In order to achieve the stated goal of reducing the final closing procedure time cycle for construction projects at the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Odessa District, several standard operating procedures (SOPs) for project construction control and management had to be revised. Seemingly unrelated tasks created posterior chains of events that resulted in bottlenecks in the process and delayed final project closing. Four specific SOPs were identified and analyzed to determine which tasks required modification and what was expected from these modifications. A mission for each specified SOP was conceived and written to give a clear view of the intent of the procedure. Afterwards, district policies were drafted to provide the means to fulfill the intent. The procedural changes, compatible with TxDOT statewide procedures, allowed the time spent in the processes to remain the same but redistributed it to reduce the end-loading of the control process. The new SOPs require an even time distribution cyclically throughout the project. Control procedures are done only once, shortening the final closing procedure for projects by doing one-time, short, cyclical, consecutive control tasks of the same procedure throughout the life of the project, rather than doing some of them once cyclically and then again at the closing procedure and others just at the closing procedure. These changes resulted in a shorter end-cycle time, which substantially reduced the final closing procedure time for each project, without affecting the integrity and safeguards of the project. The changes resulted in more efficient and timely financial, managerial, and engineering control of projects. The procedures revised were (1) Review and Approval of Change Orders; (2) Review and Approval of Monthly Progress Estimates; (3) Review and Approval of Interim and Final Audits and Final Estimate; and (4) Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plans (SW3P) Records Management and Auditing Procedures.

The construction industry has faced severe criticism against its inefficiency, high costs and insufficient quality. Besides, the building branch is one of the most dangerous occupations.Skanska Sverige AB runs an international project focused mainly on improving safety, increasing overall process efficiency and providing customers higher value. A part of this project are Standard operating procedures. These are supposed to be the best practices known at the company and should be used on sites as stepwise work instructions.The purpose of this study was to study the creation of Standard operating procedures and to propose a model for continuous improvement of the Standard operating procedures.A theoretical review concerning standards, standardization and continuous improvement is presented.Four case studies were conducted in the thesis in order to clarify what and how to improve. The case studies show that inspiration can be taken from organizations within or outside the building trade. An important new element in Standard operating procedures would be a risk analysis. The risk evaluation corresponds with Skanska´s safety strives. In order to guarantee that a Standard operating procedure really contains the best practice, the process of continuous improvement has to be well managed. The process can be stimulated by the implementation and improvement management at “Väg och anläggning” Skanska.Based on the empirical study and the theoretical framework, a model illustrating continuous improvement is proposed. The never ending life spiral of a Standard operating procedure involves all the organizational levels. The model demonstrates that small stepwise improvements are more cost efficient than large radical changes.Advantages and risks connected to the continuous improvement are described. The benefits would be both monetary and non-monetary. The key success factor of continuous improvement is the proper implementation of Standard operating procedures since it is up to individuals to keep continuous improvement alive. Both the managers on different levels and workmen must be trained and their importance in continuous improvement process must be deep rooted in their thinking. Proper training and excellent leadership would diminish worker´s resistance and prevent an unwanted phase-out.Finally, Skanska is encouraged to trust its own research. The formal content of Standard operating procedures is good enough for launching.

The emergency response readiness of the public health and emergency management systems have become increasingly important topics for research, development and action in the United States. Senior citizens represent a large and growing population group in the United States. Older persons are likely to be disproportionately vulnerable during disasters because they are more likely to have chronic illnesses, functional limitations, and sensory, physical and cognitive disabilities than those of younger ages. Elderly health and safety have become the responsibility of the elderly themselves, of the community in which they live, and the various agencies and organizations charged with preparedness planning. The goal of this study was to assess the emergency operations plans (EOPs) of emergency relief agencies and organizations in the Atlanta area for the provision of emergency relief services utilized by senior citizens as a special needs population. The research and analysis performed was completed in two steps: a review of collected disaster and emergency operations plans (EOPs) and standard operating procedures (SOPs), and a qualitative analysis of a survey submitted to the agencies. Although many EOPs and SOPs referred to emergency relief services for special needs populations, the plans were not functional and did not fully outline the ‘who, what, when, where and how” to provide disaster relief services. Public health agencies must endeavor to better address the disaster related needs of elderly persons who have physical disabilities, special medical needs and communication disabilities. Disaster preparedness plans must ensure the availability of all items necessary to control and prevent complications related to chronic diseases, prevent acute events and promote functionality and independence.

