Research and Practice of 'Trinity' Construction of Emerging Engineering Big Data Course Teaching Quality Assurance System during the Epidemic

The pandemic of the COVID-19, has brought a great impact to the education and teaching, so the teaching can only be carried out online, in order to ensure the monitoring and management of teaching quality during teaching. This project import the latest information intelligent teaching system, multi-directional to ensure the monitoring and control of teaching quality, the deep integration of 'Rain Classroom' technology and teaching in this project, So that the interaction information between teachers and students can be recorded in real time during the online teaching, and organized, analyzed, stored also;Import the online teaching platform, collected the students records that finished homework during the epidemic;Import the online virtual experiment platform, online to finished the remote experimental operation of students. Thus, the trinity builds a three-dimensional teaching quality assurance system to escort high-quality big data course teaching during the epidemic. © 2023 IEEE.

Quality and Inequality: Students' Online Learning Experiences Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan

Under the raging pandemic, all stakeholders in higher education were forced to respond to unexpected educational changes. Universities shut down suddenly, students had no choice but studied online, and faculty members were forced to teach online without adequate preparation. Under these circumstances, students' actual learning experiences and the quality of online education become a major concern worldwide. This study adopts a quantitative approach to investigate Taiwanese students' perceptions of their online learning experiences during the breakout of the pandemic to discuss the challenges as well as the inequality issues in terms of online learning. A total of 517 valid responses were analyzed in this study. There are two major findings. First, nearly half of the respondents deemed online learning to be less effective than the traditional face-to-face mode. Second, students' educational background and family income significantly impact online learning effectiveness. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Online University Teaching During COVID-19: The Malaysian Experience

Malaysia, like the rest of the world, was hard hit by SARS-CoV-2, also known as COVID-19. After the first COVID-19 case was detected in Malaysia (on January 25, 2020) and traced back to three Chinese nationals, the country was put under Movement Control Order (MCO), a partial lockdown, initially for two weeks, on 18th March. Among MCO consequences: close major economic sectors and educational institutions. Public universities, which began a new semester under a Ministry of Higher Education ruling, switched to online teaching and learning. This chapter chronicles public university experiences with online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 period. A brief background captures the measures taken by the government;how these steps affected university education is appraised next;and finally, the steps taken by the universities to activate online teaching and learning. What challenges cropped up and how to deal with them are acknowledged before drawing conclusions from the online teaching and learning experiences of Malaysian universities. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

Potential cultivating plant-based raw materials in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for the pharmaceutical industry: an online survey from the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry

The goal of this study is to assess the potential of cultivating plant-based raw materials in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern from the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry and to discuss the factors that could hinder the realization of high-quality cultivation. Procuring high-quality plant-based materials is crucial for the production of plant-based medicines, and the pharmaceutical industry has faced increasing challenges in sourcing these materials in recent years. The methodology involved surveying pharmaceutical companies that are members of the German Pharmaceutical Industry Association and are involved in the fields of homeopathic/anthroposophic medicines and plant-based pharmaceuticals. An online questionnaire was used to collect data. According to the pharmaceutical industry's perspective, there is growing demand for plant-based raw materials from domestic cultivation. Stable supply chains, quality, and reliability are seen as primary advantages over foreign cultivation. Geopolitical conflicts, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic have negatively affected the stability of supply chains for imported goods. 73% of companies reported encountering import difficulties multiple times. The majority of pharmaceutical companies can envision increased cooperation with agricultural enterprises in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Sustainability in sourcing was already deemed significant by more than two-thirds of the respondents. The study concludes that the importance of sustainable pharmaceutical production, stable supply chains, and high-quality plant-based raw materials will continue to grow. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern provides favorable conditions to meet a portion of the demand. To fully utilize the theoretical potential, close collaboration between the industry, academia, and policymakers is needed, along with minimizing regulatory and bureaucratic barriers for agricultural enterprises.

