Project management practices in private Portuguese organizations

Organizations are experiencing increasing pressure that is amplified by the current economic crises we are facing, where innovation, cost reduction, resource optimization, quality and customer satisfaction are increasingly even more important issues. Likewise, project management appears as a subject that has been growing over the years helping organizations to meet their goals, through the implementation of their projects, following good practices that are documented in various standards and methodologies. This research focuses on such practices. The goal was to find which are the most used project management tools and techniques in Portuguese Private Organizations and what factors influence their use

Project management practices in private organizations

This article aims to make a contribution to theory, as well as to practice, by identifying which project management practices are used by most private organizations in general and by sector of activity. The influence of practitioners' characteristics in the choice of project management practices and their use in groups are also analyzed. The results show that the most used project management practices are kick-off meetings, activity lists, progress meetings, Gantt charts, and baseline plans; however, differences between activity sectors and practitioners' characteristics were found. The results also indicate that the most used project management practices are, in fact, used as toolsets.The authors received financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013

Distribuição dos genótipos do vírus GB-C (HGV) em indivíduos da cidade de São Paulo, Brasil

Há na literatura vários estudos filogenéticos e de distribuição de genótipos do chamado "Vírus GB-C" ou da "Hepatite G", mais conhecido pela dupla sigla "GBV-C/HGV". Ocorre que, em sua grande maioria, estas pesquisas foram realizadas com amostras de grupos ligados epidemiologicamente e não com indivíduos representativos da população geral. O presente estudo é uma continuação do primeiro trabalho no Brasil feito com este tipo de amostragem. Trata-se de análise filogenética e distribuição genotípica do GBV-C/HGV a partir de amostras isoladas dentre mais de 1.000 indivíduos da cidade de São Paulo. Para tanto, um fragmento de 728 pares de base da região 5' não-codificadora (5´NCR) do genoma viral, de 24 amostras, foi sequenciado e submetido à analise filogenética. Foram identificados os genótipos 1, 2a e 2b nas respectivas freqüências: 8,3% (2/24), 50% (12/24) e 41,7% (10/24). Concluindo, São Paulo apresenta uma distribuição de genótipos semelhante à publicada para outros estados e regiões do Brasil, endossando a idéia de que os tipos 1 e 2 teriam vindo com os africanos e europeus, respectivamente, e portanto estariam na população do país desde a sua formação.There has been several studies worldwide on phylogenetics and genotype distribution of the GB-virus C / Hepatitis G virus (GBV-C/HGV). However, in their great majority, those investigations were based on some epidemiologically linked group, rather than on a representative sampling of the general population. The present is a continuation of the first study in Brazil with such a population; it addresses the GBV-C/HGV phylogenetics and genotype distribution based on samples identified among more than 1,000 individuals of the city of São Paulo. For this purpose, a 728 bp fragment of the 5´non-coding region (5´NCR) of the viral genome, from 24 isolates, was sequenced and subjected to phylogenetic analysis. Genotypes 1, 2a and 2b were found at 8.3% (2/24), 50% (12/24) and 41.7% (10/24), respectively. In conclusion São Paulo displays a genotype distribution similar to the published data for other States and Regions of Brazil, endorsing the notion that types 1 and 2 would have entered the country with African and European people, respectively, since its earliest formation

Short-Term Herbage Intake Rate in Temperate Pastures Grasses Grown in Pure or in Intercropping Stands

Oat and ryegrass pastures grown in intercropping systems are the most common forages used during the fall and winter in subtropical and in some temperate climate regions. Nevertheless, it must be taken into account that the way in which the different species of plants are presented to the animals may lead to consequences for the efficiency of the grazing process (Prache and Damasceno 2006). Moreover, in hetero-geneous environments, animals may reduce intake rate due to a partial preference for a specific species (Gonçalves et al. 2009). Regarding the pasture development stage, it is known that the decrease of the leaf/stem ratio causes the animal to reduce the instantaneous herbage intake rate due to the reduction of the bite depth because of the physical barrier imposed by the stem (Benvenutti et al. 2006; Drescher et al. 2006) and/or the search for a higher food quality, in this case, leaf lamina (Soder et al. 2009). However, the dynamics of changes in temperate sward structures grown in pure stands compared to inter-cropping systems and its consequence in heifers\u27 short-term herbage intake rate (STHIR) are scarce. The objective of this work was to assess the changes in the STHIR in pastures of oat, ryegrass and their intercrop during the growing season. The hypothesis tested was that cattle reduce the STHIR in intercropping pastures compared to pure stands, and as the grazing season progress