M.Tech (Department of Accountancy, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / The provision of infrastructure delivery programmes in Limpopo province is an important agent in the reduction of poverty, unemployment and strengthening of social capital. The infrastructure development programmes create opportunities for job creation through approaches such as maintenance of existing infrastructure in order to retain resources in the local areas. However, the provision of basic infrastructure still faces serious challenges, notwithstanding the fact that the PFMA and Treasury Regulations (issued by the National Treasury in terms of Section 76 of the PFMA) provide for control measures government has put in place for effective and efficient service delivery in general. The objective of this study was to scrutinise management of finances in the planning, implementation and monitoring of infrastructure programmes and further seek to propose measures to strengthen financial management controls in the implementation of infrastructure programmes to bolster service delivery in the Limpopo province. The literature reviewed indicated that successful implementation of infrastructure development in the province depends on skills and knowledge of the players and financial resources. This study used qualitative research methodology in examining the management of finances in the planning, implementation and monitoring of infrastructure programmes in the Limpopo provincial government. An open-ended questionnaire was used to collect data from the participants. The researcher utilised purposive selection method to obtain information from relevant participants who are directly involved in infrastructure management. The study revealed that Limpopo government departments do not utilise capital budgeting models to appropriately plan and fund infrastructure projects. There are challenges, including procurement processes, lack of appropriate skills to monitor and implement infrastructure projects and lack of standard operating procedures to encourage a culture of uniformity, responsibility and accountability in the processing of payments.

In forensic toxicology, opioids are frequently associated with drug abuse or drug-related death cases. An optimal method for use in the identification and quantification of opioids in a complex blood matrix is of paramount importance. Along with the ability to identify and quantitate opioids, this method should be accurate, sensitive, and selective. The application of sample pre-treatment and solid-phase extraction are common to purify and concentrate the target analytes before analyzing with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of two standard operating procedures, adopted by the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory Toxicology and the Biomedical Forensic Sciences– Toxicology Laboratory at Boston University School of Medicine, for detecting opioids in blood. A total of eight drugs were analyzed: 6-monoacetylmorphine, codeine, fentanyl, hydrocodone, morphine, norhydrocodone, oxycodone, and oxymorphone. Comparison was performed using the parameters studied as part of method validation, including calibration model, bias, precision, carryover, interferences, ionization suppression/enhancement, and recovery. The results indicated that the method from Massachusetts State Police provided a better performance with between-run precision, interferences from matrix and other commonly encountered drugs, matrix effect at high concentration (250 ng/mL) and matrix recovery. Meanwhile, the method from Biomedical Forensic Sciences showed less bias, within-run precision, and matrix effect at low concentrations. Carryover and internal standard interference were comparable in both standard operating procedures. The calibration models were adjusted by altering the selection of regression model for improved quantification method performance. The volume of solvents, sample matrix, as well as time, were taken into consideration in accessing the overall performance of identification and quantitation. Both procedures were comparable yet the one from Massachusetts State Police was more beneficial in identifying the target analytes with greater sensitivity and selectivity and the one from Biomedical Forensic Sciences was more economical and efficient.

