3. Nico Stehr: Die Zerbrechlichkeit moderner Gesellschaften. Die Stagnation der Macht und die Chancen des Individuums

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The Woogles' bad closet party

Martina Boone is an author who lives in Herndon, VA.     

Fostering Creativity Through Engineering Projects

Final year projects are a showcase for engineering students’ creativity. All final year engineering students at Swinburne University of Technology are required to spend part of their final semester of studies developing and completing various aspects of a major project. The theme of the project work is defined either by industrial sponsors or academic supervisors or by both. In addition, project guidelines are provided by the university for the final submission and completion of the work. The project may be any combination of research, design or developmental work. Within the constraints required by these factors, students’ creativity in their approach and execution of the project work may be both limited and expanded to simulate conditions experienced in a work environment. The culmination of the project work is in a written, oral and visual presentation to a professional audience. It is the students’ own creativity which determines not only the format of all three forms of presentations, but also their assessment which is again limited or enhanced by constraints of time and resources. Examples of project work creativity are presented which highlight and emphasize the broad spectrum which such creativity can encompass.     

Preanalytical management: serum vacuum tubes validation for routine clinical chemistry

Introduction

The validation process is essential in accredited clinical laboratories. Aim of this study was to validate five kinds of serum vacuum tubes for routine clinical chemistry laboratory testing.

Materials and methods:

Blood specimens from 100 volunteers in five diff erent serum vacuum tubes (Tube I: VACUETTE^®, Tube II: LABOR IMPORT^®, Tube III: S-Monovette^®, Tube IV: SST^® and Tube V: SST II^®) were collected by a single, expert phlebotomist. The routine clinical chemistry tests were analyzed on cobas^® 6000 module. The significance of the diff erences between samples was assessed by paired Student’s t-test after checking for normality. The level of statistical significance was set at P < 0.005. Finally, the biases from Tube I, Tube II, Tube III, Tube IV and Tube V were compared with the current desirable quality specifications for bias (B), derived from biological variation.

Results and conclusions:

Basically, our validation will permit the laboratory or hospital managers to select the brand’s vacuum tubes validated according him/her technical or economical reasons, in order to perform the following laboratory tests: glucose, total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol, triglycerides, total protein, albumin, blood urea nitrogen, uric acid, alkaline phosphatise, aspartate aminotransferase, gamma-glutamyltransferase, lactate dehydrogenase, creatine kinase, total bilirubin, direct bilirubin, calcium, iron, sodium and potassium. On the contrary special attention will be required if the laboratory already performs creatinine, amylase, phosphate and magnesium determinations and the quality laboratory manager intend to change the serum tubes. We suggest that laboratory management should both standardize the procedures and frequently evaluate the quality of in vitro diagnostic devices.