Serviço Social e terceiro setor: considerações sobre as atuais relações e condições de trabalho para o Assistente Social em Natal

The present study analyses the actual relations and work conditions found in the third sector in Natal city, in the context of productive restoration and increasingly retraction from the State in providing Social Service before the new approach that has been destined to the social issue. The study talks about the work of the social worker when fighting the different expressions the social issue has, such as social service provision as a way of teamwork associated to work relations and conditions, to accessible resources and quality control management. These are elements that affect and interfere in the accomplishment and in the work of the social worker itself. The State s improvement, according to neoliberal-political precepts and increasingly retraction from the public investment in the areas of social concern (health, social welfare, assistance) and in the wage and employment policy, besides expanding the partnership with the public and private areas, in search for social services with quality, it has diversified the structures of the professional work with the growth of the so called third sector institutions. However, the absorption of the social workers by the third sector groups in general, has as major features the impoverishment of work relations, the maintenance of an unequal salary model, pointing out the deadline contracts and/or single tasks that generate work instability. The research debates, with a critical view and full perspective, over the conception of the third sector, interpreted as an action that expresses functions and values, treated as a real phenomenon generated from the restoration of the capital based on neoliberal principles. This study aims for responding what the established work relations are and under what work conditions the social worker has been fitting in the third sector and how such a reality echoes in the current work conditions for a social work in the city of Natal, before this new model of state intervention that transfers part of the social service provision to distinctive divisions of society, among them the so called third sector. The research results have shown that like the other workers the social worker passes through the same crises, dilemmas, advances and challenges that occur in the world of employment and which are expressed in the drop of salary average in the growth of contemporary contracts, unemployment, and in the ever more selective requirements to one be included in the social spaces, where the professional work is done, having as a result a greater impoverishment of work relations and conditions as well as more vulnerability as a salaried occupation

Detection of propranolol in pharmaceutical formulations by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy

This paper describes an analytical reflectometric method that has an objective not only the industrial quality control but also to detect possible falsifications and/or adulterations of propranolol in pharmaceutical formulations. The method is based on the diffuse reflectance measurements of the colored product (III) of the spot test reaction between propranolol hydrochloride (I) and 2,6-dichloroquinone-4-chloroimide (II) using filter paper as solid support. Spot test conditions have been investigated using experimental design in order to identify and optimize the critical factors. The factors evaluated were DCQ concentration, propranolol solvent and DCQ solvent. The best reaction conditions were achieved with the addition of 30 mu L, of propranolol solution in ethanol 35% (v/v) and 30 mu L of DCQ solution at 70 mg mL(-1) in acetone, in this order. All reflectance measurements were carried out at 500 nm and the linear range was from 8.45 x 10(-4) to 8.45 x 10(-2) mol L-1 (r= 0.998). The limit of detection was 1.01 x 10(-4) mol L-1. No interference was observed from the assessed excipients and drugs. The method was applied to determine propranolol in commercial brands of pharmaceuticals. The results obtained by the proposed method were favorably compared with those given by the British Pharmacopoeia procedure. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Screening Brazilian commercial gasoline quality by hydrogen nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic fingerprintings and pattern-recognition multivariate chemometric analysis

The identification of gasoline adulteration by organic solvents is not an easy task, because compounds that constitute the solvents are already in gasoline composition. In this work, the combination of Hydrogen Nuclear Magnetic Resonance ((1)H NMR) spectroscopic fingerprintings with pattern-recognition multivariate Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy (SIMCA) chemometric analysis provides an original and alternative approach to screening Brazilian commercial gasoline quality in a Monitoring Program for Quality Control of Automotive Fuels. SIMCA was performed on spectroscopic fingerprints to classify the quality of representative commercial gasoline samples selected by Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) and collected over a 6-month period from different gas stations in the São Paulo state, Brazil. Following optimized the (1)H NMR-SIMCA algorithm, it was possible to correctly classify 92.0% of commercial gasoline samples, which is considered acceptable. The chemometric method is recommended for routine applications in Quality-Control Monitoring Programs, since its measurements are fast and can be easily automated. Also, police laboratories could employ this method for rapid screening analysis to discourage adulteration practices. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Screening Brazilian Commercial Gasoline Quality by ASTM D6733 GC and Pattern-Recognition Multivariate SIMCA Chemometric Analysis

