Academic literature on the topic 'Assurance sur Internet'

Background: Quality laboratory services are needed to direct reasonable malaria case management through malaria microscopy and rapid diagnostic test. This study assessed the existing diagnostic capacities including laboratory structures and systems, human resource, skills and competences, using the standardized WHO/NMEP EQA assessment tool. Methodology: Data were collected by an assessment team using a standardized assessment instrument/checklist drawn from WHO/NMEP assessment tool and analyzed with Open Data Kit (ODK) and Open-source suite of tools on Android mobile devices from September 3-11, 2020. The use of ODK allowed data to be collated offline where internet services were poor or unavailable and uploaded thereafter. Results: Of the 24 laboratory facilities assessed, diagnostic services on malaria are routinely done with combined malaria rapid diagnostic test (mRDT) and microscopy at 17 (65.0%) laboratories, microscopy only at 7 (27.0%)laboratories, while only mRDT was performed in 1 (3.8%) laboratory due to lack of functional microscopes, supplies, or trained personnel in microscopy. In the 24 facilities providing laboratory services, 16 (63.0 %) had one of the staff received basic malaria microscopy and mRDT training in the year prior to the assessment, and 23 (96.0%) of the laboratories had at least one functional electric binocular microscope. None of the laboratory had a good structured quality assurance/quality control procedure or standard operating procedures for either microscopy or mRDT. Conclusion: There were gaps in laboratory services due to lack of well-established quality control framework and ineffective communication system, which could have substantial impacts on the quality and accessibility of malaria diagnosis. These issues can be addressed by improving laboratory services. French title: Évaluation de base par les établissements de santé de l'assurance qualité pour le diagnostic du paludisme dans les laboratoires hospitaliers gouvernementaux existants dans l'État de Sokoto, au Nigéria Contexte: Des services de laboratoire de qualité sont nécessaires pour diriger une prise en charge raisonnable des cas de paludisme grâce à la microscopie du paludisme et au test de diagnostic rapide. Cette étude a évalué les capacités de diagnostic existantes, y compris les structures et les systèmes de laboratoire, les ressources humaines, les aptitudes et les compétences, à l'aide de l'outil d'évaluation EQA standardisé de l'OMS/NMEP. Méthodologie: Les données ont été collectées par une équipe d'évaluation à l'aide d'un instrument d'évaluation/liste de contrôle standardisée tirée de l'outil d'évaluation de l'OMS/NMEP et analysées avec Open Data Kit (ODK) et une suite d'outils open source sur les appareils mobiles Android du 3 au 11 septembre 2020 L'utilisation d'ODK a permis de rassembler les données hors ligne lorsque les services Internet étaient médiocres ou indisponibles et de les télécharger par la suite. Résultats: Sur les 24 établissements de laboratoire évalués, les services de diagnostic du paludisme sont systématiquement effectués avec un test de diagnostic rapide du paludisme combiné (mRDT) et une microscopie dans 17 laboratoires (65,0%), la microscopie uniquement dans 7 laboratoires (27,0%), tandis que seul le mRDT a été effectué. dans 1 (3,8%) laboratoire en raison du manque de microscopes fonctionnels, de fournitures ou de personnel qualifié en microscopie. Dans les 24 établissements fournissant des services de laboratoire, 16 (63,0 %) avaient un membre du personnel ayant reçu une formation de base en microscopie du paludisme et mRDT au cours de l'année précédant l'évaluation, et 23 (96,0%) des laboratoires avaient au moins un microscope binoculaire électrique fonctionnel. Aucun des laboratoires ne disposait d'une bonne procédure structurée d'assurance qualité/contrôle qualité ou de modes opératoires normalisés pour la microscopie ou le mRDT. Conclusion: Il y avait des lacunes dans les services de laboratoire en raison de l'absence d'un cadre de contrôle de la qualité bien établi et d'un système de communication inefficace, ce qui pourrait avoir des impacts substantiels sur la qualité et l'accessibilité du diagnostic du paludisme. Ces problèmes peuvent être résolus en améliorant les services de laboratoire.

Une nouvelle méthode de spatialisation des rafales de vent à la résolution de 2,5 km sur la France a récemment été développée à partir des données anémométriques, des paramètres du relief et des analyses du modèle météorologique AROME pour caractériser les évènements de tempête à haute résolution spatio-temporelle. Différents indicateurs de sévérité ont été définis pour représenter les impacts des tempêtes aux différentes échelles nationale, régionale et départementale. Grâce à une reconstitution historique débutant en 1980, une nouvelle base de données de plus de 300 tempêtes a été constituée sur la France métropolitaine et mise à disposition sur internet. Ces diagnostics disponibles en temps réel ont été appliqués pour caractériser et qualifier la tempête Zeus du 6 mars 2017. Cette base de données originale permet aussi de préciser des diagnostics sur la variabilité et les effets du changement climatique sur l’aléa tempêtes et répondre aux différents besoins du secteur des assurances.

L’augmentation exponentielle de la quantité de données de recherche produites et réutilisées par les chercheurs pose des défis importants aux bibliothèques universitaires. Il s’agit pour celles-ci de mettre sur pied des services de gestion de données intégrés au cycle de vie de la recherche. Cela n’est possible qu’en assurant une collaboration active avec une série d’acteurs internes et externes, et en développant une formation spécialisée au sein des écoles de sciences de l’information. Cet article décrit le contexte de cette transformation, et identifie les principales activités et les responsables pour chaque étape du cycle de vie de la recherche.

Préalablement à leur acquisition, les robinets installés dans les centrales nucléaires font l’objet d’une démonstration de leur aptitude à endurer des chocs thermiques d’une amplitude de 255 C, sollicitation majorante de conditions normales d’exploitation. Afin de mieux cerner la validité de démonstrations fondées sur des simulations numériques, nous confrontons l’essai en vraie grandeur d’un robinet à soupape de diamètre nominal 150 mm avec sa simulation numérique. Cet article est focalisé sur le comportement de l’assemblage boulonné du corps et du couvercle, assurant la fonction d’étanchéité, dite externe du robinet. La campagne d’essai, menée sur la boucle CYTHERE d’EDF, comprend plusieurs chocs alternés, froid puis chaud. Le robinet est équipé de 37 thermocouples distribués sur sa hauteur et dans l’épaisseur des pièces. Les douze goujons du couvercle sont équipés de jauges de déformation destinées à mesurer l’évolution de leur tension. L’essai est modélisé par des simulations multiphysiques du robinet complet en 3D, enchaînant les calculs d’écoulement, des champs de température, puis des champs de déplacement et de contraintes dans le robinet. La confrontation des résultats de calcul avec les mesures montre l’importance de la représentation des échanges thermiques résultant de l’écoulement dans les interstices laissés par les jeux fonctionnels entre les pièces internes situées sous le couvercle. Leur prise en compte est déterminante pour calculer les variations de serrage de l’assemblage lors des chocs thermiques.

Nous sommes entrés dans l'ère de nouveaux modèles d'affaires où la vente par Internet constitue un élément central des politiques marketing des entreprises. Le secteur du commerce de détail alimentaire n'échappe pas à cette évolution, comme en témoigne la montée en puissance des supermarchés en ligne depuis quelques années. Ils offrent la possibilité aux internautes d'accéder à des produits de grande consommation sans se déplacer jusqu'aux magasins, en leur assurant une livraison à domicile. Face aux risque d'engorgement des villes, suite à une multiplication anarchique des véhicules en circulation, certaines collectivités territoriales commencent à mettre en place des plates-formes urbaines mutualisées et des tournées de livraison concertée auxquels les distributeurs alimentaires en ligne doivent obligatoirement se plier. L'article souligne que la performance logistique pourrait dès lors ne plus constituer un facteur de différenciation aux yeux des internautes, contrairement à ce qu'affirme souvent la littérature académique, compte-tenu de la mutualisation des ressources et des compétences, et de la standardisation du service rendu. L'argumentation s'appuie sur deux expériences de planification de logistique urbaine conduites en France.

