Thesis (M. Tech. Environmental health) -- Central University of technology, Free State, 2011 / The threat to the world food supply and the concern for public health as a result of food-borne diseases has been established as a constant global problem. The safety of food, in particular, is of significance to consumers and producers alike. Regarding the diseases related to food-borne pathogens, the disease syndromes affecting the entire human body has become inestimable. The focus of the study was to establish the effect of sanitisers, detergents and household storage temperatures on the growth profiles and toxicity of typical food related organisms. The endotoxin, LPS of these Gram-negative organisms in communal growth as compared to pure culture was the focus of the investigation. Pure and communal samples were grown in the presence of the extrinsic stresses including storage temperature. The change in toxicity was measured using the Limulus amoebocyte lysate test and the possible change in the immune response was determined using the porcine-IL-6 test. The first obvious finding was that the overall sensitivity of organisms was similar for the same sanitiser and the same detergent. The sensitivity of the community varied slightly but in principle followed the same pattern as the individual organisms. The LD50 for all growth samples were as follows: 32 X 104 PPM for sanitiser 1 and sanitiser 2, and 16X 104 PPM for detergent 1 and detergent 2. Growth in community was found not to be the arithmetic sum of the individual growth patterns. The detergents had a marked effect on the growth of all samples throughout the growth cycle. The sub-optimum household storage temperatures inhibited the growth throughout the cycle but growth did not cease entirely. This finding may have revealed that the acceptable refrigeration temperatures still allows for pathogen growth and thus for biofilm formation. Furthermore, the response of the community to the extrinsic stresses appears to be entirely different to the pure culture and therefore needs further exploration to address the problem. Regarding the quantification by LAL, it was found that the enumeration of the food-borne pathogens isolated from households might not be indicative of acclimatisation obtained over short periods of time and the causal stress turning these organisms into more or less toxic pathogens. The sanitisers and detergents induced competition in colonial fashion and the growth varied between feast and famine. The extrinsic stresses had a more observable effect on the older biofilm as this was shown by a decrease in toxicity. The toxicity as quantified by porcine-IL-6 yielded a mixture of stimulation levels for the cytokine. The toxicity change indicated by the test showed a variation between lowering and noticeable elevation for pure cultures. A marked elevation in toxicity was detected in community at storage temperature 4°C. The study would suggest that porcine IL-6 is not an accurate biomarker for pyrogenicity since its sensitivity is questionable and its inability to indicate toxicity if there is a possible change in the LPS structure. It should be said that further elucidation is needed to support this finding. Having said all that, it is no surprise that the validation for the two tests favours the LAL procedure. The large room for pre-test stimulation in pigs’ blood also tends to cast a shadow on the IL-6 findings. The findings of the study contribute to the body of knowledge covering the effects and quantitative analysis of toxins in food. This should add to safety assurance by sensitizing the industry regarding the most suitable analytical methodologies to apply.

The National Safety Council (NSC) estimated that over 35,000 people died in U.S. traffic accidents. About 3.8 million traffic crash injuries requiring medical attention occurred in 2013, and the number of deaths was about the same over the last 5 years. The NSC found that product recalls, car repairs, injuries, and deaths were due to unsafe product designs or inferior product quality. These statistics underscore the challenge of producing quality vehicles while satisfying customers. The purpose of this nonexperimental study was to examine relationships among product (vehicle) quality, product cost, product safety, and consumer satisfaction. The hypotheses inquired the extent to which relationships exist between product quality and customer satisfaction and if product cost and product safety influence this relationship. The theoretical foundation included theories on product quality and consumer satisfaction associated with the cost and safety theories such as product quality and customer satisfaction that are critical factors that can promote positive social change. Data were collected from a random sample (N = 77) of U.S. automobile users and analyzed via simple and multiple linear regression, which showed a significant statistical relationship between product quality and customer satisfaction. However, neither the product safety nor product cost helped mediate the relationship between product quality and customer satisfaction. Building high-quality cars leads to fewer injuries and deaths associated with vehicular accidents, thus promoting positive social change for both U.S. automobile buyers and sellers

This diploma thesis aims to describe the nature and specifics of product safety, as well as analyze the legal background of toys safety and discuss practical aspects related to the toy market. Based on these findings it aims to vindicate the following hypothesis: "Current toy market trends clearly linked with European integration, globalization and technological progress lead to a need to introduce increasingly stringent legislation that would regulate the negative consequences of these trends." The diploma thesis is divided into three parts. The first part describes the theoretical basis of consumer protection in the Czech Republic and the European Union. Sources of legal regulation of consumer law, basic terminology as well as consumer organizations and institutions active in this area are described. The second part deals with the regulation of product safety, while an analysis of three major legislations affecting the product safety is carried out. The third part of this diploma thesis is crucial, while it characterizes the term "toy", analyzes legislation governing toys safety and contains comparison of the current and already invalid Government Regulation on technical requirements for toys. Specific aspects of the toy industry and its current trends are discussed as well as systematic intervention of responsible bodies in case when a dangerous toy is launched.