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Controle estatístico aplicado ao processo de colheita mecanizada de cana-de-açúcar

O avanço da mecanização na colheita da cana-de-açúcar (Saccharum spp.) proporcionou o uso de novas tecnologias e ganho em produtividade para a cultura. O controle da qualidade do processo de colheita da cana-de-açúcar é fundamental para reduzir as perdas. Este trabalho teve o objetivo de avaliar as perdas na colheita mecanizada de cana-de-açúcar, utilizando-as como indicadores de qualidade do processo de colheita. Os dados foram coletados em duas propriedades próximas a Jaboticabal - SP, com a variedade SP80-3280, em 3º e 4º cortes. Caracterizou-se o porte do canavial e, após a colheita, demarcou-se área de 1,5 ha, sendo demarcados 25 pontos, espaçados de 12 x 50 m, quantificando-se as perdas visíveis. Posteriormente, foi aplicado o controle estatístico do processo pela média, que consta de três vezes o desvio-padrão para mais ou para menos, sendo esses os limites superior e inferior de controle, respectivamente. A média das perdas de pedaço solto foi estatisticamente maior do que as médias de perdas em pedaço fixo, cana inteira, cana-ponta e toco. A ocorrência de perdas em rebolo estilhaçado foi menor para o 4º corte em relação ao 3º corte, enquanto as perdas em pedaço fixo e toco foram menores no 3º corte, comparadas às perdas no 4º corte. em cada corte, as médias para as perdas totais estiveram próximas dos valores encontrados na bibliografia. Pedaço solto foi a variável de perdas visíveis com maior percentagem de ocorrência. As perdas demonstraram que a colheita mecanizada não se encontra sob controle estatístico de processo.

Software to productive and reproductive control of goats: PROCAPRI

PROCAPRI is a software to productive and reproductive control of goats developed with the aim of assisting the goat producers in their decisions, to make a representative data set of Brazilian goats production and providing research information. It has five modules: Administration, Association, UNESP, Maintenance, and Utilities. It has been available since October 1994, and it has been amply used, with 157 copies distributed until April 1998 in Brazil and other countries.

Screening Brazilian automotive gasoline quality through quantification of saturated hydrocarbons and anhydrous ethanol by gas chromatography and exploratory data analysis

In this paper a set of Brazilian commercial gasoline representative samples from São Paulo State, selected by HCA, plus six samples obtained directly from refineries were analysed by a high-sensitive gas chromatographic (GC) method ASTM D6733. The levels of saturated hydrocarbons and anhydrous ethanol obtained by GC were correlated with the quality obtained from Brazilian Government Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP) specifications through exploratory analysis (HCA and PCA). This correlation showed that the GC method, together with HCA and PCA, could be employed as a screening technique to determine compliance with the prescribed legal standards of Brazilian gasoline.

Adaptive control charts: A Markovian approach for processes subject to independent disturbances

Recent studies have shown that adaptive X control charts are quicker than traditional X charts in detecting small to moderate shifts in a process. In this article, we propose a joint statistical design of adaptive X and R charts having all design parameters varying adaptively. The process is subjected to two independent assignable causes. One cause changes the process mean and the other changes the process variance. However, the occurrence of one kind of assignable cause does not preclude the occurrence of the other. It is assumed that the quality characteristic is normally distributed and the time that the process remains in control has exponential distribution. Performance measures of these adaptive control charts are obtained through a Markov chain approach. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Screening Brazilian C gasoline quality: Application of the SIMCA chemometric method to gas chromatographic data