The specific feature and at the same time the problem of formation of a holistic system of quality assurance of higher education in Ukraine is that the impe- tus for its formation was the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Higher Education” in 2014, in which all existing instruments of quality assurance of higher education were grouped for the first time within one integrated system, consisting of two subsystems – external and internal, each of which has its own list of mechanisms, tools, ways to ensure the quality of higher education, etc. Thus, the system and mechanisms for ensuring the quali- ty of higher education began to be formed and applied in practice without their prior scientific understanding and justification. Therefore, today the practice of their application is quite ambiguous and often contradictory, which does not contribute to neither a calm movement towards the gradual improvement of the quality of higher educa- tion, nor the effective spending of public funds during the development of this system. Therefore, each of these subsystems, including their components, requires its own research, understanding and justification in order to optimize all procedures, their coordination and balancing with each other, to avoid duplication and unnecessary “paperwork”. Thus, in particular, the external quality assurance system of higher education includes such a tool as licens- ing of educational activities in the field of higher education, which has undergone conceptual changes three times since 2014, which hinders both the solution of many problems by means of using this tool of quality assurance of higher education and effective operation of this tool in the market of educational services. The purpose of this article is to try to scientifically understand the mechanism of licensing of educational activi- ties in the field of higher education as one of the external tools to ensure the quality of higher education, including its components, and to make sound proposals for its further improvement. Research methods. The author used such methods of scientific cognition as general philosophical (universal), historical and logical methods, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, abstraction, generalization, analogy and others. The main results of the study. 1. Licensing of educational activities in the field of higher education is one of the most important tools of the system of external quality assurance of higher education and a mechanism for im- plementing state policy aimed at ensuring the ability of legal entities to provide educational services in higher education. The state is directly responsible to applicants, employers and society for the development of effective regulatory policy in terms of licensing, for the development and continuous improvement of licensing conditions, for the proper organization and continuous operation of the licensing mechanism (objective and fair compliance with licensors, licensing, licenses, impartial and systematic verification of compliance with licensing conditions by each of the participants in the market of educational ser- vices, uncompromising revocation of licenses provided that the fact of non-compliance of free economic conditions with the license conditions). 2. Stability of public relations is one of the important principles of public peace and the formation of trust in the state. Therefore, the state, which is responsible to educa- tion seekers and society for the proper functioning of the market of educational services in higher education and guarantees the ability of its licensed establishments of higher education to carry out relevant activities at the appropriate level, has no moral right to conceptually change the licensing mechanism three times. It is ineffi- cient, impractical and irresponsible. Thus, in particular, only at the level of laws of Ukraine (not to mention the level of Government resolutions and orders of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine), the following con- ceptual changes took place: 1) term licenses issued for a period of 10 years were recognized by the legislator as indefinite without any transitional, balanced and compensatory mechanisms, which cannot be called a balanced state policy, taking into account previous experience in issuing licenses; 2) the licensing mechanism, which was issued specifi- cally for the field of higher education, was replaced by another - common to all types of economic activities (and these different mechanisms were in conflict for some time and “worked” at the same time); 3) the term of the applicant’s compliance with the li- cense conditions before the license was issued was signif- icantly reduced (from two months to 10 days) and the on- site inspections (directly to the establishment of education) were replaced by only a “paper” inspection. In addition, the inspection by “experts” was replaced by an inspection by “civil servants”. All this, taking into account the level of dishonesty in society, did not strengthen the responsibil- ity of the state to society for admission to the market of educational services in higher education (especially new ones), which really meet all licensing conditions and are able to provide services in higher education; 4) licensing “by specialty” (for example, “choreogra- phy” or “law”) has been replaced by licensing “at the level” (for example, a bachelor’s or master’s degree). Such a “simplification” of the licensing procedure for establishments of higher education actually eliminates any responsibility of the state to society for the ability of establishments of higher education to carry out educational activities in the relevant specialties, the list of which is approved by the Government. Scientific novelty of the research results. 1. The mechanism of licensing of educational activities in the field of higher education is considered through the prism (at an angle) of state responsibility for the quality of higher education to society, students and employers and as one of the most effective tools for public policy in higher education. Erroneousness and ineffectiveness of public policy was demonstrated, if it is not based on previous research. Conclusions and the author’s specific suggestions. 1. The quality assurance system of higher education should be the subject of in-depth and serious research, and any legislative changes should be based on the sound results of such research. Science must anticipate legislative change, and managers must base their policy decisions on scientifically sound data. 2. Improvement of the licensing mechanism should be carried out in the direction of delimitation of functions of formation of the state policy and its realization. That is, those who create the “rules of the game” do not have to follow them later, because in this case there is a real conflict of interest. The state, represented by the Ministry of Education and Science, cannot be both a regulator of the market of educational services, the founder of the vast majority of participants in this market (state establish- ments of higher education and research institutions) and a “guarantor of the ability” of all, including state-approved licensing terms. This approach cannot be considered balanced with regard to the responsibility of the state and universities for the quality of higher education. Under such conditions, everyone loses – education seekers, employers, society and the state itself. 3. Licensing should be subject to the specialty for which the establishment of education plans to provide educational services, not the level of education. The license for educational activities should be indefinite, but again – for the specialty, not for the level of education. 4. The quality of higher education cannot be ensured without the fulfillment by establishments of higher educa- tion of the minimum requirements – licensing conditions established by the state and which are the start and foundation of quality assurance. The compliance of an establishment of education with the licensing conditions must be controlled by the consumers of educational ser- vices and the state, and any non-compliance must quickly and inevitably lead to the deprivation of such an estab- lishment of the relevant license in the relevant specialty. Compliance with licensing conditions is the foundation for the formation of an internal system to ensure the quality of educational activities and the quality of higher education and should guarantee education a safe environment (namely in terms of sanitation, fire and environmental safety, no psychological danger, including bullying, etc.) from qualified teaching staff with appropriate educational and professional qualifications, availability of informa- tional support (powerful library fund, including digital, free internet access, advisory support for teachers, etc.), availability and security of infrastructure facilities that can provide, stimulate and maintain a healthy lifestyle in the younger generations. That is, the licensing conditions should include those requirements of the state that make the stay in the establishment of education safe, comfortable and one that promotes and stimulates the acquisition of quality higher education of a certain level and specialty. These requirements also need to be reviewed from time to time, as both universities and society evolve, and what is now considered to be the standard may not be the norm in a few years and requires a proper response from the state and establishments of higher education. At the same time, the improvement of licensing conditions should not lead to the need for establishments of higher education to obtain new perpetual licenses, but each establishment must constantly ensure its compliance with the licensing conditions (taking into account all changes).

