− The Accredited Laboratories at their Certificate have described its best measurement capabilities (BMCs) for the more or less routine calibrations. This BMCs were usually evaluated by interlaboratory comparisons (ILCs), the proficiency testing (PT) schemes as described by the ISO Guide 43. The NMIs traditionally organize the ILCs for the NABs providing the travelling standards, the reference(...

Performance in proficiency testing (PT) schemes is an objective measure of a laboratory's best performance. We examined the performance of participants in two parasitology PT schemes in South Africa from 2004 through 2010. The average rates of acceptable scores over the period were 58% and 66% for the stool and blood parasite schemes, respectively. In our setting, participation in PT alone is i...

Standardization is one of the foundational features of modern-day engineering, and the use of standardized parts and processes is a key element that distinguishes bona fide synthetic biology from traditional genetic engineering. Here, we discuss the role of standardization in natural product synthetic biology, focusing on standardization of data on biosynthetic pathways and gene clusters, as we...

This study profiles the characteristics and motivations of participants from Luxembourg in national and international formal standardization activities. The study considers both experts and the organizations to which the experts belong. By adopting a qualitative approach, data have been mainly collected through 24 semi-structured interviews with experts and public available register data on the...

Background: Congenital malformation (CM) is the major health problems in childhood because treatment and rehabilitation of children with CM is costly and complete recovery is usually impossible. For most of single primary defect the etiology is unknown. The aim of this study was to determine frequency of CM and its association with maternal age. Materials and Methods: This descriptive-observati...

WHO has been publishing guidelines for assessment of quality of herbal raw material from time to time, however now it is emphasizing on standardization of herbal preparations. As there are different kinds of preparations available in the traditional systems, a common technique of standardization is not available. This article reviews the recent techniques that are used in herbal drug standardiz...

BACKGROUND Substantial development in social communication skills occurs in the first two years of life. Growth should be evident in sharing emotion and eye gaze; rate of communication, communicating for a variety of functions; using gestures, sounds and words; understanding language, and using functional and pretend actions with objects in play. A delay in these early social communication skil...

Standardization is widely assumed to be important to advance science. This assumption is typically embedded in initiatives to devise infrastructure and policies to support scientific work. This paper examines a movement comprising scientists advocating methods standardization in an emerging scientific domain, the deep subseafloor biosphere. This movement is not primarily motivated by the usual ...

OBJECTIVE To compare HIV prevalence from antenatal surveillance to that of the demographic and health survey (DHS), and to identify factors determining the difference of HIV prevalence between women recruited in these two surveys in Rwanda in 2005. METHODS Comparative cross-sectional study of HIV prevalence and socio-demographic factors collected by the antenatal survey in 13,745 pregnant wom...