Influência da implementação de um sistema de gestão nas concessões rodoviárias

Se a implementação de Sistemas de Gestão dentro dos padrões recomendados pelas normas individuais de referência, já é prática comum nas empresas nacionais, a implementação de Sistemas Integrados de Gestão (SIG), verdadeiramente contidos uns nos outros como um só, é ainda invulgar. Constitui actualmente emblema de modernidade, enquanto aplicado à construção. Estudar todos os meandros e práticas associadas aos SIG, neste pequeno‐grande mundo, que é o das obras concessionadas, é de facto um grande desafio, não tanto pela novidade do conceito que representa, mas pela possibilidade de idealizar uma proposta de uma sistemática exequível, que me proponho apresentar. Assim, este trabalho baseia‐se numa pesquisa de informação teórica, bem como na prática da implementação de um Sistema Integrado numa empresa de referência no sector – a Empresa de Construções Amândio Carvalho, S.A. e neste caso, concretamente na obra ‐ “VRI: Aeroporto/IP4 – Lote 3”. O objectivo geral baseia‐se em diagnosticar as principais dificuldades e limitações enfrentadas por um sector de actividade, na adopção de um modelo específico de gestão da qualidade, ambiente e segurança no trabalho, baseando‐se nas normas de referência, ISO 9001: 2000, ISO 14001:2004 e OHSAS 18001: 2001. Normas estas, que embora agora tenham sido revistas a primeira e a última, na altura em que a obra decorreu, encontravam‐se em vigor. No caso especifico de estudo, comprova‐se a necessidade de implementação de um Sistema único, que atinja o nível de comprometimento dos recursos financeiros e humanos necessários para a execução de obra, respeitando os princípios apresentados pelo cliente. Pretende‐se ainda demonstrar que a adopção de Sistemas “desintegrados”, poderá conduzir ao colapso da estrutura montada para corresponder aos requisitos propostos.

Capital humano, medir para gerir: a utilização do balanced scorecard

Perante os contínuos desafios com que se defrontam as organizações, consequência dos elevados níveis de competitividade, é-lhes exigido uma nova dinâmica de gestão, onde os recursos humanos se assumem como o seu principal elemento diferenciador. Neste contexto, é fundamental a existência de uma gestão estratégica dos recursos humanos, a institucionalização de um conjunto de práticas que permitam transformar os recursos humanos num activo estratégico, que conduza à execução da estratégia organizacional. Essas práticas passam pela atracção e retenção de talentos, oportunidades de desenvolvimento, propiciar boas condições de trabalho quer a nível quantitativo quer a nível qualitativo. E como cada pessoa é um ser único, dotado de características próprias, impossíveis de imitar, deve ser reconhecida a capacidade de serem uma fonte de vantagem competitiva. Não é suficiente o estabelecimento de um conjunto de boas práticas para que se possuam recursos humanos estratégicos. É fundamental fazer o acompanhamento dessas práticas através da monitorização. Na gestão o que não pode ser medido não pode ser gerido. É fundamental sensibilizar os gestores, profissionais de recursos humanos, para a criação de sistemas de medida e métricas que possam aferir a contribuição do Capital Humano para a missão e estratégia das organizações. O Balanced Scorecard é uma ferramenta de gestão que possibilita, através da informação dos seus indicadores, a implementação das estratégias nas organizações. A finalidade é garantir que os indicadores definidos estejam coerentes com a estratégia global. Essa metodologia tem assim o mérito de compatibilizar (através de indicadores quantitativos) a gestão de recursos humanos com os objectivos a longo prazo da organização. A existência de indicadores qualitativos permite ainda às organizações mensurar o nível de desempenho e motivação, factores influentes no clima organizacional

Response of high-risk of recurrence/progression bladder tumours expressing sialyl-Tn and sialyl-6-T to BCG immunotherapy

