The growth of titanium oxide layer on titanium surface by the micro-arc oxidation technique was investigated. Ca(CH₃COO)₂ (0.3M), Na₂CO₃ (0.6M) and Na₂HPO₄ (0.1M) solutions were employed as electrolytes. SEM and EDS microanalysis were used for morphology, composition characterization and low-angle X-ray diffraction to describe titanium oxide crystallographic orientation. TiO₂ films formed by using 0.3M Ca(CH₃COO)₂ and 0.1M Na₂HPO₄ solutions showed a porous, homogeneous surface structure, with presence of phosphorous and after an hydrothermical treatment using a Ca(OH)₂ suspension during 24h at 60ºC was observed phosphorous and calcium.

Two methods of radiological survey in a medical X ray room are compared. The first method is just the usual one, as done today in Brazil. It is based on the election of a high voltage (HV) value, by legal rule the highest used in the clinic, taken as a standard. This highest HV value is supposed to be constant and representative of all others values, which are simply ignored. This work shows that the results of this approach move away a bit from the actual radiation doses, overestimating the values. A second method is proposed and compared with the first one. It takes the various values of HV into account. One should only assume a quadratic relationship between the dose measurements and HV and change the way of workload data acquirement. This second method presents a modified way to calculate the ambient equivalent dose [H*(10)]. It is shown that the spread of values present by the 2nd method is smaller than that of the current one, although in the 2nd method the values are still overestimated, however not too much. Putting both methods side by side, as a conclusion, the second one shows to be better than the first, as it adheres more to the reality.

A simple, compact and low-cost device is presented. It is able to measure, store and transfer to a computer the beat-to-beat interval of the heart, using a POLAR chest belt and receiver. The conception of this device is based on a microcontroller 8051 associated with flash memory and a real time clock. The statistical error on this interval is below one millisecond. The device suits particularly well for studying the heart rate variability (HRV) at rest in athletes.

Society, as a client and as an end-user, looks at quality assurance (QA) in terms of net economic benefits gained by solving real-life problems that contribute to national development. As a measurable parameter, economic benefit is a reliable indicator of sustained attention and public support for QA. In the world of food as a trading commodity, we are moving towards a global but borderless-trade situation. Food safety being a prime concern under this scenario, reliable food and nutritional (F&N) measurements take centre stage in decision-making. A measurement process characterized by metrological concepts enhances the reliability of analytical results and ensures sustainability to the QA process. These steps infuse authority to the F&N analytical results, and to the ensuing public health decisions from well-designed projects. Integration of metrological concepts into the F&N measurement system strengthens the very base of nutrition education for young professionals (scientific and technical), improves institutional measurement infrastructure, and contributes to the much-needed capacity development in F&N areas. The World Bank and several other United Nations Agencies are now embarking on human capacity building as a critical focal point in the context of national development. Simply put, QA promotes economic benefits. This is the challenge to be met in practice in the field.

A set of partial working procedures has been designed for standardizing the laboratory setup modeling the control of harmful acitivity of termites in nature by affecting caste differentiation by a juvenogen. This set of verified procedures monitors the metabolism of the juvenogen in both the worker and the metamorphosis-derived soldier. The standardization permits an evaluation based on using only a single worker and a single soldier from the whole experimental group and increases thereby considerably the efficiency of the monitoring. The methodology is based on the use of radiolabeled juvenogen and transmission X-ray radiography of the selected termite.