Academic literature on the topic 'Certification and authenticity'

Certificates of origin issued by a competent authority have been used to prove that goods originate under many Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). This system, however, has limitations as trade volume grows under FTAs, so countries have been shifting toward self-certification origin systems. Self-certification systems are less costly and less time-consuming, but system depends on following the rules. This article discusses the examination of certification documents under these systems from viewpoints of authenticity, identity, and originating status. Being aware of the difference between these systems, measures are considered to achieve a smooth transition from the conventional certification system to one of self-certification.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the application form of the concept of cyber notary in guaranteeing the authenticity of electronic transactions and to examine notary arrangements in guaranteeing the authenticity of electronic transactions. This is a departure from the vagueness of norms in Article 15 paragraph (3) of the Law on Notary Position, regarding the need for legal norms on the function and role of notaries in electronic business transactions. This paper uses a normative legal research method because the focus of the study departs from the obscurity of norms. The form of application of the concept of cyber notary in guaranteeing the authenticity of electronic transactions is that the parties keep coming and dealing with the notaries. However, the parties immediately read the draft deed on their respective computers, after agreeing, the parties immediately signed the deed electronically at the notary's office. Notary arrangements in guaranteeing the authenticity of electronic transactions play a role in the issuance of electronic certificates through Electronic Certification Providers. The role of a notary for Certification Authority and in issuing Electronic Certificates through Electronic Certification Providers. Tujuan penulisan ini adalah untuk menganalisa bentuk penerapan dari konsep cyber notary dalam menjamin keautentikan terhadap transaksi elektronik dan mengkaji pengaturan notaris dalam menjamin keautentikan terhadap transaksi elektronik. Hal tersebut beranjak dari adanya kekaburan norma dalam Pasal 15 ayat (3) Undang Undang Jabatan Notaris, akan kebutuhan norma hukum terhadap fungsi dan peran notaris dalam transaksi bisnis elektronik. Tulisan ini menggunakan metode penelitian hukum normatif karena fokus kajian beranjak dari kekaburan norma. Bentuk penerapan dari konsep cyber notary dalam menjamin keautentikan terhadap transaksi elektronik adalah para pihak tetap datang dan berhadapan dengan para notarisnya. Hanya saja, para pihak langsung membaca draft aktanya di masing-masing komputer, setelah sepakat, para pihak segera menandatangani akta tersebut secara elektronik di kantor Notaris. Pengaturan notaris dalam menjamin keautentikan terhadap transaksi elektronik berperan dalam penerbitan sertifikat elektronik melalui lembaga Penyelenggara Sertifikasi Elektronik. Peran notaris untuk Certification Authority maupun dalam penerbitan Sertifikat Elektronik melalui Penyelenggara Sertifikasi Elektronik.

The presented article discusses the issue of authenticity in testing Polish as a foreign language through a certificate exam. The pursuit of authenticity can manifest both in the general concept of the exam sheet (in its layout and structure), as well as in tasks testing individual skills. When testing reading comprehension, the authenticity requirement can be met by appropriate use of texts from different sources in the examination tasks. These can be both original texts that were created for purposes other than examination, and prepared texts (written specifically for the certification test by the authors of the tasks).