Emergency transition to remote learning: DoIt@Home Lab in engineering

PurposeThe interruption of on-campus teaching and learning, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forced universities around the globe to rethink their pedagogical models and adopt innovative strategies and approaches that enabled continuity of learning. Engineering schools and faculties were faced with the challenge of how to continue to engage students with the practical component of coursework, especially in terms of lab work and experimentation, which are mandatory requirements for degree awards.Design/methodology/approachThis study documents how the Faculty of Engineering in a university in Oman engaged students with the practical component of their course during the pandemic by launching the remote DoIt@Home Lab. The DoIt@Home Lab approach included the design and development of video recorded labs, virtual labs, simulation exercises and DoIt@Home experiments which were provided to students as teaching tools and guides to conducting home experiments remotely.FindingsThis study presents the DoIt@Home Lab approach introduced to Year 2 Chemistry for engineering students. Students' grades improved by 11% over the previous year when the course was delivered face-to-face. Failure rates dropped by 8% while the number of students earning a 3.25 grade point average (GPA) or higher increased by 18%.Originality/valueThe DoIt@Home Lab for engineering courses could enhance students' learning experience and create an effective remote learning environment. While the DoIt@Home Lab was created to supplement on-campus activity in the event of a temporary disruption, it can also be used to supplement regular face-to-face program delivery.

Work in progress: Improvement and quality plans in engineering programs. Critical Success Factors

Engineering education occurs in an environment of change, which has been especially significant faced with this COVID-19 situation. Continuous improvement is reaffirmed as the basis for quality assurance in an engineering program, and requires compliance with various accreditation criteria, as well as recognition of the context of each program. Six Critical Success Factors (CSF) are proposed: Stakeholders, Processes, Information, Improvement Actions, Participation and Communication and Institution, for the formulation and monitoring of Improvement Plans (IP) in engineering programs. The CSFs are operationalized in 48 metrics. The research is based on a systematic review of the literature, takes the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle as a reference, and uses the Characteristics Analysis method for the evaluation of the CSF and the metrics. The proposal constitutes a technical, participatory and comprehensive approach to support the decision-making in the IP management. © 2023 IEEE.

Benefits, mechanisms and challenges of international accreditation for teacher education: ASEAN academics' perspectives

PurposeThis study aims to explore some benefits and challenges of establishing an international accreditation for teacher education institutions (TEIs) by AsTEN Quality Assurance Agency. This specific accreditation agency is expected to improve the quality of teaching, learning and research at TEIs in ASEAN region. Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative study generates data from questionnaires and online semi-structured interviews among ASEAN academics. They work as teacher educators in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. FindingsAs findings show, participating academics from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Brunei Darussalam believe that it is necessary to have a specific international accreditation agency that can properly accommodate particular standards of teacher education. This accommodation is expected to increase the governance of quality teaching, learning and researching to prepare more competent and professional future teachers. Participating academics also acknowledge some potential challenges this specific accreditation agency may have, including local acceptance by national governments in ASEAN region and global acknowledgement from international accrediting agencies, mostly based in Global North countries. Research limitations/implicationsThe study only involves academics in five ASEAN countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines so that it may have less international acceptance. Practical/social implicationsThe study also identifies aspects and mechanisms of blended online-onsite international accreditation application for TEIs, which grows its significance because of technological advancement, efficiency and prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. Originality/valueThe study provides a digital accreditation system for TEIs, particularly in ASEAN region. This originality is important in this era of Internet of Things.

Ensuring Quality Care in the COVID-19 Era: Applying the Donabedian Model to Tertiary Wound Care Center Practices.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted healthcare, with its far-reaching effects seeping into chronic disease evaluation and treatment. Our tertiary wound care center was specially designed to deliver the highest quality care to wounded patients. Pre-pandemic, we were able to ensure rapid treatment via validated protocols delivered by a co-localized multidisciplinary team within the hospital setting. The pandemic has disrupted our model's framework, and we have worked to adapt our workflow without sacrificing quality of care. Using the modified Donabedian model of quality assessment, we present an analysis of pre- and intra-pandemic characteristics of our center. In this way, we hope other providers can use this framework for identifying evolving problems within their practice so that quality care can continue to be delivered to all patients.

Coordination of chemical analyses under the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU): Concepts, procedures and lessons learnt.

The European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU) ran from 2017 to 2022 with the aim of advancing and harmonizing human biomonitoring in Europe. More than 40,000 analyses were performed on human samples in different human biomonitoring studies in HBM4EU, addressing the chemical exposure of the general population, temporal developments, occupational exposure and a public health intervention on mercury in populations with high fish consumption. The analyses covered 15 priority groups of organic chemicals and metals and were carried out by a network of laboratories meeting the requirements of a comprehensive quality assurance and control system. The coordination of the chemical analyses included establishing contacts between sample owners and qualified laboratories and monitoring the progress of the chemical analyses during the analytical phase, also addressing status and consequences of Covid-19 measures. Other challenges were related to the novelty and complexity of HBM4EU, including administrative and financial matters and implementation of standardized procedures. Many individual contacts were necessary in the initial phase of HBM4EU. However, there is a potential to develop more streamlined and standardized communication and coordination in the analytical phase of a consolidated European HBM programme.