A total of 2400 samples of commercial Brazilian C gasoline were collected over a 6-month period from different gas stations in the São Paulo state, Brazil, and analysed with respect to 12 physicochemical parameters according to regulation 309 of the Brazilian Government Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP). The percentages (v/v) of hydrocarbons (olefins, aromatics and saturated) were also determined. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) was employed to select 150 representative samples that exhibited least similarity on the basis of their physicochemical parameters and hydrocarbon compositions. The chromatographic profiles of the selected samples were measured by gas chromatography with flame ionisation detection and analysed using soft independent modelling of class analogy (SIMCA) method in order to create a classification scheme to identify conform gasolines according to ANP 309 regulation. Following the optimisation of the SIMCA algorithm, it was possible to classify correctly 96% of the commercial gasoline samples present in the training set of 100. In order to check the quality of the model, an external group of 50 gasoline samples (the prediction set) were analysed and the developed SIMCA model classified 94% of these correctly. The developed chemometric method is recommended for screening commercial gasoline quality and detection of potential adulteration. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A stochastic shift model for economically designed charts constrained by the process stage configuration

An economic model including the labor resource and the process stage configuration is proposed to design g charts allowing for all the design parameters to be varied in an adaptive way. A random shift size is considered during the economic design selection. The results obtained for a benchmark of 64 process stage scenarios show that the activities configuration and some process operating parameters influence the selection of the best control chart strategy: to model the random shift size, its exact distribution can be approximately fitted by a discrete distribution obtained from a relatively small sample of historical data. However, an accurate estimation of the inspection costs associated to the SPC activities is far from being achieved. An illustrative example shows the implementation of the proposed economic model in a real industrial case. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Diagnosis of Public Programs focused on Herbal Medicines in Brazil

The present study is aimed to diagnose the current public programs focused on herbal medicines in Brazil by means of in loco visits to 10 programs selected by means of questionnaires sent to 124 municipalities that count on herbal medicine services. The main purpose of the implementation of program programs is related to the development of medicinal herbs. 70% of them are intended for the production of herbal medicines and 50% are aimed to ensure the access of the population to medicinal plants and or herbal medicines. The initiative of the implementation of these programs was related to the managers (60%). The difficulties in this implementation were due to the lack of funding (100%) of the programs. In 60% of the programs, the physicians did not adhere to herbal medicine services due to the lack of knowledge of the subject. Training courses were proposed (80%) to increase the adhesion of prescribers to the system. Some municipalities use information obtained from patients to assess the therapeutic efficiency of medicinal plants and herbal medicines. of the programs underway, cultivation of medicinal plants was observed in 90% and 78% of them adopt quality control. In most programs, this control is not performed in accordance with the legal requirements. The programs focused on medicinal plants and herbal medicines implemented in Brazil face sonic chronic problems of infrastructure, management, operational capacity and self-sustainability, which can be directly related to the absence of a national policy on medicinal plants and herbal medicines.

Monitoring the process mean and variance using a synthetic control chart with two-stage testing

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

A hierarchy of adaptive (X)over-bar control charts

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Survey of the Microbiological Quality of Nonalcoholic Carbonated Beverages

The number and the main groups of microorganisms present in samples of different nonalcoholic carbonated beverages (lemon, orange and guaraná soft drinks) obtained from a small factory were analyzed. The samples were obtained at the end of the processing line. They were then divided into two lots: one was sent to immediate analysis, the other was stored at environmental temperature for 90 d thereafter it was submitted to the same analysis. Aliquots of 1 mL were drawn from the various samples and the corresponding decimal dilutions were prepared. They were then grown in culture media and counts of mesophilic aerobic bacteria, molds and yeasts, acid-producing bacteria, total and fecal coliforms were taken. It was observed that, of all the analyzed samples, at time 0 or after storage sample C (orange) was the best, since it conformed to the microbiological standards established by legislation. The guaraná type could also be consumed on day zero; the lemon type was inadequate for consumption of all the analyzed samples, the orange type was the only one that could be consumed within 3 months of storage.