High risk of recurrence/progression bladder tumours is treated with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy after complete resection of the tumour. Approximately 75% of these tumours express the uncommon carbohydrate antigen sialyl-Tn (Tn), a surrogate biomarker of tumour aggressiveness. Such changes in the glycosylation of cell-surface proteins influence tumour microenvironment and immune responses that may modulate treatment outcome and the course of disease. The aim of this work is to determine the efficiency of BCG immunotherapy against tumours expressing sTn and sTn-related antigen sialyl-6-T (s6T). METHODS: In a retrospective design, 94 tumours from patients treated with BCG were screened for sTn and s6T expression. In vitro studies were conducted to determine the interaction of BCG with high-grade bladder cancer cell line overexpressing sTn. RESULTS: From the 94 cases evaluated, 36 had recurrence after BCG treatment (38.3%). Treatment outcome was influenced by age over 65 years (HR=2.668; (1.344-5.254); P=0.005), maintenance schedule (HR=0.480; (0.246-0.936); P=0.031) and multifocality (HR=2.065; (1.033-4.126); P=0.040). sTn or s6T expression was associated with BCG response (P=0.024; P<0.0001) and with increased recurrence-free survival (P=0.001). Multivariate analyses showed that sTn and/or s6T were independent predictive markers of recurrence after BCG immunotherapy (HR=0.296; (0.148-0.594); P=0.001). In vitro studies demonstrated higher adhesion and internalisation of the bacillus to cells expressing sTn, promoting cell death. CONCLUSION: s6T is described for the first time in bladder tumours. Our data strongly suggest that BCG immunotherapy is efficient against sTn- and s6T-positive tumours. Furthermore, sTn and s6T expression are independent predictive markers of BCG treatment response and may be useful in the identification of patients who could benefit more from this immunotherapy.

Sinistralidade laboral no setor da indústria extrativa no triângulo do mármore

Mestrado em Segurança e Higiene no Trabalho

Tensile behaviour of a structural adhesive at high temperatures by the extended finite element method

Component joining is typically performed by welding, fastening, or adhesive-bonding. For bonded aerospace applications, adhesives must withstand high-temperatures (200°C or above, depending on the application), which implies their mechanical characterization under identical conditions. The extended finite element method (XFEM) is an enhancement of the finite element method (FEM) that can be used for the strength prediction of bonded structures. This work proposes and validates damage laws for a thin layer of an epoxy adhesive at room temperature (RT), 100, 150, and 200°C using the XFEM. The fracture toughness (G Ic ) and maximum load ( ); in pure tensile loading were defined by testing double-cantilever beam (DCB) and bulk tensile specimens, respectively, which permitted building the damage laws for each temperature. The bulk test results revealed that decreased gradually with the temperature. On the other hand, the value of G Ic of the adhesive, extracted from the DCB data, was shown to be relatively insensitive to temperature up to the glass transition temperature (T g ), while above T g (at 200°C) a great reduction took place. The output of the DCB numerical simulations for the various temperatures showed a good agreement with the experimental results, which validated the obtained data for strength prediction of bonded joints in tension. By the obtained results, the XFEM proved to be an alternative for the accurate strength prediction of bonded structures.

Ambientes favoráveis à prática de cuidados de enfermagem: factores determinantes

Mestrado em Intervenção Sócio-Organizacional na Saúde - Ramo de especialização: Políticas de Administração e Gestão de Serviços de Saúde

A high performance wireless fieldbus in industrial multimedia-related environment

This paper summarises the most important solutions that have emerged from the work carried out by our team within the framework of the EU (IST-1999-11316) project RFieldbus - High Performance Wireless Fieldbus in Industrial Multimedia-Related Environment. Within this project, Profibus was chosen as the fieldbus platform. Essentially, extensions to the current Profibus standard are being developed in order to provide Profibus with wireless, mobility and industrialmultimedia capabilities. In fact, providing these extensions means fulfilling strong requirements, namely to encompass the communication between wired (currently available) and wireless/mobile devices and to support real-time control traffic and multimedia traffic in the same network.