Quality Assurance of Chest X-ray Images with a Combination of Deep Learning Methods

Background: Chest X-ray (CXR) imaging is the most common examination;however, no automatic quality assurance (QA) system using deep learning (DL) has been established for CXR. This study aimed to construct a DL-based QA system and assess its usefulness. Method: Datasets were created using over 23,000 images from Chest-14 and clinical images. The QA system consisted of three classification models and one regression model. The classification method was used for the correction of image orientation, left–right reversal, and estimating the patient's position, such as standing, sitting, and lying. The regression method was used for the correction of the image angle. ResNet-50, VGG-16, and the original convolutional neural network (CNN) were compared under five cross-fold evaluations. The overall accuracy of the QA system was tested using clinical images. The mean correction time of the QA system was measured. Result: ResNet-50 demonstrated higher performance in the classification. The original CNN was preferred in the regression. The orientation, angle, and left–right reversal of all images were fully corrected in all images. Moreover, patients' positions were estimated with 96% accuracy. The mean correction time was approximately 0.4 s. Conclusion: The DL-based QA system quickly and accurately corrected CXR images.

In celebration of providing the South and southern African sugar industry with more than 20 years of accredited quality analysis of mixed juice, molasses and sugar

The Sugar Milling Research Institute NPC (SMRI) has provided the South and southern African sugar industry with analytical services for more than 50 years. The need for an internationally-recognised quality assurance system to provide SMRI members and their customers with the necessary confidence in the results that they were receiving was recognised more than 25 years ago, and it culminated in the SMRI Analytical Services Division achieving ISO/IEC Guide 25:1990 accreditation in 1998. The SMRI analytical laboratory has since successfully progressed through the ISO/IEC 17025:1999 and ISO/IEC 17025:2005 iterations to the current ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard. The SMRI has therefore had to continually expand the scope of its systems over the past 25 years, in order to match the updated requirements. The system is used for the analysis of weekly composite mixed juice and final molasses samples from all the SMRI South African member mills and some southern African member mills. Similarly, raw and white sugar analyses are conducted, with the reporting of results to the members' specifications. Critical to the accuracy of these results is the continual auditing and monitoring of the methods, equipment and chemical solutions that are used in the analysis methods. This is achieved by using Certified Reference Materials and control samples, as well as participating in internationally-recognised analytical proficiency schemes. Critical to the success of the laboratory in maintaining its accreditation is the competence of the laboratory staff who undergo continual training and assessments. This was demonstrated in 2020 and 2021, when they were able to continue providing the necessary services, despite the challenges faced during the Covid pandemic.

Quality assurance in supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic: empirical evidence on organisational resilience of conformity assessment bodies

Global supply chains rely on the compliance and safety of their products, processes, and facilities. These vital services (often referred to as ‘quality assurance' or ‘conformity assessment' services) are provided by Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs). This empirical study explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CABs as well as their response to the resulting challenges. Data was gathered through an online survey among all accredited CABs in Germany, which resulted in 555 valid responses. Taking a resilience perspective, we reveal that CABs were hit hard by the disruptions caused by the pandemic, albeit to different degrees, in part due to their type of services, size, and sectors served. Furthermore, we find that contingency plans do not directly cushion order declines (as the main indicator of the economic impact of the pandemic) but rather indirectly through helping CABs respond more quickly, which in turn mitigates their order declines. However, our results show that contingency plans can also have adverse effects if they hinder flexible reaction to the crisis. The findings of our study help managers and policymakers learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and improve the resilience of the conformity assessment sector and quality assurance in the event of future crises.