Cette étude sémiotique de l’Université de Vilnius s’articule en deux composantes intimement liées: l’objet d’étude d’une part, la méthode mise en oeuvre d’autre part. L’image qui se dégage de l’objet dépend de la méthode descriptive, et la méthode descriptive a été adaptée pour la prise en compte de certains caractères spécifiques de l’objet donné. Par commodité, ces deux composantes seront abordées séparément dans ce résumé.L’objet d’étude est constitué par l’Université de Vilnius, considérée d’un point de vue spatial. Si l’état actuel des bâtiments est directement accessible à l’observation, plusieurs états antérieurs sont décrits par une collection de plans conservés dans les archives du département de l’héritage culturel du Ministère de la Culture Lituanien. La Bibliothèque Nationale de France conserve en outre une collection de projets dessinés pour l’Université de Vilnius au sein de la Compagnie de Jésus. L’analyse sémiotique de ce corpus syncrétique (bâtiments, plans techniques, projets) impose la prise en compte d’acteurs sociaux (enseignants, étudiants, techniciens) et d’acteurs environnementaux (froid, feu, intempéries, vieillissement) dont les interactions avec les lieux sont productrices de sens.Le caractère spécifique d’un tel corpus pourrait laisser croire que l’analyse n’aurait d’intérêt que pour des lecteurs lituaniens motivés par des liens affectifs locaux. Sans remettre en cause les qualités indéniables du corpus retenu, l’utilisation de la méthode sémiotique donne à l’analyse un intérêt méthodologique dont la généralité ne se restreint pas au cas considéré. Pour l’étude des plans de l’Université de Vilnius, l’approche sémiotique est amenée à effectuer un bond qualitatif par rapport aux études initiées en 1974 par le Groupe 107, et l’approche discursive Greimassienne remplace une approche linguistique trop attachée au modèle Hjelmslevien. La consécution diachronique des plans permet de reconnaître plusieurs transformations de l’espace universitaire, chacune d’entre elles distinguant un avant d’un après. L’aménagement des cours autour desquelles se déploient les salles, la concaténation des cours, leur orientation, leurs degrés d’ouverture, permettent de reconnaître des effets de sens successifs qui informent l’opération globale par laquelle l’Université tend à occuper la totalité de l’îlot urbain dans lequel elle est inscrite, et dont elle n’occupait initialement qu’une partie réduite. L’apparition des portiques au dix-septième siècle, leur mode d’implantation, leur organisation modifient profondément l’espace universitaire, tant dans son allure visuelle que dans son fonctionnement pragmatique. La substitution des voûtes aux plafonds change l’allure de l’intérieur des locaux, tout en assurant une meilleure résistance aux éventuels incendies, dont l’occurrence répétée est notée par les archives.L’analyse discursive de l’espace impose la prise en compte d’acteurs sociaux qui agissent sur l’espace ou dans son cadre. Une première distinction différencie les Enseignants des Enseignés. Lors de la fondation de l’Université en 1586, l’enseignement est confié à la Société de Jésus, dont la fondation en 1540 était relativement récente, et dont la vocation à l’enseignement s’affirmait avec force non seulement en Europe, mais aussi au Nouveau Monde récemment découvert. La dissolution de l’Ordre Jésuite en 1772 eut des répercussions directes sur l’Université de Vilnius, en particulier sur l’organisation interne des locaux et sur leur attribution fonctionnelle (on peut noter que la différenciation fonctionnelle des lieux est inscrite sur les plans qui remontent au début du dix-septième siècle). Les espaces dévolus aux étudiants permettent de distinguer un groupe résidant (les internes) et un groupe non résidant (les externes) parmi une population que l’on suppose locale et régionale, car la situation géographique de la Lituanie était relativement périphérique par rapports aux centres du savoir qu’étaient Rome et Paris à la fin du seizième siècle et au début du dix-septième siècle. L’élaboration parisienne des plans pour l’Université de Vilnius témoigne du fait que l’on pensait l’espace comme un moyen d’action (que la sémiotique identifie, selon les cas, comme acte d’énonciation spatiale, ou comme acte de manipulation, au sens technique du terme).Différentes expressions matérielles (alignement des bâtiments sur les directions cardinales, allure italianisante des cours à portiques) véhiculent les valeurs profondes universelles du programme de base de l’Université, qui est celui de la diffusion (transmission) de valeurs abstraites d’un centre vers une périphérie. L’enseignement réservait un large part à la religion catholique, universelle par définition (c’est le Père de l’Église Clément d’Alexandrie qui promeut l’usage du terme grec Katholikos -universel- pour qualifier le Christianisme). Dans l’Italie de la Renaissance, les théoriciens Alberti et Vasari opposent les valeurs universelles de l’Humanisme, tirées de l’Antiquité Classique, aux valeurs particulières caractérisant la production de l’Europe « gothique » du Moyen-Âge, ce dernier étant défini négativement comme ce qui a séparé l’Antiquité de la Renaissance.Considérée comme énoncé spatial, l’architecture apparaît comme un dispositif matériel chargé de modalités destinées à réguler l’action des acteurs qui y accomplissent leurs programmes d’usage. La circulation physique des personnes s’avère jouer un rôle central parmi les actions reconnaissables. Le circuit des visites guidées, opposé à la latitude donnée aux étudiants et aux enseignants, permet de définir un secteur public (moderne) de l’Université, centré sur la bibliothèque, et opposable à un secteur privé centré sur le rectorat. Les portiques, installés aux différents étages pour résoudre des questions de circulation humaine, remplissent simultanément des fonctions d’éclairage et d’isolation thermique. En reconnaissant de telles superpositions fonctionnelles, l’analyse impose la reconnaissance d’acteurs sémiotiques non matériels tels que la lumière et le froid. La poursuite de la même logique d’analyse mène à la reconnaissance du feu et du temps comme acteurs jouant un rôle dans la détermination des formes architecturales, et donc dans la formation de l’énoncé spatial qu’est l’Université.Opposable aux processus évoqués ci-dessus, l’action qui coordonne l’homogénéisation de l’allure de la Grande Cour et celle de la Cour de l’Observatoire ne relève pas de l’énoncé spatial interne, mais d’une énonciation externe: elle témoigne d’une pensée plastique, géométrique, qui poursuit une fin identitaire: son action donne à l’Université, à un moment de son existence, une allure cohérente qui participe à la définition de son identité. Une démarche énonciative comparable est repérable, à l’époque récente, dans la mise en espace de deux espaces garnis de fresques: le vestibule balte et le vestibule grec. Par de tels actes énonciatifs, la direction de l’Université s’adresse à la communauté universitaire, définie ainsi comme un destinataire interne, pour lui transmettre des messages dont les valeurs profondes sont reconnaissables comme l’identité, la cohérence, l’universel, le particulier. D’autres transformations architecturales, en particulier celles qui sont menées au début du dix-neuvième siècle sur la cour de la bibliothèque, développent vis à vis du public extérieur à l’Université, un discours relatif aux savoirs qu’elle développe et diffuse dans la société. Le caractère diachronique du corpus impose de reconnaître des transformations, mettant dès lors l’accent sur des actes énonciatifs spatiaux, puisque tout acte de construction est interprétable comme un acte énonciatif. Ce qui fait beaucoup de place, dans l’analyse, aux effets de sens énonciatifs, aux dépens des effets de sens énoncifs. D’un point de vue méthodologique, ceci apporte la preuve, par l’exemple, de la pertinence de l’utilisation du concept d’énonciation pour une expression spatiale et non verbale.

Founded in 1962, Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), Mozambique’s largest and most prestigious university, established an Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) system for the first time in 2013. Based on UEM’s case, this paper examines the features and challenges faced when implementing an IQA system within African higher education institutions. Literature on higher education quality assurance has widely examined the features of, and challenges faced by national QA systems, or by a QA system established across several higher education institutions (HEIs). However, this literature has rarely targeted single HEIs, particularly (African) HEIs that are establishing, for the first time, their IQA systems. Besides, even when IQA at a single HEI is targeted, this is often done by outsiders. Based on reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action, this paper addresses the perspectives of both insiders and outsiders. The authors analyse a system that they have been involved in establishing. The paper’s findings enable to conclude that the main challenges of implementing an IQA system in an African HEI are associated with linking QA to decision-making and to a funding strategy; training human resources and allocating funds for the system to operate and to be sustainable; enabling the system to be assimilated by the university community; and defining measurable and objective quality standards to enable unbiased performance classification. Fondée en 1962, l’Université Eduardo Mondlane (UEM), la plus grande et la plus prestigieuse université du Mozambique, a créé pour la première fois en 2013 un système interne d’assurance qualité (IAQ). A partir de l’étude du cas de l’UEM, cet article examine les caractéristiques et les défis qui attendent les institutions d’enseignement supérieur africaines qui désirent implémenter un IAQ. La littérature sur l’assurance qualité de l’enseignement supérieur a largement examiné les caractéristiques des systèmes nationaux d’AQ (ou de systèmes communs à plusieurs institutions), et les défis auxquels ils sont confrontés. Elle s ‘est cependant rarement concentrée sur des cas uniques d’institutions, notamment des institutions (africaines) qui ont créé pour la première fois leur propre IAQ. Par ailleurs, même quand elle s’attarde sur une institution en particulier, l’analyse est souvent effectuée par des personnes étrangères à l’institution. Fondé sur la réflexion dans l’action et la réflexion sur l’action, cet article présente les perspectives de personnes internes et étrangères à l’établissement. Il permet de conclure que les principaux défis à affronter lors de l’établissement d’un IAQ sont dus à la difficulté de lier l’AQ à la prise de décision et à une stratégie de financement ; à la formation des ressources humaines et l’allocation des fonds nécessaires pour que le système fonctionne et perdure ; à l’assimilation du système par la communauté universitaire ; et à la définition de standards de qualité mesurables et objectifs pour permettre une classification de la performance impartiale.