Abstract This article uses an audit sample and a consumer survey to study the intriguing market of online prescription drugs facing US customers and assesses the role that certification agencies play in online drug markets. On the supply side, we acquire samples of five popular brand-name prescription drugs from three types of online pharmacies: tier 1 are US-based and certified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) or LegitScript.com, tier 2 are certified by PharmacyChecker.com or the Canadian International Pharmacy Association but not by NABP or LegitScript, and tier 3 are not certified by any of the four agencies. Most tier-2 and tier-3 websites are foreign. We find that 37 of the 365 delivered samples are different from the products we ordered and, therefore, non-testable. Conditional on testable samples, Raman spectrometry test finds no failure of authenticity except for eight Viagra samples from tier-3 websites. After controlling for testability and authenticity, tier-2 websites are 49.2% cheaper (p<0.01) and tier-3 websites are 54.8% cheaper (p < 0.01) than tier-1 sites. These differences are driven by non-Viagra drugs. For Viagra, failing samples are cheaper, but there is no significant price difference across tiers once we condition on testability and authenticity. To study the demand side, we designed a survey that was distributed by RxRights. Among the 2,522 respondents who have purchased prescription medication and are concerned about the price of US pharmaceuticals, results show that 61.54% purchase drugs online and mostly from foreign websites, citing cost saving as the leading reason. Conditional on shopping online, 41.11% check with a credentialing agency. Both samples convey a consistent message that certification agencies deliver useful information for foreign websites and online consumers. Further, while these findings confirm the Food and Drug Administration warning against rogue websites, they do suggest that a blanket ban against all foreign websites may deny consumers substantial savings from certified tier-2 websites.

Quality assurance is a dominant feature of organic production and, currently, third-party certification is recognized as the official authenticity assurance strategy by the majority of worldwide organic regulations. This model, however, is less accessible to smallholders because it is costly and its application time-consuming. Furthermore, this certification system has been accused on several fronts to be responsible for the standardization of the organic production process leading to a “conventionalization” of organic productions. Contextually, in several countries, groups of small producers have started to implement alternative quality assurance systems for their organic products, better known as Participatory Guarantee Systems. Research to date has not yet determined how these models can survive within a highly competitive market such as that of certification. In this framework, the paper aims to theoretically unveil and explain the alternative certification phenomenon and its coexistence with third-party certification by applying an evolutionary game (rationally bounded agents that adopt the more rewarding strategy). The results of simulations suggest that symbolic attributes such as localness, healthiness, quality, producers and consumers embeddedness can differentiate products guaranteed by alternative schemes, meeting consumers’ preference. The discussion of findings provides an assessment of the performance of both quality assurance systems, explain their coexistence within the organic market, identify critical aspects, and suggest some policy implications.

These days, with the popularity of music, video, performance arts and creative contents among the younger generations, a raise on the number of people who want to start a self-made online career on the above industries could be seen. Among them there are those who are becoming a self-made artist, dancers, coaches. Not having a certified institution to verify the authenticity their skills, eventually, an online automatized method of self-certification, recognized by but not necessarily made by institutions, will be essential, due to the boom of creator professionalization, their large influence and the health and safety risks implied. There is still lots of improvements to be done in this field. This paper explores the blockchain certification system and its opportunity to be applied as skill classification and selective stage on the dance audition system. The findings here will be applied on a dance and fitness application.

Purpose This paper aims to make an empirical contribution by investigating the enforcement mechanisms and governance structures required to protect and govern a regional food product when public certification fails. As one of the recent additions to South Africa’s repertoire of products with a designated origin, Karoo Lamb made for an interesting case study. Design/methodology/approach A conjoint analysis was conducted to elicit the farmers’ preferred enforcement mechanisms to protect the authenticity of the Karoo Lamb product. The investigation, furthermore, draws on survey data collected among 73 farmers, five abattoirs, two processors/packers and five retail outlets to evaluate the governance structures of the Karoo Lamb supply chain. Findings The results indicate that due to failed public certification that is governed by market-like structures, Karoo Lamb is better off being governed by hierarchical structures. These structures are expected to allow for a stronger focus on stricter enforcement mechanisms. Practical implications At the farm level, the Karoo Lamb supply chain requires better enforcement mechanisms to protect the unique attributes of origin and taste to ensure the authenticity of Karoo Lamb. This change towards stricter enforcement requires more hierarchical structures to allow for private or mutual enforcement mechanisms. Originality/value This paper contributes empirically to the governance structure knowledge base by analysing the enforcement mechanisms and governance structures needed to enforce and protect, the quality and origin standards of a region of origin product, Karoo Lamb, in South Africa.