The objects of the South African Pharmacy Council in terms of the Pharmacy Act, 1974 (5311974) as amended are, inter alia, "to uphold and safeguard the rights of the general public to universally acceptable standards of pharmacy practice in both the private and the public sector" as well as "to establish, develop, maintain and control universally acceptable standards of practice of the various categories of persons required to be registered.. ." One of the major difficulties health care providers worldwide are faced with is how to maintain a proper balance between the trio goals of health care, namely adequate access, high quality and acceptable costs (Li, 2003:192-193). Relatively little is known about such problems as do exist for patients regarding access to pharmaceutical services (Doucette et al., 1999:1268). Two main objectives were identified for this study, namely to investigate the demographic profile of community and institutional pharmacies registered with the South African Pharmacy Council; and to determine the standard of pharmaceutical services provided by these pharmacies. Inspection results of community and institutional pharmacies were obtained from the South African Pharmacy Council and extracted for the time period 1 January 2004 to 31 May 2005. To determine the demographic and geographic profile of these pharmacies, data of the Register of Pharmacies of the South African Pharmacy Council for August 2003, 2004 and 2005 were merged with the Census data of South Africa of 2001. It was found that the total number of pharmacies in both the public and private sectors increased with 2.1% (n=68) from August 2003 to August 2005. Public and private pharmacies that provided services directly to patients increased with 6.3% (n=33) and 1.3% (n=35) from August 2003 to 2005. It was found that the Gauteng province was the best provided with registered pharmacies in South Africa, as only 0.06% (n=5 783) of the population did not have any registered pharmacy available on municipality level. It was also revealed that the majority of inspections were carried out in Gauteng, whilst this province accounts for only 19.7% of the total population of South Africa. During the study period a total of 1178 community pharmacy inspections were carried out in 1103 community pharmacies (one or more inspections per pharmacy) representing 43% (n=2 550) of the total number of community pharmacies registered with the South African Pharmacy Council during May 2005. Nationally community pharmacies achieved a score of 92.27 (+ 6.65 per cent) for compliance with Good Pharmacy Practice guidelines. The lowest compliance score (73.34 + 27.49 per cent) was obtained for the availability of written standard operating procedures and the highest was for the promotion of public health (99.02 + 6.30 per cent). No practical significant differences (dc0.8) were found between the overall compliance scores obtained by community pharmacies of the different provinces. The highest compliance score was obtained by community pharmacies in the Free State (93.09 + 4.90 per cent), followed by Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Kwazulu Natal, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the North West. A total of 343 institutional pharmacy inspections (one or more inspections per pharmacy) were carried out in public and state subsidised institutions (n=245), private institutions (n=90) and mine hospitals (n=5). These pharmacies represented 46% of the total number of institutional pharmacies registered with the South African Pharmacy Council during May 2005. Nationally all institutional pharmacies (both private and public) achieved a score of 92.49 + 8.33 per cent for compliance with Good Pharmacy Practice guidelines for all above-mentioned aspects. Nationally public and state subsidised institutional pharmacies obtained a lower compliance score (91.02 + 9.08 per cent) than private institutional pharmacies (96.39 + 3.91 per cent). Lastly, a grading system was developed that was based on the results obtained through this study, in order to quantify the standard of pharmaceutical services provided by pharmacies in South Africa. / Thesis (M.Pharm. (Pharmacy Practice))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

The objects of the South African Pharmacy Council in terms of the Pharmacy Act, 1974 (5311974) as amended are, inter alia, "to uphold and safeguard the rights of the general public to universally acceptable standards of pharmacy practice in both the private and the public sector" as well as "to establish, develop, maintain and control universally acceptable standards of practice of the various categories of persons required to be registered.. ." One of the major difficulties health care providers worldwide are faced with is how to maintain a proper balance between the trio goals of health care, namely adequate access, high quality and acceptable costs (Li, 2003:192-193). Relatively little is known about such problems as do exist for patients regarding access to pharmaceutical services (Doucette et al., 1999:1268). Two main objectives were identified for this study, namely to investigate the demographic profile of community and institutional pharmacies registered with the South African Pharmacy Council; and to determine the standard of pharmaceutical services provided by these pharmacies. Inspection results of community and institutional pharmacies were obtained from the South African Pharmacy Council and extracted for the time period 1 January 2004 to 31 May 2005. To determine the demographic and geographic profile of these pharmacies, data of the Register of Pharmacies of the South African Pharmacy Council for August 2003, 2004 and 2005 were merged with the Census data of South Africa of 2001. It was found that the total number of pharmacies in both the public and private sectors increased with 2.1% (n=68) from August 2003 to August 2005. Public and private pharmacies that provided services directly to patients increased with 