European Cooperation for

The AMFC Directive requires that food control laboratories should be accredited to the EN 45000 series of standards as supplemented by some of the OECD GLP principles. In the UK, government departments have nominated the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) to carry out the accreditation of official food control laboratories for all the aspects prescribed in the Directive. However, as the accreditation agency will also be required to comply with the EN 45003 Standard and to carry out assessments in accordance with the EN 45002 Standard, all accreditation agencies that are members of the European Cooperation for Accreditation of Laboratories (EA) may be asked to carry out the accreditation of a food control laboratory within the UK. Similar procedures will be followed in the other Member States, all having or developing equivalent organisations to UKAS. Details of the UK requirements for food control laboratories are described later in this chapter. 

Further to these, the laboratory community has established very useful links to exchange information and ideas, to snbmit suggestions and develop policies. Some of the most important fora on European and international level are EA (European cooperation for Accreditation), EURACHEM, EUROLAB, ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation). 

Eurachem/ CITAC and EA A Focus for Analytical Chemistry in Europe/Cooperation of International Traceability in Analytical Chemistry and European Cooperation for Accreditation Method validation, Proficiency testing, QA, accreditation 2,15, 59-60... 

European Cooperation for Accreditation of Laboratories (EAL) (1996), The Expression of Uncertainty in Quantitative Testing, EAL-G23, The Netherlands. 

ECSS (2001) Solar and Earth Electromagnetic Radiation and Indices, Chap. 6, European Cooperation for Space Standardization Internet www.estec.esa.nl/ecss. 

Eurachem (1996) Accreditation for laboratories performing microbiological testing. European cooperation for accreditation of laboratories. EAL-G18. Eurachem... 

EAL-G12 (1995) Traceability of measuring and test equipment to national standards. European cooperation for accreditation of laboratories, 1st edn, Nov 1995. www.european-accreditation.org/n 1/doc/EA-4-07.pdf. Accessed 4 Feb 2013... 

ECSS-Q-HB-30-08A, January 2011. Space Product Assurance. Components Reliability Data Sources and Their Use. European Cooperations for Space Standardization (ECSS), ECSS Secretariat, ES A-ESTEC Requirements Standards Division, Noordwijk, The Netherlands. 

European Cooperation for Space Standardization ECSS-E-ST-40C Space engineering - Software (March 2009), available from ESA... 

In Europe, the ESA, with the support of national space agencies of Member States, has established a reference set of standards called the ECSS (European Cooperation for Space Standardization), to which the European industrial sector also contributes. This set of standards is stmctured along three axes (management, engineering, quality) and three levels ... 

Numerous other organisations in the defence and aerospace industry, such as NASA and the European Cooperation for Space Standardization, have published their own systems engineering standards, and the Australian DoD issued its Capability Systems Life Cycle Management Manual in 2002. 

Founded in 1971, COST is an intergovernmental framework for European cooperation in the field of scientific and technical research, allowing the coordination of nationally funded research on a European level. COST actions cover basic and precompetitive research as well as activities of public utility. 

The goal of COST is to ensure that Europe holds a strong position in the field of scientific and technical research for peaceful purposes, hy increasing European cooperation and interaction in this field. Ease of access for institutions from nonmember countries also makes COST a successful tool for tackling topics of a truly global nature. 

Hacke W, Kaste M, Fieschi C, Toni D, Lesaffre E, von Kummer R, Boy sen G, Bluhmki E, Hoxter G, Mahagne MH. Intravenous thrombolysis with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator for acute hemispheric stroke. The European Cooperative Acute Stroke Study (ECASS). JAMA 1995 274 1017-1025. 

Three large randomized trials, the European Cooperative Acute Stroke Study (ECASS) parts I and II, and the Alteplase Thrombolysis for Acute Noninterven-tional Therapy in Ischemic Stroke (ATLANTIS), have investigated the efficacy of IV rt-PA in acute stroke beyond the 3-hour window. All three studies showed high rates of sICH complicating rt-PA treatment, and no overall efficacy of rt-PA. 

OR 1.81, 95% Cl 1.46-2.24), most of which were related to symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (OR 3.37, 95% Cl 2.68. 22). In addition, a pooled analysis of six major randomized placebo-controlled IV rt-PA stroke trials (Alteplase Thrombolysis for Acute Noninterventional Therapy in Ischemic Stroke (ATLANTIS) I and II, European Cooperative Acute Stroke Study (ECASS) I and II, and NINDS I and II), including 2775 patients who were treated with IV rt-PA or placebo within 360 minutes of stroke onset, confirmed the beneht up to 3 hours and suggested a potential beneht beyond 3 hours for some patients. The pattern of a decreasing chance of a favorable 3-month outcome as the time interval from stroke onset to start of treatment increased was consistent with the findings of the original NINDS study. ... 

In Europe, inspections are conducted by member states on behalf of the European Union. For drugs approved under the centralized procedure, inspections are coordinated by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA refer to Sections 7.3 and 8.3). For countries that are members of the Pharmaceutical Inspection Cooperation Scheme (PIC/S see Section 7.13), there is mutual recognition of inspections performed by members. 

The authors wish to thank the following colleagues for their cooperation and assistance in preparing this chapter J. Reavis, J. Ward, C. Herrick, D. Christensen, and L. Mullins of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico F. Schmidt and J. Smith of the Ames Laboratory, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa R. Haire of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee and J. Fuger of the European Institute for Transuranium Elements, Karlsruhe, FRG. 

Bartehnk H, Roelofsen F, Eschwege F, et al. Concomitant radiotherapy and chemotherapy is superior to radiotherapy alone in the treatment of locally advanced anal cancer results of a phase III randomized trial of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Radiotherapy and Gastrointestinal Cooperative Groups. J Clin Oncol 1997 15 2040-2049. 

Lefebvre JL, Chevalier D, Luboinski B, et al. Larynx preservation in pyriform sinus cancer preliminary results of a European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer phase III trial. EORTC Head and Neck Cancer Cooperative Group. J Natl Cancer Inst 1996 88 890-899. 

The research programme of the European Institute for Transuranium Elements was, from its very beginning, devoted to both basic research on advanced plutonium containing fuel and to fundamental research on actinide elements. Non-fuel actinide research in Europe started more than 20 years ago with the reprocessing of irradiated actinide samples. Since the first isolation and purification of transplutonium elements, actinide research developed steadily in close contact and cooperation with specialised laboratories in Western Europe and in the United States. 

Cave H, van der Werff ten Bosch J, Suciu S et al. European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer-Childhood Leukemia Cooperative Group. Clinical significance of minimal residual disease in childhood acute lymphoblastie leukemia. N Engl J Med 1998 339 591-598. 

The paradigm shift in 1980 on the causation of acute myocardial infarction to acute coronary occlusion by a thrombus created the rationale for thrombolytic therapy of this common lethal disease. At that time—and for the first time-intravenous thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction in the European Cooperative Study Group trial was found to reduce mortality significantly. Later studies, with thousands of patients in each trial, provided enough statistical power for the 20% reduction in mortality to be considered statistically significant. Although the standard of care in areas with adequate facilities and experience in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) now favors catheterization and placement of a stent, thrombolytic therapy is still very important where PCI is not readily available. 

There are also regional groups covering Europe and the Middle East (European Accreditation for Cooperation - EA), the Americas (Interamerican Accreditation Cooperation - IAAC), the Asia Pacific region including India... 

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