Quality control / Standard

Plastics Containers for the Carriage of Hazardous Materials. An Outline of Recommended Quality Control Standards... 

The accuracy of the inductively-coupled plasma procedure was assessed by analysing waters of known sulfate composition, and by comparing measured sulfate values for a wide range of samples with those obtained for the same waters by an automated spectrophotometric procedure. Good agreement is obtained between the derived sulfate measurements and the normal values for International Standard Sea Water and an EPA Quality Control Standard. 

Quality control standards have been developed for the new petroleum weed killers and laboratory techniques have been worked out tor testing and establishing the suitability of a given petroleum fraction for a specific herbicidal use. Although attempts to correlate herbicidal action with physical and chemical tests have not been entirely successful, the use of additional specific t ts to determine the chemical composition of the fraction has served as an indicator of toxicity in the specific composition under study. 

Poor quality-control standards in drug manufacturing led to the death of 13 children in St. Louis from a contaminated diphtheria antitoxin. 

The reliability and consistency of commercial melatonin has been questioned (3). One group analysed three commercial melatonin formulations and identified analogues of the contaminant of L-tryptophan compounds implicated in an epidemic of eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome in the 1980s (27). There have been no reports of this condition associated with melatonin consumption, but food supplements are not required to comply with the same manufacturing and monitoring quality control standards as drugs. 

The monitoring of the residues in foods is often at the microgram per kilogram level or lower and has to be supported by strict analytical quality-control standards, so that the analysis produces unequivocal, precise, and accurate residue data. An analytical method to be used in food residues determination should accomplish an adequate specificity, sensitivity, linearity, accuracy, and precision at the relevant residue concentration and in appropriate food matrices. 

Three calibration blank standards should be analyzed to establish a representative blank level, after which the calibration standards are analyzed. After calibration, the quality control standard should be analyzed to verify the calibration. The sample introduction system is flushed with rinse blank, and the blank solution is analyzed to check for carry-over and the blank level. If the blank level is acceptable, the samples can be analyzed. If the blank values are too high, the flushing of the sample introduction system and analysis of the blank solution should be repeated until an acceptable blank level is reached. The calibration blank value, which is the same as the absolute value of the instrument response, must be lower than the method s detection limit. 

Machine vision, also referred to as computer or robot vision, is a term that describes the many techniques by which machines visually sense the physical world. These techniques, used primarily for monitoring industrial manufacturing, are becoming increasingly popular as today s manufacturing environments become more automated and quality control standards increase. Whether the task is to sort and assemble a group of machined parts, to determine if a label has been placed properly on a soda bottle, or to check for microscopic defects in an automotive door panel, machine vision plays an essential role. 

Official standards are absolutely necessary to ensure the quality, reliability, and homogeneity of herbal products for consumers. Standardized products are paramount to those in healthcare planning to conduct clinical research with these products. Independent laboratories and university-affiliated research reports have documented the considerable variation that exists in terms of quality and reliability in these products. Abroad, the ESCOP, composed of manufacturers of herbal medicines and herbal associations, is working with European research groups to develop quality-control standards for the production of natural products. This committee is developing monographs for incorporation into such references as the British Herbal Pharmacopoeia and the British Herbal Compendium. 

Test of patient result against reference interval criteria Test of control result against criteria of a quality control standard of performance... 

Gomez-Couso, H., Freire-Santos, F., Martinez-Urtaza, J., Garcia-Martin, O., and Ares-Mazas, M.E. 2003a. Contamination of bivalve molluscs by Cryptosporidium oocysts The need for new quality control standards. Int. J. Food Microbiol 87, 97-105. 

Table III. Proposed Quality Control Standards for Voacanga africana Seeds...

The results from this work has shown that the trees in the wild can be easily identified using both botanical as well as chemical markers, thereby avoiding misidentification while collection the leaves. The organoleptic, physicochemical and chemical profiles of the essential oils from both ravintsara (C. camphora) and ravensara (R. aromatica) oils also showed that the essential oils can also be used to differentiate the species. Based upon our data set of 199 individual plants and samples, we offer revise quality control standard specifications (Table IV), to describe the essential oil of ravintsara and ravensara... 

The injector temperature was 260°C, the detector temperature 300°C. Analyses were run isothermally at 180 or 200°C using helium as carrier gas at a flow rate of 25 ml/min. The hydrogen flow rate for the detector was 3 ml/min and the air flow rate 60 ml/min using an attenuator setting of 2. The limit of detection by this method—as statistically defined by the American Chemical Society s Committee on Environmental Improvement (14)—was below 1 yg/liter or ppb but values below 1 ppb printed out by the instrument processor were reported as non-detects (ND). For quality control, standards were analyzed following every tenth sample. Samples of pure aldicarb, aldicarb sulfoxide and aldicarb sulfone were donated by Union-Carbide Agricultural Products Company, Raleigh, NC. Recoveries of over 90% were consistently obtained with 1, 10, and 100 ppb levels of the individual compounds or mixtures of the pure... 

Care should be taken to monitor the manufacturer s uncertainty information in relation to the individual components. This can vary considerably, typically between 0.5% and 5% standard uncertainty. This information should influence the choice of manufacturer for calibration and quality control standards, with the lower uncertainty standards being used for calibration. 

Considerations of overall data quality assurance include, data quality, data quality control, standard operating procedures (SOP), good laboratory practices (GLP), and concepts of accuracy, precision, and reliability. Also included are reference methods, standard methods, referee methods, official methods (from organizations or in-depth individual studies), and high-reliability methods. 

The operating permit for a production facility can be cancelled only if it is found that the establishment lacks any of the elements necessary to comply with the approved production and quality controls standards and specifications and has not corrected these defects within the periods established for such corrections. 

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