6.3% (n=33) and 1.3% (n=35) from August 2003 to 2005. It was found that the Gauteng province was the best provided with registered pharmacies in South Africa, as only 0.06% (n=5 783) of the population did not have any registered pharmacy available on municipality level. It was also revealed that the majority of inspections were carried out in Gauteng, whilst this province accounts for only 19.7% of the total population of South Africa. During the study period a total of 1178 community pharmacy inspections were carried out in 1103 community pharmacies (one or more inspections per pharmacy) representing 43% (n=2 550) of the total number of community pharmacies registered with the South African Pharmacy Council during May 2005. Nationally community pharmacies achieved a score of 92.27 (+ 6.65 per cent) for compliance with Good Pharmacy Practice guidelines. The lowest compliance score (73.34 + 27.49 per cent) was obtained for the availability of written standard operating procedures and the highest was for the promotion of public health (99.02 + 6.30 per cent). No practical significant differences (dc0.8) were found between the overall compliance scores obtained by community pharmacies of the different provinces. The highest compliance score was obtained by community pharmacies in the Free State (93.09 + 4.90 per cent), followed by Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Kwazulu Natal, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the North West. A total of 343 institutional pharmacy inspections (one or more inspections per pharmacy) were carried out in public and state subsidised institutions (n=245), private institutions (n=90) and mine hospitals (n=5). These pharmacies represented 46% of the total number of institutional pharmacies registered with the South African Pharmacy Council during May 2005. Nationally all institutional pharmacies (both private and public) achieved a score of 92.49 + 8.33 per cent for compliance with Good Pharmacy Practice guidelines for all above-mentioned aspects. Nationally public and state subsidised institutional pharmacies obtained a lower compliance score (91.02 + 9.08 per cent) than private institutional pharmacies (96.39 + 3.91 per cent). Lastly, a grading system was developed that was based on the results obtained through this study, in order to quantify the standard of pharmaceutical services provided by pharmacies in South Africa. / Thesis (M.Pharm. (Pharmacy Practice))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Worms have been improved and a range of sophisticated techniques have been integrated, which make the detection and response processes much harder and longer than in the past. Therefore, in this thesis, a STAKCERT (Starter Kit for Computer Emergency Response Team) model is built to detect worms attack in order to respond to worms more efficiently. The novelty and the strengths of the STAKCERT model lies in the method implemented which consists of STAKCERT KDD processes and the development of STAKCERT worm classification, STAKCERT relational model and STAKCERT worm apoptosis algorithm. The new concept introduced in this model which is named apoptosis, is borrowed from the human immunology system has been mapped in terms of a security perspective. Furthermore, the encouraging results achieved by this research are validated by applying the security metrics for assigning the weight and severity values to trigger the apoptosis. In order to optimise the performance result, the standard operating procedures (SOP) for worm incident response which involve static and dynamic analyses, the knowledge discovery techniques (KDD) in modeling the STAKCERT model and the data mining algorithms were used. This STAKCERT model has produced encouraging results and outperformed comparative existing work for worm detection. It produces an overall accuracy rate of 98.75% with 0.2% for false positive rate and 1.45% is false negative rate. Worm response has resulted in an accuracy rate of 98.08% which later can be used by other researchers as a comparison with their works in future.

Thesis. (M. Tech. (Dept. of Biosciences, Faculty of Applied and Computer Sciences))--Vaal University of Technology, 2010 / Methods for detecting the presence of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts have been developed and continuous improvement is being done to improve the recovery rate of the target protozoa. Rand Water has adopted their method for isolation and detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts in water from United State Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) Method 1623, 1999. In 2005 changes were made by US-EPA to the Method 1623. A study was done to improve the performance of the Rand Water Method 06 (2007) used for isolation and detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts. Three methods namely: Rand Water Method 06 (2007), US-EPA Method 1623 (2005) and Drinking Water Inspectorate standard operating procedures (2003) were compared and key different steps in the methods were identified (wrist action speed, centrifuge speed, immunomagnetic separation procedures and addition of pre-treatment steps). Different experiments were conducted to verify and evaluate the difference between two wrist action shaker speeds, three different centrifuge speeds, two slightly different immunomagnetic separation procedures and when a pre-treatment step was included in the method. Three different types of water matrices (reagent grade water, drinking water and raw water) were used for the experiments and secondary validation. Data obtained from the experiments and secondary validation was statistically analyzed to determine whether there was a significant difference in the recovery of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts. Secondary validation of the Rand Water Method 06 (2007) was performed by implementing the study experiments‟ findings into the method. The results indicated an increase in the recovery rate