Safety performance current research

On the GM debate and biosafety research, a review of results performed under the European Commission supervision ( EC-sponsored Research on Safety of Genetically Modified Organisms , edited by C. Kessler and I. Economidis) is available also online at the EU-website http //europa.eu.int/ comm/research/quality-of-life/gmo/. An update on current research in food safety, nutrition and food-related disease might be found in the websites of the World Health Organization, http //www.who.int/fsf/GMfood/index.htm, and of the UK Food Standards Agency, http //www.foodstandards.gov.uk/. 

In attempts to strive for better performance, safety aspects (lower sensitivities) can not be ignored. For example, by using the formulations Composition B and octol (see Tab. 1.2) instead of TNT, the performance can be increased significantly (Fig. 2.1). However, the sensitivity increases as well which causes safety to decrease accordingly. The goal of current research is to develop considerably less sensitive secondary explosives, which offer maximum performance and a high safety standard (Fig. 2.9). 

The aforementioned reviews and assessments were assimilated to characterize the effect of dielectric, rotational, and mechanical hazards on motor performance and operational readiness. Functional indicators were identified that can be monitored to assess motor component deterioration caused by aging or other accidental stressors. The study also includes a preliminary discussion of current standards and guides, maintenance programs, and research activities pertaining to nuclear power plant safety-related electric motors. Included are motor manufacturer recommendations, responses from repair facilities to a questionnaire, in-service inspection data, expert knowledge, USNRC-IE audit reports, and standards and guides published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). 

The following Chapter will use the results and conclusions from the analysis performed in this Chapter, to derive some final conclusions and recommendations. Moreover, the posed research questions from Chapter 1 will be addressed and some open problems will be stated, to improve the current way in which companies manage safety. 

A variety of biomarkers have been shown to be valuable individually for one or several toxicant or disease situations. Few of these biomarkers have been systematically evaluated for the plethora of situations that might provoke false positive responses. Acceleration of the current pace of biomarker evaluation and qualification demands (a) the availability of panels of biomarker-assays that can be comparatively evaluated on well-defined common sample sets, (b) fit-for-purpose performance evaluation in controlled animal studies with carefully benchmarked histological endpoints and samples from well-defined focused clinical trial cohorts, and (c) ready availability of banked blood and urine sample archives from clinical trial populations with carefully documented morbidities such as the Framingham Heart Study,45 or the Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network (DILIN) prospective study,46 to name a few. Availability of such panels of validated biomarker assays and well-documented preclinical and clinical samples, as well as increased cooperation between animal model researchers and clinical researchers will enable individual biomarkers to be qualified for sensitivity of specifically defined adverse events, qualified for appropriate specificity using samples of defined benign events, and collected into panels that yield complementary information about the health and safety of animals and patients. 

The Clinton administration started the PNGV (Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles) program at the end of 1993. It had a long term goal of an environmentally friendly car with up to triple the fuel efficiency of current mid-size cars without sacrificing affordability, performance or safety. It was a national research program with research support for over 350 automotive suppliers, universities and small businesses. 

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