Tiller Size/Density Compensation in Temperate Climate Grasses Grown in Monoculture or Intercropping Systems under Rotational Grazing

From the standpoint of tiller population dynamics, it is well known that the size and numbers of tillers in forage grasses are inversely related, where a greater tiller population density (TPD) is associated with smaller tillers and vice versa (Sbrissia et al. 2003; Hernandez-Garay et al. 1999; Matthew et al. 1995). This relationship has traditionally been made with the self-thinning power law described by Yoda et al. (1963), which considers the leaf area index (LAI) of the pasture constant when the slope of the relationship between numbers and size of tillers, on a logarithmic scale, is approximately -3/2 (Matthew et al. 1995). Notably few studies have assessed this relationship in intercropping systems. Moreover, although studies that evaluated intercrops showed relationships that were nearly -3/2 for the individually analysed species (Yu et al. 2008; Nie et al. 1997;White and Harper 1970), Nie et al. (1997) suggested that all plants that occur in the grass field should be used to properly estimate self-thinning in mixed species pastures. Thus, the aim of the present study was to test the main hypothesis that the tiller size/density compensation mechanisms operate in the same way in mixed pastures of oat and Italian ryegrass under rotational grazing and that the plant communities adapt their population to maintain a relatively constant LAI

Processing and size range separation of pristine and magnetic poly(L-lactic acid) based microspheres for biomedical applications

"Available online 11 May 2016"Biodegradable poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) and PLLA/CoFe2O4 magnetic microspheres with average sizes ranging between 0.16 -3.9 m and 0.8-2.2 m, respectively, were obtained by an oil-in-water emulsion method using poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) solution as the emulsifier agent. The separation of the microspheres in different size ranges was then performed by centrifugation and the colloidal stability assessed at different pH values. Neat PLLA spheres are more stable in alkaline environments when compared to magnetic microspheres, both types being stable for pHs higher than 4, resulting in a colloidal suspension. On the other hand, in acidic environments the microspheres tend to form aggregates. The neat PLLA microspheres show a degree of crystallinity of 40% whereas the composite ones are nearly amorphous (17%). Finally, the biocompatibility was assessed by cell viability studies with MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblast cells.This work is funded by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, grants SFRH/BD/82411/2011 (DMC), SFRH/ BPD/90870/2012 (CR), SFRH/BD/98616/2013 (PMM) and SFRH/ BPD/97739/2013 (PM), respectively. The authors thank support from the COST Action MP1206 ‘‘Electrospun Nano-fibres for bio inspired composite materials and innovative industrial applications” and from the Basque Government Industry Department under the ELKARTEK Program. SLM thanks the Diputación Foral de Bizkaia for financial support under the Bizkaia Talent Programme; European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme; Marie Curie Actions–People; Grant agreement no. 267230

Pydna: a simulation and documentation tool for DNA assembly strategies using python

Background: Recent advances in synthetic biology have provided tools to efficiently construct complex DNA molecules which are an important part of many molecular biology and biotechnology projects. The planning of such constructs has traditionally been done manually using a DNA sequence editor which becomes error-prone as scale and complexity of the construction increase. A human-readable formal description of cloning and assembly strategies, which also allows for automatic computer simulation and verification, would therefore be a valuable tool. Results: We have developed pydna, an extensible, free and open source Python library for simulating basic molecular biology DNA unit operations such as restriction digestion, ligation, PCR, primer design, Gibson assembly and homologous recombination. A cloning strategy expressed as a pydna script provides a description that is complete, unambiguous and stable. Execution of the script automatically yields the sequence of the final molecule(s) and that of any intermediate constructs. Pydna has been designed to be understandable for biologists with limited programming skills by providing interfaces that are semantically similar to the description of molecular biology unit operations found in literature. Conclusions: Pydna simplifies both the planning and sharing of cloning strategies and is especially useful for complex or combinatorial DNA molecule construction. An important difference compared to existing tools with similar goals is the use of Python instead of a specifically constructed language, providing a simulation environment that is more flexible and extensible by the user