of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts when data was compared with the previous secondary validation report. The mean recovery of Cryptosporidium oocysts in reagent grade water samples increased from 31% to 55%, drinking water samples increased from 28% to 44% and raw water decreased from 42% to 29%. The mean recovery of Giardia cysts in reagent grade water samples increased from 31% to 41%, drinking water samples increased from 28% to 46% and raw water decreased from 42% to 32%. Furthermore, even though the recovery rate of raw water decreased the use of pre-treatment buffer reduced the number of IMS performed per sample by reducing the pellet size. Enumeration of microscope slides was also easier as there was less background interference. The optimization of the Rand Water Method 06 (2007) was successful as the recovery rate of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts from water increased. All the changes that were verified and that increased the recovery rate were incorporated into the improved Rand Water Method 06.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-08-19T13:52:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 10.pdf: 4071879 bytes, checksum: e4995bcd224e527acb6bbb7591fa93b9 (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto de Tecnologia em Fármacos/Farmanguinhos. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil. / A presente dissertação sugere a padronização dos procedimentos operacionais e a elaboração do manual da qualidade para adoção de um sistema de gestão da qualidade no Biotério de Experimentação do Laboratório de Farmacologia Aplicada de Farmanguinhos. Os animais de laboratório contribuem há mais de 100 anos para as ciências biológicas no conhecimento, prevenção e tratamento de doenças, no desenvolvimento de medicamentos de uso humano e veterinário, além de proporcionar o aperfeiçoamento de técnicas clínicas e cirúrgicas. A Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) tem um papel importante e histórico no cenário brasileiro em relação à promoção da saúde da população, sendo um dos principais centros de pesquisas científicas e tecnológicas no Brasil. Os camundongos e ratos utilizados nas pesquisas científicas do laboratório devem ser livres de agentes patogênicos específicos e sem dúvidas com relação à sua qualida de sanitária e genética, variáveis que possam gerar erros nos resultados exp erimentais. Para garantir este padrão de qualidade dos animais faz-se necessário o controle de parâmetros ambientais e operacionais na gestão do biotério. A verificação de conformidades ou não conformidades com as legislações nacionais vigentes e o levantamento das atividades operacionais exercidas no biotério determinaram a necessidade do estabelecimento de normas e propostas de ações corretivas para implantar o sistema de gestão da qualidade no biotério de experimentação do laboratório. A partir do relatório das atividades e processos executados no biotério foi elaborada a lista mestra de procedimentos a serem padronizados. Foram geradas também as ações corretivas para o cumprimento das exigências dos órgãos fiscalizadores, e o credenciamento e cadastro do biotério junto ao Conselho Regional de Medicina Veterinária (CRMV) e ao Conselho Nacional de Controle da Experimentação Animal (CONCEA). Com a padronização dos procedimentos operacionais e a elaboração do manual da qualidade do biotério será possível obter as orientações específicas e necessárias para garantir a boa manutenção dos animais no biotério de experimentação e, consequentemente, a maior confiabilidade dos resultados experimentais. A adoção do sistema de gestão da qualidade no biotério garante o uso ético e o bem-estar dos animais e cumpri as exigências legislativas nacionais. / This thesis suggests the standardization of operating procedures and the preparation of quality manual for the adoption of a system of quality management in the Laboratory Animal Facility of Experimentation of Applied Pharmacology in Farmaguinhos. The laboratory animals contribute for more than 100 years to the life sciences knowledge, prevention and treatment of diseases, the development of medicinal products for human and veterinary use, in addition to providing improvement of clinical and surgical techniques. The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) has an important role in the Brazilian scenario and history in relation to the promotion of health of the population, being one of the main centers of scientific and technological research in Brazil. The mice and rats are used in scientific research laboratory should be free of specific pathogens and no doubts about its continued health and genetic variables that can generate errors in the experimental results. To ensure this standard of quality of certain animals it is necessary to control environmental parameters and operational management of the biotherium. To check compliance or non-compliance with the national laws and the lifting of the operational activities carried on in the biotherium was possible to determine the need to establish standards and proposed corrective actions to implement the quality management system. From the report of the activities and processes on the biotherium was prepared master list of procedures to be standardized. Were also generated corrective actions to comply with the requirements of regulatory agencies, and accreditation and registration of the biotherium with the Regional Council of Veterinary Medicine (CRMV) and the National Council for the Control of Animal Experimentation (CONCEA). With the standardization of operating procedures and the preparation of quality manual from the facility will be possible to obtain specific guidelines and necessary to ensure the proper maintenance of animals in experimental animal facility and consequently the greater reliability of the experimental results. The adoption of the system of quality management in the vivarium ensures ethical use and welfare of animals and fulfill the national requirements.