Search

Food irradiation is a safe and effective preservation technique to eliminate insects and parasites and reduce disease-causing microorganisms. The process helps to inhibit sprouting and delay ripening, prolonging the shelf-life of fresh fruits and vegetables. Nevertheless, among a great fraction of Brazilian population, there is still great misunderstanding about the peaceful applications of nuclear science. Most often the media and social networks tend to associate radiation to nuclear weapons and major accidents. Misinformation and common wrong beliefs confuse public’s perceptions: consumers seem to misunderstand the difference between irradiated food and radioactive food and the general public has major concerns about the negative health effects and environmental contamination. This paper presents some considerations about consumers´ perceptions of irradiated food, as well as the need of improving science communication. Society´s judgments and decision making are directly linked to perceived benefits and risks. The scientific community must build new bridges between nuclear science and the general public, offering a wider perspective on the benefits and risks resulting from ionizing radiation in everyday life.

In order to establish a Radiation Protection Plan or a Radiation Emergency Plan, Brazilian facilities should take into account all procedures based on national and international guidelines and recommendations. This information can be found in several documents published by different organizations over the past decades: the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear (CNEN). Therefore, this project aims the informatization of the radiological protection programs in a single system in order to offer unified programs and inter-related information in Portuguese, providing Brazilian facilities a complete repository for research, consultation and information, combining computer technology and radiological protection in order to enhance the best benefits from information technology. This research work includes programs about: (1) Monitoring of Workplace (Monitoring for External Radiation, Monitoring for Surface Contamination, Monitoring for Air Contamination) and (2) Individual Monitoring (Monitoring of External Exposure and Monitoring of Internal Exposure, Monitoring for Skin and Clothing). WEB platform tools and functionalities were developed according to target public needs, regarding new possibilities of media, mobile access, and information sharing. The servers processing power added to the technology of relational databases allow to integrate information from different sources, enabling complex queries with reduced response time. Moreover, taking into account this is a pioneer project with the prospect of long-term use, the challenge involves the combination of multiple computer technologies that allows a robust, effective and flexible system, which can be easily adapted to future technological innovations.

This paper has discussed the guidelines included in the documents of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) on radiation protection applicable to aircraft and crew, and this is a brief report of the evolution of studies in this field of activity, as well as the regulations and recommendations already adopted by member countries of the European Union, Canada, and the United States of America. Some peculiarities of the Brazilian airspace and legislation applicable to the work with ionizing radiation are also presented, discussing the general aspects of radiological protection applicable to aircraft crew in Brazil.

The analysis explains the effects of the nanoparticle doping on electrical properties of [MgB.sub.2] bulks and wires, which are obtained by the reactive Mg liquid infiltration (RLI) technique. It is found that the addition of SiC nanoparticles improves the irreversibility, as well as the upper current field of the wires.

A number of debates exist in Africa, due to the HIV epidemics, on whether institutionalized compared with community-based care provide optimum management of infected children. Patterns of morbidity and mortality among HIV-1-infected children residing at an orphanage in Nairobi are characterized.