Changing trends in remote teaching among instructors in higher education in the shadow of the coronavirus crisis

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to examine whether the remote teaching experience of instructors in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic has improved after one year.Design/methodology/approachThe study involved 75 instructors teaching at an institution of higher education in Israel, who answered twice (once in 2020 and again in 2021) a quantitative questionnaire that examined their remote teaching experience.FindingsThe hypotheses about greater use of digital tools and about more positive attitudes of instructors toward remote teaching and learning at the second measurement than at the first one were confirmed. This hypothesis about lower levels of technical difficulties in remote teaching at the second measurement was not confirmed, but the level of reported difficulty was already low at the first measurement.Practical implicationsIt is recommended that academic institutions continue the trend of deploying innovation in teaching with confidence in the ability of instructors to adapt to change. At the same time, instructors should be provided with mental and technical support.Originality/valueFew studies have examined the change in attitudes of instructors toward remote teaching over time. In the present study, we used a repeated measures design, which made it possible to monitor the instructors' adaptation to remote teaching. Adaptation to the new teaching method can contribute to innovation in teaching in academic institutions and to improvement in its quality.

Telehealth parent training for a young child at risk for autism spectrum disorder

The global pandemic has highlighted the importance of telehealth to access behavioral interventions. Face‐to‐face parent training improves the development and behaviors of young children at risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We evaluated a telehealth parent training intervention for a child at risk for ASD. Two parents identified possible early ASD symptoms in their 30‐month‐old son (lack of imitation, pointing, and vocal manding). Both parents simultaneously received telehealth behavioral skills training on the Parent Intervention for Children at Risk for Autism program for 1 hour per week over 29 weeks. Multiple baseline designs across parent and child behaviors showed that both parents improved their parent teaching fidelity above 80% and the child improved on all trained behaviors. This study expands the utility of telehealth behavioral parent training to young children at risk for ASD to mitigate early symptoms of ASD. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Behavioral Interventions is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Artificial Intelligence Applications in Quality Management Systems of Philippine Higher Education Institutions

To ensure quality assurance, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) implement a Quality Management System (QMS) anchored on international benchmarks like ISO 9001:2015 Standards. With the COVID-19 pandemic, quality audits have become more challenging. Also, to address the lapses due to human error and lack of technical knowledge in clause identification during audit processes, an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled QMS is presented. This study successfully demonstrated how AI-enabled QMS can match audit findings in accreditation compliance reports and internal quality audit reports with the clauses of ISO 9001:2015. Audit findings corpus data gathered are within the span of the last five years, which serve as the dataset to be employed. After data pre-processing, a long short-term memory (LSTM) deep neural network was created and trained using MATLAB. The AI model achieved a combined classification accuracy (CA) of 82.15% and predicted 70% of the examined audit findings in actual implementation. Further analyses illustrate how AI can be maximized in generating useful and precise and useful audit reports for HEIs to develop and implement globally competitive educational policies, programs, and standards. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Human-Supervised Automation Test Cell to Accelerate Personal Protective Equipment Manufacturing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The shortage of medical-grade personal protective equipment for frontline healthcare workers is an important issue during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The demand placed on textile manufacturers to rapidly produce products that adhere to a set of standard quality assurance requirements has increased dramatically, leading to increased burden on quality assurance floors and national testing labs. Standardized testing of protective equipment is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process that requires human operators to perform tasks that can be automated using various technologies, such as collaborative robots and computer vision systems. The tests we focus on involve evaluating surgical masks and protective materials for blood penetration resistance, flammability, and liquid barrier performance. This work introduces a test cell designed to accommodate human operators in completing various quality assurance tests for protective equipment. The test cell is comprised of custom-designed cases containing test specimens to facilitate robot manipulation and cameras to monitor and characterize the test results. We demonstrate how the system can reduce the workload and reliance on human operators at no expense to the quality assurance process. Based on validation test results and user experience, it is predicted that the human operator will only have to prepare cases with test specimens and handle infrequent failures that occur within the system, without compromising overall completion time. We envision that this system will relieve the strain on textile manufacturing processes requiring human labor to repeatedly perform simple tasks. © 2022 IEEE.

E-learning Quality Assurance Guidelines for Higher Education Institutions in Jordan

The Covid-19 pandemic affected many areas around the world, and with the lack of a vaccine, social distancing and keeping a high level of hygiene was the only actions people can rely on. Because of this change in the way of life, education was affected where it became not normal for students to socialize and have direct contact with teachers. Taking the case of higher education in Jordan, and its conversion into an online based learning approach, this paper examines an assessment of the quality of education that was taking place during the lock down. Then, it presents a literature study of guidelines published about quality of e-learning, and after evaluating the literature and the specific needs of Jordanian institutes, the paper presents a set of guidelines as a scorecard for higher education-al institutes to follow and maintain a high level of education quality in their online teaching approach. © 2022 Association for Computing Machinery.