The authors of the publication have described the basic principles of the procedure of defining metrological characteristics of certified reference materials (hereinafter referred to as CRMs) of antibacterial substances that are being developed. CRMs of antibacterial substances are intended for certification of measurement procedures and accuracy control of measurement results. CRMs can be used for graduation, calibration of measuring instruments if their metrological and technical characteristics comply with the procedures of graduation and calibration of measuring instruments, as well as determination of antibiotic sensitivity of pathogenic microorganisms and authenticity of active substances in pharmaceutical drugs.

Assets such as warehouse receipts are important for enterprises, which can be used to pledge in supply chain finance (SCF). However, traditional pledges are performed manually, which inevitably encounters inefficiency and security problems such as multiple pledges. To improve asset security, we propose a blockchain-based digital asset platform (BDAP) with multi-party certification. BDAP not only has a security protocol based on the threshold ECDSA algorithm to make related participants confirm the authenticity of assets but also embeds a Verifiable Byzantine Fault Tolerant (VBFT) mechanism, randomly selecting the consensus nodes and improving the safety of the nodes. Moreover, data stored on the blockchain makes traceability possible. Through a set of experiments, we have verified the functionality and performance of BDAP. When the pressure test reaches 100 concurrent user volume, BDAP’s average response time is 1.441 s, showing a high ability to process transactions. However, now just a few open-minded banks are willing to access BDAP, it might take a long time to change the traditional perception of the participants in supply chain finance.

To tackle the problems of questioning the authenticity of products faced in e-commerce live streaming and the low data integrity in the process of product transactions, the concept of traceability and a product authentication scheme that integrates blockchain technology and traceability are proposed. The proposed scheme deploys the product authentication strategy on the Ethereum blockchain in the form of a smart contract and calls the product authentication method on the traceability body by executing the smart contract to realize the authentication of product quality. A combination of on-chain and off-chain is used to store private information to guarantee information integrity. Security analysis results show that the proposed scheme can make the risk of information leakage lower and data security higher under the premise of achieving product certification. A system simulation experiment shows that the solution can meet product certification requirements and have a favorable impact on the live commerce industry.

Authenticity is a concept of increasing importance in a postmodern world. A review of key literature reveals that authenticity is a difficult to define multidimensional construct. In the marketing context, authenticity can be defined as an assessment of the genuineness of a product or experience made by an evaluator in a particular context (Grayson and Martinec 2004). As such, it represents the interaction of an object, place, and person. However, authenticity has strong credence attributes: it is often difficult or impossible to demonstrate physical properties which indicate authenticity. Consequently, certification - the process of adding credible, salient, and visible information to frame customer perceptions of authenticity - may be a critical cue for evaluations. This research assessed the effects of certification of authenticity on product perceptions. The research context examined the effectiveness of multiple certification marks on the perceived authenticity of a Maori greenstone (pounamu) carving, an indigenous art form well-known in New Zealand. Study 1 used a traditional fishhook-style carving as a stimulus in a 2 (age: old, new) x 4 (certification: toi iho (TM), New Zealand Made, Made with Care, no certification) full factorial design. Study 2 used a less-traditional silver fern carving design in a 2 (Age: old, new) x 3 (certification: toi iho (TM), New Zealand Made, no certification) x 2 (social identity primed and unprimed) full factorial design. Multiple dependent variables were measured on interval scales, including the perceived level of authenticity, liking, quality, perceived value, and purchase intent. Most prior work on authenticity considers the context-specific antecedents of authenticity, which are generally inherent attributes of the product of category under study. This research took a broader approach, with the aim of greater generalisability. Four general antecedents of authenticity were modelled. Two object related factors, perceived age of the object and certification, were included. Two individual factors were also considered, social identity and perceived expertise with the category. A series of 11 hypotheses was tested, predominantly using ordinary least squares regression. The four proposed general antecedents were regressed on authenticity, and social identity, object age, and certification were found to have significant direct effects on authenticity. It was also found that priming social identity had a significant effect on perceptions of authenticity of an object which is consistent with the respondent's social identity. Perceived expertise with the product category had a significant effect when entered as the last regressor in a parsimonious model, but dropped to insignificance when included in larger models. Authenticity was treated as a mediator between the antecedents and a range of outcome variables including liking, perceived quality, perceived value, and purchase intent. Findings confirm that authenticity partially mediates the effect of the antecedents on the outcome variables. Authenticity had a strong direct effect on the outcome variables (liking, perceived quality, perceived value, and purchase intent), and this direct effect exceeded the direct effects of the antecedents (social identity, product age, category expertise, and certification) on the outcome variables. Three potential interaction effects were tested: social identity x certification, perceived object age x certification, and category expertise x certification. The effects of age x certification were significant for toi iho (TM) certification only, and category expertise x certification was significant for the New Zealand Made certification only. The effects of social identity x certification were not significant. Prior research in many fields has found that authenticity is an important, even central, concept in how people perceive their own identities. A range of work also indicates that individuals often seek personal authenticity through specialised types of consumption. Overall, this study found that perceived authenticity is an important precursor to product perceptions, and it is linked with greater liking, value perceptions, quality perceptions and likelihood to purchase. Certification was also found to significantly strengthen perceptions of product authenticity. Putting these elements together, it is clear that perceptions of product authenticity can be increased through adding, manipulating, or communicating the antecedents of age and certification. Perceived authenticity can also be affected by priming perceptions of social identity. Greater perceived authenticity leads, in turn, to more positive affect towards the product. This should result in positive commercial outcomes such as greater purchase, loyalty, or market share. Given the philosophical centrality of the authenticity concept to individual self-perception, it is only a short leap to suggest that more authentic products potentially have a strong psychological resonance with consumers.

Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University of Adelaide Library.
To investigate the extent of the problem of use of fraudulent academic qualifications in Australia, the study used two approaches under the theoretical framework of risk management. Firstly, the author assessed the potential risk of Australian academic qualifications being falsified and available on the Internet, through an exploratory research question. Secondly, equivalency testing was used to assess how far existing verification tools were being employed by three separate users of academic qualifications in Australia. --p. xix.
http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1289333
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Education, 2007

Olive tree is present to the Western and Southern regions of Albania, alongside Adriatic and Ionian Sea, two body waters of the Mediterranean basin. Genetic studies have revealed the existence of 22 native olive cultivars, while several introduced foreign olive cultivars are present. Two most important olive cultivars respectively, exploited in the olive oil production, and table olive, are Kalinjot and Kokërrmadh Berati. Olive fruit production ranks the country 20th in the world. Olive tree comprises an important permanent crop with considerable potential for the Albanian economy. Principal component analyses (PCA) of fatty acids in OO displays their differentiation according to the cultivar and their region. Chemometric analysis gives support to the differentiation of OO according to the olive cv. in terms of phenolic compounds. Secoiridoids are found in abundance, 3,4-DHPEA-EDA and p-HPEA-EDA as dominant compounds, especially in Kalinjot olive oils. Albanian OO shows high levels of aroma compounds with (E)-2-hexenal as the principal aroma compound. Its concentrations reach up to 40411 μg/kg in Kalinjot cv., much higher compared to Bardhi Tirana cv (27542.7 μg/kg). The authenticity of OOs constitutes an opportunity for domestic production and certification according to the geography or origin and present an important resource to the development of a sustainable economy.

Health coaching, an emerging health care specialty, is a way of being-knowing-doing that facilitates lifestyle change and well-being. Coaching is client-centered and based on values of partnership, empowerment, authenticity, trust, self-reflection and openness. Using strategies that include motivational interviewing, nonviolent communication, reflective practice and appreciative inquiry, health coaches accompany clients along their health-seeking journey. Developing professional competencies, including presencing, active listening, education, self-discovery and change processes, form the basis for new credentialing/certification processes and educational programs. These competencies align with the principles of integrative nursing and nursing’s historical focus on patient-centered, relationship-based care that facilitates body-mind-spirit health and well-being.

