Quality Assurance in Toxicology Studies in Developing Countries

As developing countries become more involved in the international chemical trade, they must adhere to certain requirements for importation of their chemicals into foreign countries. These developing countries will be required to provide basic safety information on their chemical products, including data developed from chemical and toxicologic testing. These data must be developed in accordance with the national requirements of the importing country. Many importing countries have adopted the OECD Test Guidelines and the OECD Principles of Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) as primary guidance to assure the quality of laboratory data. These procedures provide a basis for internationally acceptable data. Several countries have incorporated many of these provisions into their national laws or administrative procedures. These procedures describe the process of documenting the conduct of laboratory studies, including recording of data, reporting of study results, and storage of data gathered. This process is intended to assure the quality and integrity of the data so that, if required, the study can be reconstructed by an auditor or an inspector. Details of these procedures and their applicability to the international chemical trade are discussed. 1989 Academic Press, Inc.

Bilateral Co-authorship Indicators Based on Fractional Counting

Purpose: In this contribution we provide two new co-authorship indicators based on fractional counting. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the idea of fractional counting we reflect on what should be an acceptable indicator for co-authorship between two entities. From this reflection we propose an indicator, the co-authorship score, denoted as cs, using the harmonic mean. Dividing this new indicator by the classical co-authorship indicator based on full counting, leads to a co-authorship intensity indicator.Findings: We show that the indicators we propose have many necessary or at least highly desirable properties for a proper cs-score. It is pointed out that the two new indicators can be used for countries, but also for institutions and other pairs of entities. A small example shows the feasibility of the co-authorship score and the co-authorship intensity indicator.Research limitations: The indicators are not yet tested in real cases.Practical implications: As the notions of co-authorship and collaboration have many aspects, we think that our contribution may help policy management to take yet another aspect into account as part of a multi-faceted description of research outcomes.Originality/value: The indicators we propose cover yet another aspect of co-authorship.

Study Finds Lower Sperm Count in Country Than City

本文标题里的 Sperm count,是“精子数”的意思。男性精液中的精子数量历来是医学界重视的一个问题。曾经有消息说,上个世纪的100年中,男性的 sperm count约减少了20％,而本文报道的最新研究表明,美国的若干乡村地区男性的 sperm count比城市男性要少！ 于是,就有了以下种种猜测: l/a man’s sperm count is affected by where he lives and the kind of things he is exposed to. 2/agricultural chemicals may be to blame 3/in some animal species that are crowded,the dominant males become more fertile(能繁殖的).

A Comparative Study of Consumption Control in Major Western Countries

Abstract(Comparisons between Major Western Countries in Consumption Control)