Utility of multidisciplinary meetings in paediatric and adolescent oncofertility

Study objective: Multidisciplinary meetings (MDMs) are increasingly implemented in complex care based on the principle that they lead to evidence-based treatment recommendations, foster adherence to clinical guidelines, induce better team performance and improve medical care. In oncofertility, the uncertain outcomes of fertility preservation procedures in children contribute to the complexity of decision-making. There is limited published information on the influence of MDMs on paediatric and adolescent oncofertility care. Aim(s): To describe the implementation, characteristics & outcomes of multidisciplinary meetings (MDMs) in a paediatric oncofertility setting. Method(s): A retrospective medical records review of oncofertility MDMs held between April 2020 and March 2021 at the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne. Inductive content analysis of the reasons for MDM was undertaken. MDM documentation was scored out of 24, according to a Victorian Paediatric Integrated Cancer Service quality assurance checklist for MDMs, (1)) which included consent for MDM, nature of attendees, quality of discussion and documentation. Result(s): Of the 169 oncology patients treated at the Royal Children's Hospital between 1st April 2020 and 31st March 2021, MDMs were required for 40 patients (23.7%). The median number of clinical attendees was 10, and included craft groups from both paediatric and adult centres (oncology, oncofertility, gynaecology, clinical ethics, endocrinology, paediatric surgery, anaesthetics, haematology, fertility specialists and reproductive scientists). Fifty-four percent (n=22) of MDMs were for male patients (median age 8.4 [0.1-16.5] years) and 46% for females (n=18, median age 8.1[0.4-16.3] years). The commonest diagnoses presented at MDM were brain tumours (27.5%), leukemia (25%), and non malignant conditions (19.5%). Approximately 77% of all MDM patients were going to receive treatment that put them at high infertility risk and 62.5% had co-morbidities. MDMs included the following themes (i) likelihood of successful parenthood: disease progression, prognosis, neurocognitive decline;(ii) certainty or otherwise of planned treatment and infertility risks;(iii) mitigation of anaesthetic and surgical risks;(iv) ethical concerns;(v) organizational capacity and logistics in the face of covid restrictions or high dependent care between centres (vi) child and family of risks, expectations and their values regarding fertility preservation. In 87.5% of cases, it was deemed permissible to offer fertility preservation. The median score for the MDMs derived from the quality assurance checklist was 16. Conclussion: MDMs acted as a valuable educational and communication tool improving situational awareness, building shared mental models, assisting with risk mitigation and oncofertility planning.Copyright © 2023

Research advances on processing and quality safety control technology of aquatic pre-made products

Due to the growing demand for instant food and lifestyle change after the COVID-19, aquatic pre-made products become popular. The unique nutritional and functional characteristics and processing suitability of aquatic products make them suitable for the development of ready-to-eat, instant heat, instant cooked and ready-to-use pre-made products. However, due to their unique fishy taste, texture and perishable characteristics, appropriate pretreatment technology, flavor and quality improvement and maintenance technology as well as storage technology in the processing and storage process need to be adopted so as to improve the quality of pre-made products. The main factors affecting the quality and safety of aquatic product pre-made products include biological hazards, chemical hazards and physical hazards. Therefore, quality control technologies of aquatic pre-made products including the raw material collection, processing process and the cold chain transportation process are necessary. In the future, aquatic pre-made products should be more nutritious, high-quality and diversified because of the improvement of nutrition and quality control technology.

3D Printing as an Effective Quality Assurance Implementation in Massive-Scale SARS-CoV-2 Testing at a SwabSeq Next-Generation Sequencing Laboratory.

Massive-scale SARS-CoV-2 testing using the SwabSeq diagnostic platform came with quality assurance challenges due to the novelty and scale of sequencing-based testing. The SwabSeq platform relies on accurate mapping between specimen identifiers and molecular barcodes to match a result back to a patient specimen. To identify and mitigate mapping errors, we instituted quality control using placement of negative controls within a rack of patient samples. We designed 2-dimensional paper templates to fit over a 96-position rack of specimens with holes to show the control tube placements. We designed and 3-dimensionally printed plastic templates that fit onto 4 racks of patient specimens and provide accurate indications of the correct control tube placements. The final plastic templates dramatically reduced plate mapping errors from 22.55% in January 2021 to less than 1% after implementation and training in January 2021. We show how 3D printing can be a cost-effective quality assurance tool to mitigate human error in the clinical laboratory.