El ataque de amenazas en las plataformas que se manejan a través del internet en las diferentes organizaciones es cada vez más frecuente, se derivan normalmente por motivos económicos, eludiendo las medidas de seguridad comunes. Es por ello, que en este trabajo de investigación, se hace una revisión de la literatura sobre los diferentes estudios que han surgido en los últimos años abordando factores como seguridad, vulnerabilidad y mejora, con el fin de proporcionar una base para futuras investigaciones a ser utilizados en la mejora de la calidad y la seguridad en las organizaciones para contribuir con la gobernanza de las TI. Se concluye que hay una ausencia de monitoreo efectiva y escasez de la seguridades en la TI, por abaratar costos, causando la baja efectividad en las seguridades. Abstract The attack threats on platforms that are managed through the internet in different organizations is becoming more frequent, threats are usually derived for economic reasons, avoiding common security measures. That is why, in this research, a review of the literature on the various studies that have emerged in recent years addressing factors such as security, vulnerability and improved in order to provide a basis for further research to be done used in improving the quality safety organizations and contribute to the governance of IT. Finally we conclude there is an absence of effective monitoring and lack of assurance on IT to cut costs, causing low effectiveness in securities.

Abstract: GAP — German Academic Publishers (www.gap-c.de) is a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) to create an infrastructure for a new model for academic publishing. One aim of the project is to create an organizational network of academic presses and other eligible academic publishing institutions, including a business plan to guarantee a sustainable “life” for GAP after funding expires. Another goal is to establish the necessary infrastructure for online publishing (including a peer-review process) and online management of persons, roles, and other elements of the publishing process. GAP will act as both data and service provider for the Open Archives Initiative. GAP’s most prominent aim is to make what is published through its channels available for free on the Internet. Résumé : German Academic Publishers (le GAP à www.gap-c.de) est un projet financé par le German Research Foundation (DFG) pour poser les fondements d’un nouveau modèle d’édition académique. Un des buts de ce projet est de créer un réseau organisationnel de presses et autres organismes œuvrant dans l’édition académique, ainsi qu’un plan d’affaires assurant une vie durable au GAP suivant la fin de son financement. Un autre but est d’établir une infrastructure permettant l’édition en ligne (y compris un processus d’évaluation par les pairs) et la gestion en ligne de personnes, rôles et autres composantes de l’édition. Le GAP agira ainsi en tant que fournisseur de services et de données pour l’Open Archives Initiative. Le premier but du GAP est d’offrir sur Internet un accès gratuit à tous les textes qu’il édite.

La faisabilité et l'efficacité des mesures proactives dépendent d'une cascade de défis: comment quantifier les cyber-risques d'une entité, quels indicateurs peuvent être utilisés pour les prédire, et de quelles sources de données peuvent-ils être extraits? Dans cette thèse, nous énumérons les défis auxquels les praticiens et les chercheurs sont confrontés lorsqu'ils tentent de quantifier les cyber-risques et nous les examinons dans le domaine émergent de la cyber-assurance. Nous évaluons ensuite l'incidence de différentes mesures et postures de sécurité sur les risques d'infection par des logiciels malveillants et évaluons la pertinence de neuf indicateurs pour étudier la nature systématique de ces risques. Enfin, nous démontrons l'importance de la sélection des sources de données dans la mesure des risques. Nous nous penchons sur le 'web tracking' et démontrons à quel point les risques liés à la vie privée sont sous-estimés lorsque l'on exclut la perspective des utilisateurs
The feasibility and efficacy of proactive measures depend upon a cascading of challenges: how can one quantify the cyber risks of a given entity, what reliable indicators can be used to predict them, and from which data sources can they be extracted? In this thesis, we enumerate active challenges that practitioners and researchers face when attempting to quantify cyber-risks and contextualise them in the emerging domain of cyber insurance, and propose several research directions. We then explore some of these areas, evaluate the incidence that different security measures and security postures have on malware-infection risks and assess the goodness of nine host- extracted indicators when investigating the systematic nature of those risks. We finally provide evidence about the importance that data-source selection together with a holistic approach have on risk measurements. We look at web-tracking and demonstrate how underestimated privacy risks are when excluding the users' perspective

Il s'agit d'envisager l'etude des questions juridiques relatives a un site internet dedie a la vente de biens aux consommateurs. Et ce, depuis l'installation du site sur le reseau jusqu'a son exploitation commerciale qui vient constater la formation de la vente. Ainsi, pourront etre envisagees les questions relatives aux formalites administratives obligatoires, aux noms de domaine, aux droits d'auteur, aux contenus de sites et aux responsabilites enjeu, a la publicite et au marketing en ligne, a l'offre et a l'engagement electronique, a la preuve , a la cryptologie

Cette recherche s’attache à étudier le lien entre performance sociétale et performance économique, mais s’inscrit dans le champ des recherches sur le « nouveau business case de la RSE ». Face aux limites des recherches étudiant le lien direct entre performance sociétale et performance financière, cette étude analyse ses impacts indirects sur la performance économique, en cherchant à comprendre quels sont les mécanismes en cause dans l’étude des effets d’une démarche de RSE sur ses parties prenantes, au regard de ses impacts sur leurs attitudes et comportements source de performance économique. La théorie pivot mobilisée pour l’analyse des effets de la RSE dans ce cadre et sur des acteurs internes comme externes à l’organisation est la théorie de l’identification organisationnelle. Cette recherche sous convention CIFRE est menée au sein d’une entreprise de l’économie sociale, la MAIF, et étudie les impacts de la variable « démarche globale de RSE perçue » intégrant notamment ses particularités mutualistes. Notre étude qualitative démontre que les impacts favorables à la performance économique sont nombreux et significatifs, mais qu’il existe également des risques économiques importants en cas de perception de décalage entre les discours sur ce sujet et la réalité des actes menés dans certains domaines : tant pour les salariés, que pour les militants, mais également pour les sociétaires. Notre étude met également en évidence le mécanisme de transfert d’identification organisationnelle entre les trois catégories de parties prenantes, source d’optimisation de la performance économique induite par la RSE, comme d’augmentation du risque en cas de décalage
This research aims to study the link between societal and economic performance. It follows on the research field of the new business case for corporate social responsibility. In view of the limits of the researches studying the direct link between societal and financial performance, this study analyses the indirect impacts of societal performance on the economic performance. Thus, it examines the mechanisms that can explain the impact of a CSR approach on the stakeholders, and more particularly its impacts on their attitudes and behaviours that can be at the root of economic performance. The key theory used to examine the impacts of CSR is the organisational identification theory. This research work as been realized within the framework of a CIFRE PHD agreement for the MAIF company, a firm of the social economy sector. It aims to examine the impacts of the variable “global approach of CSR perceived” taking into account the particularities of the governance model of mutualism. This qualitative study proves that CSR approach can have many significant and favourable impacts on the economic performance. Though the economic risk can also be important in case of a perceived gap between talk and action on such an issue; for employees as for active members and clients. This study points out the transfer mechanism of organizational identification between three categories of stakeholders, which can be at the root of an optimisation of the economic performance raised by a CSR approach, as of a possible increase of the risk in case of a growing gap

