impact of faculty research. Methods – The data used for the study is representative of six academic departments of the College of Science and Mathematics (CSM) at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). Digital Commons@Cal Poly (DC) is the IR supported by the library. Regression analysis was used to investigate the interdependence between faculty research impact (dependent variable) and undergraduate student repository activity (independent variable). For each department, faculty research impact was quantified as a measure of the citation counts for all faculty publications indexed in Web of Science (WoS) between January 2008 and May 2017. Student repository activity was quantified for each department in two ways: (1) total number of student projects deposited in DC since 2008 (Sp) and (2) total number of student project downloads from DC (Sd). The dependent variable was regressed against each of the two elements of student repository activity (Sp and Sd), and the resulting statistics (sample correlation coefficients, coefficients of determination, and linear regression coefficients) were calculated and checked for statistical significance. Results – The statistical analysis showed that both components of student repository activity are positively and significantly correlated with the impact of faculty research quantified by a measure of the citation counts. It was also found that faculty repository activity, although positively correlated with faculty research impact, has no significant effect on the correlation between student repository activity and faculty research impact. Conclusion – The analysis considers two distinct groups of publications: one group of student publications (senior projects) from six academic departments, which are deposited in an open repository (DC), and one group of publications (not necessarily represented in DC) of faculty affiliated with the same six departments and whose citation impact is believed to be affected by the first group. The statistical correlation between student repository activity and faculty research impact can be seen as an indication that an active, open IR centered on collecting, preserving, and making discoverable student research output has a positive impact on faculty’s research impact. More research that includes additional factors and uses a larger data set is necessary to arrive at a definitive conclusion

Libraries 101 for International Students

Academic libraries have been increasingly active in developing programs and services which allow their educational mission to address the needs of an increasingly more diverse student population. In addition to the pressures of adjusting to a new environment and to the educational demands of a new school, international students must also adjust to an extensive and sometimes overwhelming library system, which can be quite different from what they are used to. The organizational structure of libraries, their services, collections, even their role and mission can differ from a country to another, thus turning libraries into intimidating places, which can keep students away until the critical moment when a paper or report that could not be found by searching the internet is needed for a thesis or project. By working closely with the academic departments and the administration of the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), the Engineering Library in collaboration with the science libraries at Princeton University has implemented a range of instructional and educational programs tailored for international students with the scope of fully integrating the library resources and services in the students’ educational experience. Informally called “Libraries 101 for International Students” the initiative’s goal is to help international students reach a level of knowledge and comfort with the services and collections of the Engineering Library and the Princeton University Library system in general, that will allow them to use the extensive research collections, both print and electronic, and draw on the expertise of the subject librarians and bibliographers who can provide insight into resources found beyond the long lists of results retrieved by the internet search engines

INVESTMENT IDEAS IN A VOLATILE ENVIRONMENT - A STUDY CASE FOR THE 2012 SOCIETY

The year 2011 has proven to be a highly volatile year, especially if we take into account the Eurozone crisis. Even so, the year 2011 has proved to be a year in which great opportunities were created, as well. Our article “Investment Ideas in a Volatile Environment - A Study Case for the 2012 Society” starts by presenting both the strong and the weak points of the year 2011, in terms of assets markets and net results, continuing with the general outlook of the year 2012 and putting a strong emphasis on the investment ideas for 2012. In our study we are going to describe the opportunities that exist in the year 2012, providing answers to questions such as: what equities should investors focus on, what changes can be predicted in terms of foreign exchange market, what will the evolution of the commodities be like, how will the evolution of different types of currencies look like

BASES COMPONENTS OF PARETO EFFICIENCY

This study take into discussion the problem of underlay the decisions, which are particularly complex and actual, based of an important volume of information, which need an important quantity of work. From our investigations, we conclusion that some inconvenient can be evitable by use also of others concepts, which apply to this kind of information. In this direction, the Study follow up to end the manner which base the decisions, we allot a especial attention to analyze the Concept of Efficiency Pareto, which finally has two fundamental elements: final benefit and opportunity cost, use also in the process for take decisions. So we explain the ample analyze of Concept of Efficiency Pareto, where the main accent is on quantitative aspects evaluation of elements, which characterize them. By amplification is thoroughness the analyze of process for take decisions. So is underlined the closed link between different economical concepts and their great usefulness in practice.Pareto efficiency, benefit, policy, decision

Assessing the Shared Usage of Collaboratively Acquired ebooks withing the Borrow Direct Network

Established in 1999, Borrow Direct (BD) is a partnership of nine independent U.S. universities and the Center for Research Libraries providing expedited delivery of print materials. As such, it has facilitated the delivery of nearly two million items to patrons at these institutions. The rapid emergence of e-books has posed a challenge to this successful resource sharing venture as member institutions have expanded their acquisition of this type of content. How does one “borrow” an ebook from another institution and avoid the need to purchase one’s own copy? Different models are emerging to tackle this issue. Under the aegis of Borrow Direct, Engineering Librarians at seven member institutions have engaged in a pilot project to explore the collective purchase of ebooks via demand driven acquisition (DDA). While neither consortia ebook purchasing nor DDA are unique concepts, what is novel is that this pilot was undertaken without the benefit of a central organization to coordinate this endeavour. This paper will describe the evolution of this project, assess the group’s usage of the purchased titles, and draw comparisons between the level of sharing activity of print engineering materials and the newly formed ebook collection