Purposeful and mindful leadership for global health incorporates the same principles as any leadership endeavor. Purposeful leadership requires a core dedication to the organizational mission. There cannot be purposeful leadership without authenticity of purpose—a true desire to lead for a reason, not just leadership for the sake of leadership. Mindful leadership requires attention to the many nuances found in a particular setting, culture, and system of care or organizational structure. In global leadership, mindfulness is critical to securing success. All leadership requires the blend of the drive of purpose seasoned with the humility of mindfulness. In the United States, medical education has been shaped by the confluences of accreditation and certification. Accreditation refers to the standardization of training programs. Certification refers to the demonstrated competence of individuals to practice their profession. It is a system of checks and balances that does not exist in many other global settings but one that might serve as an effective framework for others. Central to any leadership position is the ability to promote change. In the context of global health leadership in education, change is not the replication of the US system but the preservation and adaptation of the concepts of programmatic and individual improvement efforts.

The recent creation of Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) has enabled a multibillionaire market for digital artistic works including images or sequence of images, videos, and animated gifs. With this new trend issues regarding fraud, stolen works, authenticity, and copyright came along. The goal of this chapter is to provide an overview of the watermarking techniques that can be employed to mitigate those issues. We will discuss transparency, robustness, and payload of watermarking techniques aiming to educate the artists, researchers, and developers about the many approaches that watermarking techniques provide and the resulting trade-offs. We focus on fragile watermarking techniques due to their high transparency for embedding into artistic works. We discuss the spread spectrum and Least Significant Bit techniques. We describe the usual process of NFT minting into a blockchain and propose a more secure certification protocol with watermarking which employs the same usual NFT minting offered by current marketplaces. The proposed certification protocol mints a checksum string into a blockchain, ensuring the validity of the watermark and the information embedded into this watermark. This proposed protocol validates the date of creation and author identification which are transparently embedded in the artistic work, thus, increasing the security and confidence of markets for artistic works transactions.

To preserve digitally encoded information over a long term following the OAIS Reference Model requires that the information remains accessible, understandable and usable by a specified Designated Community. These are significant challenges for repositories. It will be argued that infrastructure which is needed to support this preservation must be seen in the context of the broader science data infrastructure which international and national funders seek to put in place. Moreover aspects of the preservation components of this infrastructure must themselves be preservable, resulting in a recursive system which must also be highly adaptable, loosely coupled and asynchronous. Even more difficult is to be able to judge whether any proposal is actually likely to be effective. From the earliest discussions of concerns about the preservability of digital objects there have been calls for some way of judging the quality of digital repositories. In this chapter several interrelated efforts which contribute to solutions for these issues will be outlined. Evidence about the challenges which must be overcome and the consistency of demands across nations, disciplines and organisations will be presented, based on extensive surveys which have been carried out by the PARSE.Insight project (http://www.parse-insight.eu). The key points about the revision of the OAIS Reference Model which is underway will be provided; OAIS provides many of the key concepts which underpin the efforts to judge solutions. In the past few years the Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification: Criteria and Checklist (TRAC) document has been produced, as well as a number of related checklists. These efforts provide the background of the international effort (the RAC Working Group http://wiki.digitalrepositoryauditandcertification.org) to produce a full ISO standard on which an accreditation and certification process can be built. If successful this standard and associated processes will allow funders to have an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the archives they support and data producers to have a basis for deciding which repository to entrust with their valuable data. It could shape the digital preservation market. The CASPAR project (http://www.casparpreserves.eu) is an EU part funded project with total spend of 16MEuros which is trying to faithfully implement almost all aspects of the OAIS Reference Model in particular the Information Model. The latter involves tools for capturing all types of Representation Information (Structure, Semantics and all Other types), and tools for defining the Designated Community. This chapter will describe implementations of tools and infrastructure components to support repositories in their task of long term preservation of digital resources, including the capture and preservation of digital rights management and evidence of authenticity associated with digital objects. In order to justify their existence, most repositories must also support contemporaneous use of contemporary as well as “historical” resources; the authors will show how the same techniques can support both, and hence link to the fuller science data infrastructure.