L'intervention du droit de l'Union européenne est croissante dans toutes les branches du droit, y compris en droit des assurances. S'agissant de la distribution d'assurance, la directive sur la distribution d'assurance (DDA), entrée en vigueur en 2018, témoigne d'une immixtion croissante des règles européennes. La présente thèse étudie la manière dont le droit de l'Union, et en particulier la DDA, modifie les contours français de la distribution d'assurance. Cette influence s'opère de différentes manières. D'abord, le champ d'application des règles encadrant l'activité est élargi, posant ainsi diverses questions terminologiques. Ensuite, le contenu de ces contraintes est revisité selon deux aspects.Le premier aspect est le plus novateur et largement issu de la DDA. Le droit européen intègre désormais une protection de la clientèle, prise de manière globale, en amont de l'acte de distribution. Il instaure à cet égard un arsenal de lutte contre les conflits d'intérêts, ainsi que des contraintes de gouvernance et de surveillance des produits. Ces règles nouvelles doivent permettre au preneur d'assurance de bénéficier d'un contexte plus favorable lorsqu'il souscrit ou adhère à un contrat d'assurance. La nouveauté de ces textes suscite des interrogations quant aux termes utilisés et à leur intégration en droit français.Le second aspect concerne la protection du preneur d'assurance telle que connue en France, au niveau individuel. Il s'agit alors pour le droit européen d'ajouter des obligations à la charge des professionnels en matière d'information et de conseil. Si ces exigences, destinées à éclairer le consentement du preneur, préexistent en droit français, elles se trouvent amplifiées par le droit de l'Union, dont la DDA
The European Union law involvement is increasing in all branches of law, including insurance law. Regarding to insurance distribution, the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD), which entered into force in 2018, shows a growing interference of European rules. This thesis examines how Union law, and in particular IDD, is changing the French contours of insurance distribution. This influence takes place in different ways. First, the scope of the rules framing the activity is broadened, thus posing various terminological questions. Then, the content of these constraints is revisited according to two aspects.The first aspect is the most innovative and largely derived from the IDD. European law now incorporates customer protection, taken in a global way, before the act of distribution. In this regard, it establishes an arsenal to avoid conflicts of interest, as well as constraints on the product governance and oversight. These new rules should allow the policyholder to benefit from a more favourable context when he enters into or joins an insurance contract. The novelty of these texts raises questions about the terms used and their integration into French law.The second aspect concerns the policyholder's protection as known in France, at the individual level. It is then up to the European law to add obligations to the burden of professionals in the field of information and advice. While these requirements, intended to clarify the policyholder's consent, already exist in French law, they are amplified by Union law, including the IDD

Cette thèse est une contribution à la réflexion sur les implications de la période prolongée de faible taux d’intérêt sur l’Assurance vie et les conséquences sur la stabilité financière induites par le comportement d’investissement des firmes de la branche. Le premier chapitre est consacré à l'identification des causes et l'évaluation des conséquences de l'impact de l'actuel contexte de taux sur les performances sectorielles. A l’aide de modèles économétriques, nous observons que les assureurs engagés dans les activités d'assurance vie traditionnelle sont, pour la période postérieure à la crise financière globale, plus sensibles aux variations de taux d'intérêt que leurs homologues non-vie. Le deuxième chapitre est dédié au recensement des déterminants et des preuves d'une réallocation potentielle des placements assurantiels en faveur d'actifs risqués, susceptible d'aider les compagnies à stimuler une vigueur financière déclinante. Grâce à des données sectorielles issues de la base SHS que nous re-ventilons par note de crédit, nous constatons que la part croissante d'actifs de moindre qualité dans l’encours obligataire public des assureurs et des fonds de pension européens ne s'explique principalement pas par une montée de la prise de risque mais par des dégradations de ratings. Le troisième chapitre est axé sur l'examen des implications du choix d'investissement des institutions assurantielles, effectué dans un environnement de taux contraignant, sur la stabilité financière. Sur la base d’une analyse économétrique, nous remarquons que la contribution au risque systémique des assureurs, particulièrement ceux engagés dans la fourniture d'assurance vie traditionnelle, provient des catégories d'actifs les moins rémunérateurs. Ce résultat, a priori contre-intuitif, pourrait possiblement s'expliquer par les difficultés des institutions assujetties à de rigoureuses contraintes prudentielles à saisir des opportunités d'investissement non obligataire susceptibles de relâcher les pressions financières exercées par la période prolongée de faible taux d'intérêt
This thesis is a contribution to the reflection on the implications of the prolonged period of low interest rates on life insurance and the consequences on financial stability induced by the investment behavior of firms in the sector. The first chapter is devoted to identifying the causes and assessing the consequences of the impact of the current interest rate environment on sector performance. Using econometric models, we observe that insurers engaged in traditional life insurance activities are, for the period following the global financial crisis, more sensitive to interest rate variations than their non-life counterparts The second chapter is dedicated to identifying the determinants and evidence of a potential reallocation of insurance investments to risky assets, which could help companies to stimulate declining financial strength. Using sectoral data from the SHS database, which we re-analyze by credit rating, we find that the increasing share of lower quality assets in the public bond stock of European insurers and pension funds is not mainly explained by an increase in risk taking but by rating downgrades. The third chapter focuses on examining the implications of the investment choices of insurance institutions, made in a constrained rate environment, on financial stability. Based on an econometric analysis, we find that the contribution to systemic risk of insurers, particularly those engaged in the provision of traditional life insurance, comes from the least remunerative asset classes. This result, a priori counter-intuitive, could possibly be explained by the difficulties of institutions subject to strict prudential constraints to seize non-bond investment opportunities that could relieve the financial pressure exerted by the prolonged period of low interest rates

Abstract No cases have been found in which a payor under duress or undue influence has brought an action claiming subrogation. However, some general remarks can be made on the possibility that such a claim might be brought in the future. It should be stated first that a payor under illegitimate compulsion should be entitled not only to bring a restitutionary claim to recover his payment1 but also to assert a proprietary claim to his money. Two Canadian cases which can arguably be explained on this basis are Phoenix Assurance Co of Canada v. Corporation of the City ofToronto2 and Zaidan Group Ltd v. City oflondon,3 where over-payors of tax were allowed to bring proprietary claims to recover their money from the relevant public authorities (although it must be conceded that in Woolwich Equitable Building Society v. IRC4 the House of Lords has now held that payments of ultra vires public demands are sui generis and so outside the scope of analysis as payments under illegitimate compulsion).5 The award of a proprietary claim to a payor under illegitimate compulsion seems justifiable on the basis that he never voluntarily undertakes the risk that his payee will become insolvent. It may alternatively be justified on the basis that he retains a proprietary interest in the money he pays because his intention to transfer ownership of the money to his payee is vitiated by the element of illegitimate compulsion that underlies his payment. In this latter respect the position of a payor under illegitimate compulsion may be likened to that of a payor under an induced mistake. In both cases, the payor can rescind the contract under which he agreed to pay ab initio and in both cases it can therefore be said that property in the money never passed to the payee, and hence that the payor has a proprietary base to his claim to recover the money. From this it follows that a payor under illegitimate compulsion should in appropriate circumstances be entitled to trace his money into the discharge of secured rights, and to acquire these via reviving subrogation.