Nova estimativa da prevalência da infecção pelo vírus "TT" (TTV) em populações de baixo e alto risco de São Paulo, Brasil

A prevalência da infecção pelo vírus "TT" (TTV) foi investigada pela técnica da Reação da Polimerase em Cadeia (PCR) em grupos considerados de baixo risco (doadores de sangue e crianças/adolescentes saudáveis) e de alto risco de exposição parenteral (hemofílicos); todos provenientes da cidade de São Paulo. Oligonucleotídeos empregados como primers, homólogos à região não traduzível (UTR) do genoma viral, mostraram-se muito mais universais, revelando frequências muito mais altas em ambos os grupos ( >; ou = 81%) do que os primers anteriormente utilizados, baseados na região genômica traduzível "N22" (doadores de sangue, 5,5%, e hemofílicos, 42,3%). O "PCR-UTR" também revelou um perfil interessante em crianças/adolescentes saudáveis: alta prevalência nos primeiros anos de vida e queda significativa em meninos adolescentes. O "PCR-N22", por sua vez, apresentou alta frequência em hemofílicos que receberam derivados de sangue fresco (58%) relativa àqueles que foram tratados com fatores de coagulação submetidos à inativação viral (9,4%) e doadores de sangue (5,5%).The prevalence of TT virus (TTV) infection was investigated by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) in low- (blood donors and healthy children/adolescents) and high-risk (hemophiliacs) groups from São Paulo, Brazil. Primers based on the untranslated region (UTR) of the viral genome proved to be much more ubiquitous, leading to much higher frequencies for both groups ( >; or = 81%) than the earlier N22-PCR directed to the open reading frame 1 (blood donors, 5.5%, and hemophiliacs, 42.3%). The UTR-PCR also revealed an interesting profile for healthy children/adolescents: very high prevalence at the early years and significant decrease in male teenagers. The N22-PCR, in turn, demonstrated higher frequency in hemophiliacs treated with fresh blood products (58%), than in those treated with virus-inactivated clotting factors (9.4%) and blood donors (5.5%)

Decision support visualization approach in textile manufacturing a case study from operational control in textile industry

Decision support visualization tools provide insights for solving problems by displaying data in an interactive, graphical format. Such tools can be effective for supporting decision-makers in finding new opportunities and in measuring decision outcomes. In this study, was used a visualization tool capable of handling multivariate time series for studying a problem of operational control in a textile manufacturing plant; the main goal was to identify sources of inefficiency in the daily production data of three machines. A concise rule-based model of the inefficiency measures (i.e. quantitative measures were transformed into categorical variables) was developed and then performed an in-depth visual analysis using a particular technique, the categorical time series plots stacked vertically. With this approach were identified a wide array of production inefficiency patterns, which were difficult to identify using standard quantitative reporting - temporal pattern of best and worst performing machines - and critically, along with most important sources of inefficiency and some interactions between them were revealed. The case study underlying this work was further contextualized within the state of the art, and demonstrates the effectiveness of adequate visual analysis as a decision support tool for operational control in manufacturing.This study was partially conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-010145-FEDER-007653). This work was also supported by the following grants: FCT project PTDC/MHC/PCN/1530; FEDER Funds through the "Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade - COMPETE" program and by National Funds through FCT "Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia" under the project: FCOMP-010124-FEDER-PEst-OE/EEI/UI0760/2011, PEst-OE/EEI/UI0760/2014, PEst2015-2020 and UID/CEC/00319/2019