Effects of irregular-shift work and physical activity on cardiovascular risk factors in truck drivers

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the putative effect of type of shift and its interaction with leisure-time physical activity on cardiovascular risk factors in truck drivers.METHODS: A cross-sectional study was undertaken on 57 male truck drivers working at a transportation company, of whom 31 worked irregular shifts and 26 worked on the day-shift. Participants recorded their physical activity using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire along with measurements of blood pressure, body mass index and waist-hip ratio. Participants also provided a fasting blood sample for analysis of lipid-related outcomes. Data were analyzed using a factorial model which was covariate-controlled for age, smoking, work demand, control at work and social support.RESULTS: Most of the irregular-shift and day-shift workers worked more than 8 hours per day (67.7% and 73.1%, respectively). The mean duration of experience working the irregular schedule was 15.7 years. Day-shift workers had never engaged in irregular-shift work and had been working as a truck driver for 10.8 years on average. The irregular-shift drivers had lower work demand but less control compared to day-shift drivers (p < 0.05). Moderately-active irregular-shift workers had higher systolic and diastolic arterial pressures (143.7 and 93.2 mmHg, respectively) than moderately-active day-shift workers (116 and 73.3 mmHg, respectively) (p < 0.05) as well as higher total cholesterol concentrations (232.1 and 145 mg/dl, respectively) (p = 0.01). Irrespective of their physical activity, irregular-shift drivers had higher total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol concentrations (211.8 and 135.7 mg/dl, respectively) than day-shift workers (161.9 and 96.7 mg/dl, respectively (ANCOVA, p < 0.05).CONCLUSIONS: Truck drivers are exposed to cardiovascular risk factors due to the characteristics of the job, such as high work demand, long working hours and time in this profession, regardless of shift type or leisure-time physical activity.

Supporting real-time parallel task models with work-stealing

Dynamic parallel scheduling using work-stealing has gained popularity in academia and industry for its good performance, ease of implementation and theoretical bounds on space and time. Cores treat their own double-ended queues (deques) as a stack, pushing and popping threads from the bottom, but treat the deque of another randomly selected busy core as a queue, stealing threads only from the top, whenever they are idle. However, this standard approach cannot be directly applied to real-time systems, where the importance of parallelising tasks is increasing due to the limitations of multiprocessor scheduling theory regarding parallelism. Using one deque per core is obviously a source of priority inversion since high priority tasks may eventually be enqueued after lower priority tasks, possibly leading to deadline misses as in this case the lower priority tasks are the candidates when a stealing operation occurs. Our proposal is to replace the single non-priority deque of work-stealing with ordered per-processor priority deques of ready threads. The scheduling algorithm starts with a single deque per-core, but unlike traditional work-stealing, the total number of deques in the system may now exceed the number of processors. Instead of stealing randomly, cores steal from the highest priority deque.

Relatório de estágio de Qualificação Profissional

Mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar

Practices and trends of telework in the Portuguese industry: the results of surveys in the textile, metal and software sectors

The aim of the TeleRisk Project on labour relations and professional risks within the context of teleworking in Portugal – supported by IDICT – Institute for Development and Inspection of Working Conditions (Ministry of Labour), is to study the practices and forms of teleworking in the manufacturing sectors in Portugal. The project chose also the software industry as a reference sector, even though it does not intend to exclude from the study any other sector of activity or the so-called “hybrid” forms of work. However, the latter must have some of the characteristics of telework. The project thus takes into account the so-called “traditional” sectors of activity, namely textile and machinery and metal engineering (machinery and equipment), not usually associated to this type of work. However, telework could include, in the so-called “traditional” sectors, other variations that are not found in technologically based sectors. One of the evaluation methods for the dynamics associated to telework consisted in carrying out surveys by means of questionnaires, aimed at employers in the sectors analysed. This paper presents some of the results of those surveys. It is important to mention that, being a preliminary analysis, it means that it does not pretend to have exhausted all the issues in the survey, but has meant that it shows the bigger tendencies, in terms of teleworking practices, of the Portuguese industry.

The recognition of work

The following article argues that recognition structures in work relations differ significantly in the sphere of paid work in contrast to unpaid work in private spheres. According to the systematic approach on recognition of Axel Honneth three different levels of recognition are identified: the interpersonal recognition, organisational recognition and societal recognition. Based on this framework it can be stated that recognition structures in the sphere of paid work and in private spheres differ very much. Whereas recognition in private spheres depends very much on personal relations, thus on the interpersonal level, recognition in employment relationships can be moreover built on organisational structures. Comparing recognition structures in both fields it becomes apparent, that recognition in field of employment can be characterised as much more concrete, comparable and measurable. Therefore, it can be concluded that the structural differences of recognition contribute to the high societal and individual importance of employment in contrast to unpaid work in private spheres.