Abstract Evaluation of Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEMs) was initiated for the purpose of purchasing a SEM that would improve the productivity of scanning electron microscopy during the cycle of analysis and deprocessing of semiconductor devices in a failure analysis lab. In addition to the need for high image resolution at low electron acceleration voltages, an accurate motorized stage is a major evaluation factor. It is necessary for the analyst to drive directly to a known location such as a memory cell with a high assurance that the site of interest was found. There are two main areas of focus in this paper. First, our SEM evaluation methodology will be presented along with the results of our evaluation. Second, the technology associated with motorized stages will be discussed in light of our requirements for a motorized, highly accurate stage. As a byproduct of this evaluation, this paper is presented so as to push the SEM industry to offer a SEM with an accurate stage for subhalfmicron products at reasonable cost.

Abstract Oil and gas operators tend to have engineering capability within their organization; however, this capability is one of the difficult attributes to quantify its achievements, scale their performance metrics and measure their performance within specific value stream. This paper will define the types of engineering capabilities and categorize them according to the functions performed into three categories. Furthermore, this paper continues to develop performance metrics measuring each category capabilities in accordance with business strategy perspectives of Profitability, End User and Stakeholders, Internal Processes and Growth & Learning. Establishing engineering sub-organization in national entities and oil and gas operation & production companies is implicitly decided by their management needs and expectations, e.g. technical assurance for compliance with regulations and standards, quality control on the delivered work, in-house design capability for accelerated design and project delivery, innovation and technology adoption, technical expertise to support operation in improving efficiency and reduce downtime, training and development. The first challenge starts with the shortfall in articulating these companies’ management needs and expectations toward their engineering sub-organization and correlate them to the business strategic syntheses. The second challenge comes to map these business strategy perspectives (syntheses) to the applicable strategic objectives. Then, it comes to formulate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or aggregated KPIs to evaluate the strategic objectives by measuring these performance metrics via their formulas. These formulas are fed with corporate information and data whereas to their outputs scaled and target defined. In process of developing engineering organization categorization and formulating KPIs to each category, a number of key performance indicators (KPIs) are generated to evaluate the categorized sub organization effectiveness based on their organization operating model. Introduction of these KPIs gave better vigilance and assurance to quality of work: this is measured through the number of errors, defects, reworks or scope carryover to next phase that occur in the engineering projects. Also, profitability metric is impacted by number of design and engineering variation claims and their value. While the innovation and continuous Improvement indicator will show the ability of the engineering organization to innovate and improve its processes, methods, and tools. By tracking and analyzing these KPIs, it is possible to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the engineering sub-organization and identify areas for improvement and which engineering categorization most suitable and set the minimum requirements. These generated metrics are driving improvement behaviors and norms within these engineering sub-organizations. Overall, engineering teams are essential for oil and gas production companies to achieve their objectives, improve their performance, and remain competitive in the industry. Without the right categorization of engineering sub-organization, Oil and Gas production companies may struggle to maintain and optimize their operations, address technical challenges, and innovate to meet changing market demands and maintain high reputation.

Developments in health sector increased the expectations of patients. In order to meet these expectations, hospitals attach importance to their service quality. Although hospitals increase the quality of service, the perceptions of service users become more important. It was aimed to determine the quality of service and expectation of patients and their relatives who applied to four state hospitals in Istanbul by Servqual Scale. In accordance with this purpose, the relationship between the dimensions of "physical properties", "reliability", "willingness - enthusiasm", "assurance" and "cross-empathy" quality of service and socio - demographic characteristics of participants were statistically analyzed. During sampling process, 358 participants who applied to physical therapy rehabilitation, surgery and internal medicine departments were reached via randomized sampling method. One-way ANOVA and independent sample t-test and chi-square test were applied to analyze the differences in satisfaction level. As a result of the evaluations, it was determined that four state hospitals did not meet the expectations in terms of both the total service quality and service quality sub-dimensions of the patients and their relatives.

Ultra Deep Water (UDW) developments are now a reality with several fields below 2 000 m water depth now ready for production. Within the domain of flexible pipe technology for UDW, Technip identified a number of technical challenges such as flow assurance, riser tension capacity and hydrostatic collapse resistance. These challenges have been addressed through the qualification of various flexible pipe products/components and riser configurations. This paper will focus on one of the solutions developed which addresses the hydrostatic collapse resistance of the pipe, namely the dynamic PSI wire. The dynamic PSI wire was developed primarily as structurally optimized pressure armour. Based on the efficient structural cross section of the I-beam, the dynamic PSI wire provides a weight/strength optimized configuration for internal pressure capacity of the pipe. It also provides increased crushing strength for installation of the pipe in Ultra Deep Water and significantly increases the hydrostatic collapse resistance of the pipe. The objective of the development of the dynamic PSI wire was to propose a 12″ riser for 2 500 m water depth and smaller diameter down to 3 000 m. This objective has been reached, without impacting the dynamic and sour service capacity of the riser. The dynamic PSI wire has succeeded all the qualification process (industrial procurement & manufacturing, full scale dynamic test, full scale collapse tests, full scale offshore installation test down to 3 000m water depth, NACE test, etc) and is now deemed fully qualified for project application. This paper will present the qualification program and also some field case studies showing the potential applications of flexible risers integrating this new design. The availability of dynamic PSI wires provides operators with the opportunity to develop flexible riser production systems in UDW fields with larger diameters and therefore enhance the subsea production and export systems.

Abstract One of the main challenges in rigid riser design for Brazilian Pre-salt is the fatigue limit state. At this new production frontier, some key points are imposed as a challenge for riser designers, mainly due to the high level of motions imposed by the FPSO at the riser top in a coupled system with water depth around 2200 meters, and thicker riser’s thermal insulation demanded for flow assurance (which worsens the dynamic response of production risers). Additionally, high contaminant levels in the fluid (CO2 & H2S) demands CRA materials. Within this context, Petrobras has been considering Steel Lazy Wave Riser (SLWR) configuration as a base case scenario for rigid riser projects, since this configuration is able to absorb part of the FPSO motions that would reach the touch down zone (TDZ) and, consequently, making this region much less demanded when compared against Steel Catenary Risers (SCR). In its pioneer deepwater SLWR [1], Petrobras adopted a conservative approach for fatigue assessment that involved degenerated SN curves from DNV-RP-C203, i.e. D curve in cathodic protection with the slope changing point (SCP) shifted to 5 × 106 for external wall and F1 curve in air with SCP at 5 × 107 for internal wall. More recently, both DNVGL and BSI have reviewed their fatigue assessment codes and no longer holds parity between SN curves. BS-7608 Ed. 2014 introduced different SCPs in order to account for a possible non-conservativeness in the assessment of low stresses under variable amplitude in the loading spectra. DNVGL-RP-C203 Ed. 2016 now presents three different bilinear SN curves for the internal wall of pipelines and risers that depends on weld misalignment, while it keeps SCP unchanged. This paper presents a recent case study for a typical SLWR configuration in pre-salt, in order to evaluate the impact of the changes proposed by the new versions of these design codes in the fatigue life of riser girth welds. Results of this work showed that the impact of different positioning of slope changing points in SN curves can have a great importance for riser design, since typical load spectrum lies around this region. Fatigue life could be increased up to twice or three times if one of these codes are adopted instead of the Shifted SN curves. However, the effect of low stresses under variable amplitude loading spectra is still a concern and it should be further investigated.