The diploma thesis devotes to the process of ensuring functional safety of products in Bosch Rexroth Brno, which deals with industrial hydraulic systems. The first part introduces the basic legislative regulations concerning product safety and describes selected standards relevant to this thesis. The second part focuses on Bosch Rexroth and the current state in the field of ensuring functional safety of their products. It also includes a description of the functional safety solution of a specific project – a hydraulic try-out press. At the end of the thesis, improvements to the process of ensuring functional safety in response to the identified shortcomings are proposed.

Thesis (M.Tech.: Biotechnology)-Dept. of Biotechnology, Durban University of Technology, 2007 xi, 114 leaves / Eighteen traditionally leafy vegetables consumed as food or medicinal compounds by a majority of people in the KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa were analysed for the presence of potentially harmful chemicals (antinutrients) and for their toxicity and mutagenicity. The purpose of the study was to determine whether leafy vegetables were safe for human consumption. Chemical analysis showed that none of the vegetables contained cyanogenic glycosides, however all the vegetables contained oxalic acid ranging from 24.1 mg/ml to 798.2 mg/ml with Solanum nigrum, Portulaca oleracea and Mormodica balsamina showing the highest concentrations. Most of the vegetables contained negligible amounts of phytic acid and saponins, except for Momordica balsamina (3.01 mg/ml and 1.83 mg/ml, respectively). Fourteen of the plants contained alkaloids with Portulaca oleracea having the highest content (1.53 g total alkaloids/5 g leaf material). Eight of the plants were found to inhibit trypsin activity. These chemical analyses were carried out in duplicate and the mean and standard deviation were used. The Ames test revealed that none of the leafy vegetables produced a mutagenic frequency above 1, except 10 000 µg/ml organic extract of Senna occidentalis (mutagenecity considered at mutagenic frequency above 2), thus none were considered mutagenic. All 18 organic extracts did not kill off more than 50% brine shrimp and were thus considered non-toxic. On the other hand the aqueous extracts of seven vegetables, namely, Physalis viscosa, Amaranthus dubius, Justicia flava, Bidens pilosa, Senna occidentalis, Chenopodium album and Ceratotheca triloba, killed more than 50% of the shrimp and are thus considered toxic above 100 µg/ml. The MTT assay carried out on the organic extracts indicated that 17 vegetables did not kill off more than 50% of HepG2 cells and were thus considered non-cytotoxic. The aqueous extracts of four vegetables, namely, Justicia flava, Asystasia gangetica, Momordica balsamin and Senna occidentalis, however killed more than 50% of the shrimp and were thus considered cytotoxic above 1 000 µg/ml. It may be concluded from the antinutrient analyses and the bioassays on the 18 vegetables that caution needs to be maintained with the consumption of certain leafy vegetables included in this study, especially Senna occidentalis.

本研究主要探討我國企業對產品責任保險需求之原因，分別以四個構面來分析企業對產品責任保險的需求。包括企業經營動機、公司背景資料、產品安全風險管理與上市公司財務特性等四方面來探討企業的投保動機。本研究以我國上市公司為樣本，共計發放440份問卷，並以回收的90份問卷進行Logistic迴歸及複迴歸之實證分析。 研究結果發現，企業交易對象(買方)的要求、產品風險理財因素和產品市場行銷因素為影響上市公司投保產品責任保險之決定因素，呈顯著正向關係。另外，當上市公司過去曾發生過產品損害事件時，對產品責任保險之需求愈高；而且當公司的產品銷售本國地區、美加地區或同時銷售國內外地區時，對產品責任保險需求愈高。至於產品安全風險管理與產品責任保險需求之間的關係，實證結果顯示二者為互補關係，此與Ehrilich and Becker(1972)的理論假設一致。除此之外，本研究發現當公司規模愈大、產品銷售量愈大、負債對業主權益比率愈高以及公司無長期負債時，其對於產品責任保險的需求愈高。此外，當上市公司的財務危機成本愈高以及所面臨的損失頻率與幅度愈大時，其對於產品責任保險需求愈高。 / This paper investigates the corporate demand for product liability insurance in Taiwan. The motivations to purchase product liability insurance can be categorized into four groups, business operation incentive, features of the firm, product safety management, and financial management. The decision of insurance is analyzed based on the logistic model and multivariate regression models with a sample of 90 publicly traded companies in Taiwan. The empirical results of this study indicate that customers’ requests, product risk financing, and product marketing are the determinants for companies to buy product liability insurance. Further, the companies with previous experience of product liability losses have higher product liability insurance demand. Those companies selling their products to North America and Taiwan will purchase more product liability insurance. Moreover, the empirical evidences suggest significantly positive correlation between product safety management and product liability insurance demand, which is consistent with Ehrilich and Becker (1972) that market insurance and self-protection are complements. The results also show that the firm will purchase more product liability insurance when it has larger firm size, greater product sales, higher debt to equity ratio, and no long term debt.