Working in IT projects – Options and Limits of Work Design

Flexible forms of work like project work are gaining importance in industry and services. Looking at the research on project work, the vast majority of present literature is on project management, but increasingly, problems concerning the quality of work and the efficiency of project teams become visible. The question now is how project work can be structured in order to simultaneously provide efficient and flexible work and healthy working conditions ensuring the development of human resources for a long time. Selected results of publicly funded research into project work will be presented based on case studies in 7 software development /IT consulting project teams (N=34). A set of different methods was applied: interviews with management/project managers, group interviews on work constraints, a monthly diary about well-being and critical incidences in the course of the project, and a final evaluation questionnaire on project outcomes focusing on economic and health aspects. Findings reveal that different types of projects exist with varying degree of team members’ autonomy and influence on work structuring. An effect of self-regulation on mental strain could not be found. The results emphasize, that contradicting requirements and insufficient organizational resources with respect to the work requirements lead to an increased work intensity or work obstruction. These contradicting requirements are identified as main drivers for generating stress. Finally, employees with high values on stress for more than 2 months have significantly higher exhaustion rates than those with only one month peaks. Structuring project work and taking into account the dynamics of project work, there is a need for an active role of the project team in contract negotiation or the detailed definition of work – this is not only a question of individual autonomy but of negotiation the range of option for work structuring. Therefore, along with the sequential definition of the (software) product, the working conditions need to be re-defined.

Nuclear medicine technologist education and training in Europe: literature and web-based findings

Purpose - The education and training of a nuclear medicine technologist (NMT) is not homogeneous among European countries, which leads to different scope of practices and, therefore, different technical skills are assigned. The goal of this research was to characterize the education and training of NMT in Europe. Materials and methods - This study was based on a literature research to characterize the education and training of NMT and support the historical evolution of this profession. It was divided into two different phases: the first phase included analysis of scientific articles and the second phase included research of curricula that allow health professionals to work as NMT in Europe. Results - The majority of the countries [N=31 (89%)] offer the NMT curriculum integrated into the high education system and only in four (11%) countries the education is provided by professional schools. The duration in each education system is not equal, varying in professional schools (2-3 years) and high education level system (2-4 years), which means that different European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, such as 240, 230, 222, 210 or 180 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, are attributed to the graduates. The professional title and scope of the practice of NMT are different in different countries in Europe. In most countries of Europe, nuclear medicine training is not specific and curriculum does not demonstrate the Nuclear Medicine competencies performed in clinical practice. Conclusion - The heterogeneity in education and training for NMT is an issue prevalent among European countries. For NMT professional development, there is a huge need to formalize and unify educational and training programmes in Europe.

HIV risk practices by female sex workers according to workplace

OBJECTIVE To investigate differences in HIV infection- related risk practices by Female Sex Workers according to workplace and the effects of homophily on estimating HIV prevalence. METHODS Data from 2,523 women, recruited using Respondent-Driven Sampling, were used for the study carried out in 10 Brazilian cities in 2008-2009. The study included female sex workers aged 18 and over. The questionnaire was completed by the subjects and included questions on characteristics of professional activity, sexual practices, use of drugs, HIV testing, and access to health services. HIV quick tests were conducted. The participants were classified in two groups according to place of work: on the street or indoor venues, like nightclubs and saunas. To compare variable distributions by place of work, we used Chi-square homogeneity tests, taking into consideration unequal selection probabilities as well as the structure of dependence between observations. We tested the effect of homophily by workplace on estimated HIV prevalence. RESULTS The highest HIV risk practices were associated with: working on the streets, lower socioeconomic status, low regular smear test coverage, higher levels of crack use and higher levels of syphilis serological scars as well as higher prevalence of HIV infection. The effect of homophily was higher among sex workers in indoor venues. However, it did not affect the estimated prevalence of HIV, even after using a post-stratification by workplace procedure. CONCLUSIONS The findings suggest that strategies should focus on extending access to, and utilization of, health services. Prevention policies should be specifically aimed at street workers. Regarding the application of Respondent-Driven Sampling, the sample should be sufficient to estimate transition probabilities, as the network develops more quickly among sex workers in indoor venues.