For the past couple of decades there has been a change of emphasis in the world nuclear power from that of building new Nuclear Power Plants (NPP) to that of taking measures to optimize the life cycle of operational plants. National approaches in many countries showed an increase of interest in Plant Life Management (PLIM), both in terms of plant service life assurance and in optimizing the service or operational life of NPP. A strong convergence of views is emerging from different National approaches, particularly in the area of the economic aspects of NPP operation and in the evolution in the scope of NPP PLIM. The latter can directly affect the cost of electricity from NPP in an increasingly competitive environment. The safety considerations of a NPP are paramount and those requirements have to be met to obtain and to extend/renew the operating license. To achieve the goal of the long term safe, economic and reliable operation of the plant an Integrated Life Cycle Management Programme (ILCMP) is necessary. Some countries already have advanced PLIM Programmes while others still have none. The ILCMP objective is to identify all that factors and requirements for the overall plant life cycle. The optimization of these requirements would allow for the minimum period of the investment return and maximum of the revenue from the sell of the produced electricity. Recognizing the importance of this issue and in response to the requests of the Member States the IAEA Division of Nuclear Power implements the Sub-programme on “Engineering and Management Support for Competitive Nuclear Power”. Four projects within this sub-programme deal with different aspects of the NPP life cycle management with the aim to increase the capabilities of interested Member States in implementing and maintenance of the competitive and sustainable nuclear power. Although all four projects contain certain issues of PLIM there is one specific project on guidance on engineering and management practices for optimization of NPP service life including decommissioning. This particular project deals with different specific issues of NPP life management including aspects of ageing phenomena and their monitoring, issues of control and instrumentation, maintenance and operation issues, economic evaluation of NPP life cycle management including guidance on its earlier shut down and decommissioning. The paper describes in detail the full scope IAEA activities on different issues of NPP life management and some of its achievements in this field during the nearest past as well as plans for the future.

The Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility, located at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), is a versatile test facility able to subject experimental specimens to various transient nuclear conditions. TREAT was placed in standby after operating from February 1959 through April 1994, resulting in the loss of nearly all transient testing capability in the United States. Recently, the US Department of Energy (DOE) determined this capability was again needed. After DOE completed National Environmental Policy Act actions in February 2014, INL established the Resumption of Transient Testing Program (RTTP). RTTP was a multi-year effort to restart TREAT to reestablish a domestic transient testing capability. After 23 years of standby operations, the RTTP completed restart activities on August 31, 2017, 13 months ahead of schedule and nearly $20 million under budget. RTTP activities included an Environmental Assessment that resulted in a Finding of “No Significant Impact” associated with restarting TREAT, establishment of a compliant Safety Analysis Report (SAR), refurbishment and/or replacement of key reactor systems and components, key system knowledge recovery, reestablishment of configuration management, procedure updates, personnel training and qualification, and demonstration of operational readiness for reactor operations. Several noteworthy factors that contributed to the restart of TREAT include: • Funding to acquire personnel and material resources provided in a timely fashion. • Close coordination with the regulator’s (DOE) nuclear safety program during updates, interactive review, and approval of safety documentation provided for timely update of the TREAT SAR and implementing documents. • Effective management control enabled by utilization of standard outage management techniques with a focus on age-related degradation and updated standards and requirements. • DOE program management ensured efficient implementation of program management tools. These tools focused on clear high-level milestones and spend plans allowing flexibility for the contractor to respond to evolving facility conditions and information in a near-real time manner and with minimal program overhead. This approach enabled efficient execution of work in an environment where determination of required work scope was dependent on performance of inspection, testing, analysis, and evaluation activities. • Implementation of the Contractor Assurance System, with frequent internal and externally-led assessments that facilitated process improvements and corrective actions to ensure the operational readiness for required contractor and DOE readiness assessments and safe nuclear operations. • The RTTP benefited from archived plant documentation and maintenance performed while the plant was in a safe-standby status. • Unique methods of reactivity control allowed for individual and integrated reactor system functional testing, procedure vetting, and personnel training while maintaining the reactor in a safe state.

Quality assurance monitoring and material characterization is of great importance in the pharmaceutical industry. If the tablet coating and/or core are defective, the desired dose delivery and bioavailability can be compromised. Tablet coatings serve a wide variety of purposes such as regulating controlled release of active ingredients in the body, contributing to the bioavailability of a particular drug or combination of drugs, during certain times and locations within the body, protecting the stomach from high concentrations of active ingredients, extending the shelf life by protecting the ingredients from degradation from moisture and oxygen, and improving the tablet's visual appeal. If a coating layer is non-uniform and/or contains surface or sub-surface defects, the desired dose delivery and bioavailability can be compromised. The Food and Drug Administration has initiated a program named the Process Analytical Technology (PAT) in order to ensure efficient quality monitoring at each stage of the manufacturing process by the integration of analytical systems into the procedure. Improving consistency and predictability of tablet action by improving quality and uniformity of tablets is required. An ideal technique for quality monitoring would be non-invasive, non-destructive, rapid, intrinsically safe and cost-effective. The objective of the current investigation was to develop, non-contact/non-destructive techniques for monitoring and evaluating drug tablets for mechanical defects such as coating layer irregularities, internal cracks and delamination using a laser-acoustic approach. In the proposed system, a pulsed laser is utilized to generate non-contact mechanical excitations and interferometric detection of transient vibrations of the drug tablets. Three novel methods to excite vibration in drug tablets are developed and employed: (i) a vibration plate excited by a pulsed-laser, (ii) pulsed laser-induced plasma expansion, and (iii) an air-coupled acoustic transducer. Nanometer-scale transient surface displacements of the drug tablets are measured using the laser interferometer. Signal processing techniques are then applied to these transient displacement responses to differentiate the defective tablets from the nominal ones. From the analysis of frequency spectra and the time-frequency spectrograms obtained under both mechanisms, it can be concluded that defective tablets can be effectively differentiated from the nominal ones.

Abstract Oil & Gas operations place a high focus on the prevention of incidents to avoid interruptions to operations, safety of staff and stakeholders, and safeguard their reputation. Incidents and high potential near miss events are investigated mainly to identify the causes triggering the accident and to identify corrective actions to prevent such accidents to reoccur. The repetition of similar incidents is indicative of gaps in incident investigation process to identify root causes and effective implementation of recommendations. Often well control incidents are investigated as a single incident, missing overall interactions between organizational behaviours over an extended period. An extended analysis of Twenty-five (25) well control incidents within Upstream Oil & Gas companies was conducted to assess repetition of causes and regrouping of causes to assess linkage with well control barrier analysis. ADNOC has a matured HSE management system supported by HSE & operation standards and dedicated framework for competency assurance, well barriers, incident management and process safety supporting ADNOC Upstream Group Companies (GC) to control and prevent well control incidents. Mainly due to the effectiveness of management frameworks for incident management, Operations excellence, process safety and well barriers, ADNOC has not experience any blowout event over the last 10 years during drilling or well interventions. A review of well control incidents and interviews with professionals including drilling engineers, sub surface specialists, drilling supervisors, contractors and consultants indicated the following areas for development: Inadequate identification/correction of worksite/job hazards, particularly in connection with changes to plans Inadequate competency, gaps in communication and change management Gaps in drilling programmes and uncertainty in predicting reservoir conditions resulted in insufficient margin between pore and cracking pressures Encountering unexpected shallow gas pockets Inadequacy in risk assessments followed by gaps in competence (training and/or experience) of assigned staff/crew and communication are the most recurring underlying causes. Based on the findings, review and analysis of investigation the following are the key recommendations to address/prevent well control events: Enhance training efforts for personnel (staff & rig crew) involved in well control situations Conduct awareness sessions on risk management and operational risk during drilling and well intervention Enhance inspection of measures adopted for verification of well barriers, in all operations Adopt measures to build competence and share experience and knowledge. Schedule internal seminars on operational topics focusing on drilling operations and high risk well intervention This approach of linking human factors in design and planning could potentially improve overall HSE performance by 15-25% and eliminate well blowout incidents.

