[en] Full text: How does an organisation assess and assure the quality of its product when that product is a statement regarding the absence of undeclared activities? Such a statement cannot be quality controlled in a traditional sense like manufactured components, there is simply nothing to measure or control against, and unlike a modern service industry the customer is not able to simply switch to another service provider if it perceives that the product is of poor quality, however it may define quality. This is the challenge that the IAEA faces as more States move towards safeguards under a comprehensive safeguards agreement and an additional protocol, with the requirement to draw conclusions not only on the correctness of declarations but also their completeness. Conclusions are no longer based solely on assessment against well defined Criteria for facility types but instead have a wide variety of inputs, ranging from expanded declarations, results of complementary access, assessment of environmental samples, open source information, satellite imagery, analysis of trade networks in addition to the output from inspections. These all combine to generate an overall State evaluation. When considering the far-reaching consequences of getting it wrong, more than hope is needed to assure the international community that conclusions drawn by the Agency are sound and credible. Part of the approach being taken by the Department of Safeguards to meet this challenge is to implement a quality management system (QMS) based on ISO9001:2000. Implementing a QMS will enable the Secretariat to confirm that the necessary and sufficient processes are in place, they are carried out correctly, adequately monitored and that appropriate feedback loops are used. Importantly it will also allow the Department to understand what the processes cannot deliver so that any weaknesses can be handled correctly. The need for a QMS was recognised internally by the Department of Safeguards in light of the changing safeguards environment and the move away from solely Criteria based safeguards under INFCIRC/153, which itself was a form of management system. It was also recognised by a number of other stakeholders such as SAGSI and Member States. More recently the requirement for implementation of quality management practices was formalised across the Agency in the Medium Term Strategy 2006-2011. The formal commencement of the Department QMS began on 24 November 2004 when the Quality Policy Statement was issued setting the broad aims to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the Department's verification and evaluation activities through continual improvement. However, even before this, training in quality management techniques had been made available to staff members with the assistance of the US Support Programme. The move to a quality management system is not simply a mechanistic activity of documenting the activities of an organisation but requires a fundamental change in organisational culture and adoption of quality management principles. This only happens with sustained and active management participation and a clear understanding of the reasons for change by all staff. Simply it needs to involve everyone in the organisation. The initial stages of implementation involved undertaking a gap analysis to identify areas where the Department did not meet the requirements of ISO9001:2000. This led to the development of a project plan to address the areas of non-conformance. Priorities for the plan were established by considering the activities against criteria such as does closing the gap increase the effectiveness of the Department's verification and evaluation activities, is it a required pre-cursor for enabling other activities, does it address a severe or particularly important issue or help overcome a recurrent problem. Organisational support to establish the quality management system was set up, including a team within the Division of Concepts and Planning to lead the project and representative Quality Managers from each of the Divisions were app ointed. Ongoing planning and monitoring is carried out at monthly meetings of the Quality Managers. Since the start of 2006 this working level meeting has been complemented with a quarterly formal management review of the QMS led by the Deputy Director General of Safeguards. Achievements to date have been the implementation of a document control system, agreed arrangements for continual process improvement, internal quality audit system, mapping of Department processes, delivery of a range of training and development of an internal website as a communication tool. The future work plan covers transition of existing documents, corrective action, process measurement, record control, competence, further communication and training and maintenance of those activities already implemented, for example, internal quality audit of a wider range of areas. The introduction of a quality management system within the Department of Safeguards is not a one-off project but the start of a new way of working. Implementing the system will give the Department the understanding of what it does and how it is done in a sustainable manner so it can adapt to a continually changing safeguards environment. (author)

[en] High precision measurements of the proton elastic form factor ratio have been made at four-momentum transfers, Q², between 0.2 and 0.5 GeV². The new data, while consistent with previous results, clearly show a ratio less than unity and significant differences from the central values of several recent phenomenological fits. By combining the new form-factor ratio data with an existing cross-section measurement, one finds that in this Q² range the deviation from unity is primarily due to GEp being smaller than the dipole parameterization