This thesis is an attempt to constructively interpret and critically evaluate the liberal doctrine that we may not limit a person’s liberty for her own good, and to discuss its implications and alternatives in some concrete areas of public health policy. The thesis starts theoretical and goes ever more practical. The first paper is devoted to positive interpretation of anti-paternalism with special focus on the reason component – personal good. A novel generic definition of paternalism is proposed, intended to capture, in a generous fashion, the object of traditional liberal resistance to paternalism – the invocation of personal good reasons for limiting of or interfering with a person’s liberty. In the second paper, the normative aspect of this resistance is given a somewhat technical interpretation in terms of invalidation of reasons – the blocking of reasons from influencing the moral status of actions according to their strength. It is then argued that normative anti-paternalism so understood is unreasonable, on three grounds: 1) Since the doctrine only applies to sufficiently voluntary action, voluntariness determines validity of reasons, which is unwarranted and leads to wrong answers to moral questions. 2) Since voluntariness comes in degrees, a threshold must be set where personal good reasons are invalidated, leading to peculiar jumps in the justifiability of actions. 3) Anti-paternalism imposes an untenable and unhelpful distinction between the value of respecting choices that are sufficiently voluntary and choices that are not. The third paper adds to this critique the fourth argument that none of the action types typically proposed to specify the action component of paternalism is such that performing an action of that type out of benevolence is essentially morally problematic. The fourth paper ignores the critique in the second and third papers and proposes, in an anti-paternalistic spirit, a series of rules for the justification of option-restricting policies aimed at groups where some members consent to the policy and some do not. Such policies present the liberal with a dilemma where the value of not restricting people’s options without their consent conflicts with the value of allowing people to shape their lives according to their own wishes. The fifth paper applies the understanding of anti-paternalism developed in the earlier papers to product safety regulation, as an example of a public health policy area. The sixth paper explores in more detail a specific public health policy, namely that of mandatory alcohol interlocks in all cars, proposed by the former Swedish government and supported by the Swedish National Road Administration. The policy is evaluated for cost-effectiveness, for possible diffusion of individual responsibility, and for paternalistic treatment of drivers. The seventh paper argues for a liberal policy in the area of dissemination of information about uncertain threats to public health. The argument against paternalism is based on common sense consequentialist considerations, avoiding any appeal to the normative anti-paternalism rejected earlier in the thesis. / QC 20100714

Thesis (M.Tech.: Biotechnology)-Dept. of Biotechnology, Durban University of Technology, 2007 xi, 114 leaves / Eighteen traditionally leafy vegetables consumed as food or medicinal compounds by a majority of people in the KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa were analysed for the presence of potentially harmful chemicals (antinutrients) and for their toxicity and mutagenicity. The purpose of the study was to determine whether leafy vegetables were safe for human consumption. Chemical analysis showed that none of the vegetables contained cyanogenic glycosides, however all the vegetables contained oxalic acid ranging from 24.1 mg/ml to 798.2 mg/ml with Solanum nigrum, Portulaca oleracea and Mormodica balsamina showing the highest concentrations. Most of the vegetables contained negligible amounts of phytic acid and saponins, except for Momordica balsamina (3.01 mg/ml and 1.83 mg/ml, respectively). Fourteen of the plants contained alkaloids with Portulaca oleracea having the highest content (1.53 g total alkaloids/5 g leaf material). Eight of the plants were found to inhibit trypsin activity. These chemical analyses were carried out in duplicate and the mean and standard deviation were used. The Ames test revealed that none of the leafy vegetables produced a mutagenic frequency above 1, except 10 000 µg/ml organic extract of Senna occidentalis (mutagenecity considered at mutagenic frequency above 2), thus none were considered mutagenic. All 18 organic extracts did not kill off more than 50% brine shrimp and were thus considered non-toxic. On the other hand the aqueous extracts of seven vegetables, namely, Physalis viscosa, Amaranthus dubius, Justicia flava, Bidens pilosa, Senna occidentalis, Chenopodium album and Ceratotheca triloba, killed more than 50% of the shrimp and are thus considered toxic above 100 µg/ml. The MTT assay carried out on the organic extracts indicated that 17 vegetables did not kill off more than 50% of HepG2 cells and were thus considered non-cytotoxic. The aqueous extracts of four vegetables, namely, Justicia flava, Asystasia gangetica, Momordica balsamin and Senna occidentalis, however killed more than 50% of the shrimp and were thus considered cytotoxic above 1 000 µg/ml. It may be concluded from the antinutrient analyses and the bioassays on the 18 vegetables that caution needs to be maintained with the consumption of certain leafy vegetables included in this study, especially Senna occidentalis.