Abstract The clastic Field B offshore Malaysia has been under production since 1971 and a new full field simulation study was undertaken for a comparative evaluation of late life waterflooding versus redevelopment with only infill wells. The area of interest spans 5 neighboring fault blocks, each consisting of up to 52 stacked clastic reservoirs, and more than 250 unique fluid contact sets (OWC & GOC). In addition, facies and petrophysical property distribution, communication between fault blocks, saturation end-point variations, and aquifer strength are significant uncertainties. Allocated production is also a major challenge due to commingled production in ~60 mainly dual string wells with up to 10 commingled sands per string. Historically, simulation studies were approached deterministically, by anchoring static inputs to a single static geological realization and initializing the simulation model with uncertainty parameters at base values. During history matching the model would be gradually and subjectively conditioned at various levels to best reproduce the observed production data. The result of this time-consuming trial and error process is invariably a single non-unique conditioned model, largely anchored to the original static model, with manual, subjective and biased modifications to the static and dynamic input data. To address the challenges associated with the large number of uncertainty parameters and to obtain a range of better history-matched models faster, an ensemble of 100 equiprobable reservoir models was built in an integrated workflow incorporating multi-disciplinary inputs to holistically represent all reservoir uncertainties and associated ranges. The integrated ensemble-based modeling project was undertaken in a cloud-based cognitive Exploration and Production (E&P) digital platform, an efficient digital ecosystem able to cater for computationally intensive parallel run of ensemble cases to evaluate the impact of all combinations of uncertainties. The models were conditioned to historical production, pressure and saturation data using an iterative ensemble-based data assimilation algorithm capable of handling large number of reservoir uncertainty parameters simultaneously in a consistent manner, on both a local level (e.g. facies and petrophysical properties) and a global/regional level (e.g. rock curves, PVT model, fault transmissibilities & threshold pressure, contacts & aquifer size), which reduces modelers’ bias and ensures a high level of static geological & dynamic data integrity. While assimilating production data and calibrating the ensemble, the initial uncertainty range of all the parameters implemented in the study also reduce naturally. After 4 iterations, an ensemble of acceptable quality was obtained and by using the historical cumulative oil production as a criterion, the 15 best conditioned realizations were selected for forecasting. The forecast scenario of interest can be evaluated considering the remaining static and dynamic uncertainties through the sub-samples of selected models. The resource volume range of the existing producing wells estimated using Decline Curve Analysis (DCA) is well aligned with the range from the forecasts of the history matched (conditioned) models and is thus a good assurance of model quality. The Expected Ultimate Recovery (EUR) range from infill wells as predicted by the conditioned models is also aligned with recent drilling campaign results. The ensemble-based approach has proven to be an efficient way to condition geologically-plausible, equiprobable realizations to the historical data in just 7 months – a period significantly shorter than that usually required to manually history-match a single deterministic realization. The ensemble-based methodology has enabled a timely decision to prefer infill drilling over late-field life water flooding.

Approximately 90% of the pharmaceutical inspectors in a pharmacy practice regulatory agency in West Africa have not updated their training on Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) inspection in at least eight years. However, in the last two years the inspectors relied on learning-on-the job skills. During this time, the agency introduced about 17% of its inspectors to hands-on GMP trainings. GMP is the part of quality assurance that ensures the production or manufacture of medicinal products is consistent in order to control the quality standards appropriate for their intended use as required by the specification of the product. Inspection reports on the Agency’s GMP inspection format in-between 2013 to 2019 across the six geopolitical zones in the country were reviewed retrospectively for gap analysis. Sampling was done in two phases. During the first phase sampling of reports was done by random selection, using a stratified sampling method. In the second phase, inspectors from the Regulatory Agency from different regions were contacted on phone to send in four reports each by email. For those that forwarded four reports, two, were selected. However for those who forwarded one or two, all were considered. Also, the Agency’s inspection format/checklist was compared with the World Health Organization (WHO) GMP checklist and the GMP practice observed. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reporting skills and the ability of inspectors to interpret findings vis-à-vis their proficiency in inspection activities hence the efficiency of the system. Secondly, the study seeks to establish shortfalls or adequacies of the Agency’s checklist with the aim of reviewing and improving in-line with best global practices. It was observed that different inspectors have different styles and methods of writing reports from the same check-list/inspection format, leading to non-conformances. Interpretations of findings were found to be subjective. However, it was also observed that inspection reports from the few inspectors with the hands-on training in the last two year were more coherent. This indicates that pharmaceutical inspectors need to be trained regularly to increase their knowledge and skills in order to be kept on the same pace. It was also observed that there is a slight deviation in placing sub indicators under the GMP components in the Agency’s GMP inspection format, as compared to the WHO checklist.

Food hypersensitivity is an increasing problem for many stakeholders with much effort focused on assessment and management of the risks including risk assessment toolkits (for example, the Allergen Bureau (Opens in a new window) Voluntary Incidental Trace Allergen Labelling VITAL®, the iFAAM consortium (Opens in a new window) and the ILSI-Europe Allergen Quantitative Risk Assessment guidance (Opens in a new window)). These toolkits describe the use of action levels and reference doses to assess the risks. A combination of the estimated eliciting dose of allergenic food, (in milligrams as protein) and the amount of food consumed in a single eating occasion can give a threshold or action level as milligrams (as protein) per kilogram (kg) of food) (mg kg-1 as protein) that would provoke an reaction in a given proportion of the allergic population. The eliciting dose is extrapolated from oral food clinical dose-distribution relationships. The results of analysis can be compared to the thresholds or action levels in risk assessment and risk management. Precautionary allergen labelling, well recognized as sub-optimal, could also be improved via an action level approach. Implementation and regulation depend on the ability to measure allergens properly; yet all current analytical approaches exhibit deficiencies, many of which can be addressed by the proper use of appropriate allergen reference materials (RMs). This report describes a pilot project to: 1) Systematically review allergen analytical targets used in ELISA, PCR and MS to allow the creation of a repository of reliable markers and open access verified allergen sequence sets for the studied allergens; 2) Facilitate a guided stakeholder workshop to achieve consensus on priority allergens, physical format of RMs, incurred concentrations and impact of processing; 3) Prepare a RM kit containing (a) a food matrix shown to be devoid of the target allergens, (b) the food matrix incurred with 5 allergens and (c) the raw materials (the allergenic foods); 4) Disseminate to encourage RM use to achieve tangible improvements in allergen analysis, establish a template of best practice for the future and make recommendations for follow up work to complete a set of RMs for the legislated and priority allergens. The RM matrix is based on that used for clinical dose-distribution studies and the raw allergen materials have been characterised by proteomics. The matrix and incurred allergens are industrially relevant to processed foods and the allergen concentrations are clinically relevant in the light of eliciting dose studies. The RM kit has been prepared following a well-established process that includes prescribed homogeneity and stability studies and a formal sign-off procedure of the statements of measurement, in accordance with ISO 17034:2016 ‘General requirements for the competence of reference material producers’ (an updated standard originally ISO GUIDE 34:2009). In October 2020 following detailed external assessment the RM kit was confirmed within the NML scope of ISO 17034 accreditation. ISO 17034:2016 covers the production of all reference materials, including certified reference materials. It is intended as part of the general quality assurance procedures of the reference material producer. LGC formed a consortium which was awarded this project by the FSA following an open competitive tender. The consortium consisted of LGC, the University of Manchester and Romer Laboratories Ltd. The consortium is world leading in (a) the preparation, curation and distribution of RMs in an accredited environment and (b) the characterisation of allergen proteins. Synergy with other concurrent work (for example, by iFAAM, EFSA, ILSI, MoniQA, JRC, and AOAC) has ensured value for money. This report has been compiled from a review of a broad range of data sources including: the scientific literature the tender documents progress reports and minutes of project meetings LGC internal documents and in particular the Material Report[1] UoM reports Romer Lab reports.