Insignificant impact of prescribed fire on surface soil in a Pinus pinaster plantation, northern Portugal

Following a prescribed fire in a Pinus pinaster forest site located in the north-west Portugal, monitoring of any changes in selected soil characteristics and soil hydrology was undertaken to assess the effects of burning on the following: pH, electrical conductivity, water content, organic carbon and porosity. Thirty plots were established on a regular grid. At each sample plot before and after the fire, samples were collected (disturbed samples from depths of 0-1cm and 1-5cm; undisturbed core samples from 0-5cm). The results indicate that there was no measurable impact on the properties of the soil following this carefully conducted prescribed fire. The fire only affected the litter layer, as intended. Confirmation of this minimal impact on the soil was provided by regrowth of grasses and herbs already occurring two months after the fire. The implication is, therefore, that provided this wildfire-risk reduction strategy is carried out under existing strict guidelines, any impact on soil quality will be minimal.

Occupational risk in a glass manufacturing industry unit

Risk assessment is one of the main pillars of the framework directive and other directives in respect of health and safety. It is also the basis of an effective management of safety and health as it is essential to reduce work-related accidents and occupational diseases. To survey the hazards eventually present in the workplaces the usual procedures are i) gathering information about tasks/activities, employees, equipment, legislation and standards; ii) observation of the tasks and; iii) quantification of respective risks through the most adequate risk assessment among the methodologies available. From this preliminary evaluation of a welding plant and, from the different measurable parameters, noise was considered the most critical. This paper focus not only the usual way of risk assessment for noise but also another approach that may allow us to identify the technique with which a weld is being performed.

Electrochemical immunosensor for the analysis of the breast cancer biomarker HER2 ECD

Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is a breast cancer biomarker that plays a major role in promoting breast cancer cell proliferation and malignant growth. The extracellular domain (ECD) of HER2 can be shed into the blood stream and its concentration is measurable in the serum fraction of blood. In this work an electrochemical immunosensor for the analysis of HER2 ECD in human serum samples was developed. To achieve this goal a screen-printed carbon electrode, modified with gold nanoparticles, was used as transducer surface. A sandwich immunoassay, using two monoclonal antibodies, was employed and the detection of the antibody–antigen interaction was performed through the analysis of an enzymatic reaction product by linear sweep voltammetry. Using the optimized experimental conditions the calibration curve (ip vs. log[HER2 ECD]) was established between 15 and 100 ng/mL and a limit of detection (LOD) of 4.4 ng/mL was achieved. These results indicate that the developed immunosensor could be a promising tool in breast cancer diagnostics, patient follow-up and monitoring of metastatic breast cancer since it allows quantification in a useful concentration range and has an LOD below the established cut-off value (15 ng/mL).

A comunicação interna e a sua relação com a motivação dos trabalhadores

A presente proposta de Dissertação tem como objetivo principal analisar três canais de Comunicação Interna da empresa do Grupo Probos: Revista Interna; Self-Service; Caixa de Sugestões; e avaliar se estes contribuem para a motivação dos trabalhadores. O estudo da população envolveu 119 trabalhadores da empresa divididos por três secções: Administrativos, Técnicos e Operários que registaram as suas opiniões através de respostas a um instrumento de medição, o questionário. O questionário está dividido em quatro secções: Dados Sociodemográficos, Revista Interna, Caixa de Sugestões e Self-Service. As opiniões foram analisadas através do Excel da Microsoft e de uma escala de Likert de cinco pontos com o software para tratamento de dados quantitativos – IBM SPSS (versão 22). Como conclusão, no que diz respeito à Revista Interna os resultados apontam que nem todos os colaboradores inquiridos da empresa em estudo, consideram este canal comunicacional interno motivador para o seu desempenho profissional, mas valorizam a divulgação dos méritos e das novidades por seu intermédio. Relativamente aos canais Self-Service e Caixa de Sugestões, conclui-se que estes são ambos contributos para a motivação dos trabalhadores.