Die additive Fertigungstechnologie hat in den vergangenen Jahren durch kostengünstige Systeme Einzug in den Massen- und Consumer-Markt erhalten. Diese Entwicklung befähigte die sogenannte Maker-Szene, eine Gruppierung von Heimwerkern mit Bezügen zur Hacker- und Do-it-yourself-Kultur, kostengünstig und schnell Produktideen in Funktionsprototypen umzusetzen. Neben der reinen Hobbyanwendung bietet die Entwicklung der letzten Jahre aus Sicht der Produktentwicklung auch neue Chancen für die Strategie des Open Design. Demgegenüber steht das Problem der unterschiedlichsten Bildungs- und Ausbildungshintergründe der sich freiwillig beteiligenden Entwickler, eine stark iterative Vorgehensweise in der Produktentwicklung mit häufigen Anpassungszyklen und vielen physischen Teilprototypen, sowie einer lokal sehr unterschiedlichen qualitativen Fertigungsinfrastruktur. Diese Umstände führen derzeit zu einer schwankenden Qualitätsgüte der Ergebnisse und stellen gerade im Hinblick auf die Produktsicherheit eine immense Herausforderung dar. Aus den genannten Gründen soll die Maker-Szene mit Hilfe des vorliegenden Beitrags zur Erzeugung funktional abgesicherter Geometriemodelle befähigt werden.

在各國政府部門為減輕財政負擔、提高行政效能，紛紛引進民間資源並與私部門建立夥伴關係之全球性風潮推波助瀾下，我國近年亦力倡政府瘦身、組織精簡、引用民力、公私協力。再者，運用民力參與公共任務之公私協力，寓有私部門自主規制成分，惟法學上自主規制與公私協力通常為分離探討之論題，兩者之關連性究為何；又兩者態樣眾多且無普世同意之定義，在多元分殊之學理及實務中，是否存在共通並行之法理脈絡與類型系譜，誠屬行政法總論上饒富逸趣之課題。另行政法各論上，為預防火災以維護公共安全並確保人民生命財產，各國莫不多方運用公私協力與自主規制，建構建築物之消防安全管理制度，惟綜觀國內有關公私協力與自主規制之法學論著尤以前者可謂繁花錦簇，事涉公共安全之消防火災預防行政領域相關研究則付諸闕如猶待開拓。 本文爰透過中外文獻梳理公私協力與自主規制法學理論，並放眼國際取樣研究運用公私協力與自主規制之消防行政實務規範，以歐盟與英國為取法對象，就消防安全管理制度硬體層面及軟體層面分別探討歐盟產品（兼及建築產品［再兼及消防安全設備產品］）監管機制以及英國建築物防火安全管理機制。除解析法理基礎更探究實務規範架構於我國與先進國家之異同，期許回饋提供公私協力與自主規制所涉行政法理論若干啟示並促使本國相關消防行政規範更趨周全。 / In the wake of global trend of government department introducing private resources and establishing partnerships with private sectors to reduce financial burden and improve administrative efficacy, Taiwan authorities in recent years have also been advocating government downsizing, streamlining organizations, adopting private resources, and public private partnership. Furthermore, public private partnership contains private sector’s self-regulation element, but in jurisprudential circle, self-regulation and public private partnership are usually independently researched topics, what are the exact relationships between them; otherwise, each of both has great variety of types and has not universally consented definition, therefore, it seems to be an issue full of keen interest for General Administrative Law: whether there exists common legal context and typological pedigree in the pluralistic and divergent theories and practices of public private partnership and self-regulation. Besides, as regards Specific Administrative Law, in order to prevent fires for protecting public safety and people's lives and property, countries all over the world utilize various approaches to public private partnership and self-regulation, to construct fire protection management regime for buildings; the domestic juristic studies of public private partnership and self-regulation have overall fruitful achievements, especially the former, however, apparently none of them refers to fire protection administrative category that thus eagerly needs to be cultivated. This thesis wherefore sorted domestic and foreign juristic literature about public private partnership and self-regulation, and combed internationally relative fire protection administrative legislation. Focusing on legislation of European Union and United Kingdom, it separately explored hardware dimension and software dimension of fire protection management regimes, that is, EU’s product safety and market surveillance regime (involving that for construction product [further involving that for fixed fire fighting equipment]) and UK’s fire safety regime. In addition to analyzing the legal theories and exploring the similarities and differences of legislative framework between EU or UK and Taiwan, it expects to provide several revelations to the jurisprudence of public private partnership and self-regulation, and to actuate the relative domestic fire protection legislation more comprehensively.