The NOMAD project was a survey to examine the noise-related content of instructions supplied with machinery offered for purchase in Europe. The project collected more than 1 500 instructions from machines covering 40 broad machine-families and from 800 different manufacturing companies. These instructions were analyzed to determine compliance with the requirements of the Machinery Directive, and assess the quality of information. The general state of compliance of machinery instructions with the noise-related requirements of the Machinery Directive was found to be very poor: 80% of instructions did not meet legal requirements. Some required numerical values relating to noise emissions were often missing. Where values were given, they were often not traceable to machine operating conditions or measurement methods, and not credible either against stated conditions/methods or as warnings of likely risk in real use. As a consequence, it is considered highly likely that, in making a machinery procurement decision, employers are prevented from taking noise emissions into account, and understanding what is necessary to manage the risks from noise relating to equipment that is procured. Recommendations are made for actions aimed at bringing about a global improvement to the current situation. Targeted actions are now proposed by “ADCO Machinery Group” aimed at raising awareness of the legal requirements, responsibilities and actions required among the various groups who have parts to play in the system - machine manufacturers, machine users, occupational safety and health professionals, and standards-makers. Recommendations are also made aimed at providing, or improving, tools and resources for all these actors.

After the establishment of the first University Faculties of Missiology (Protestant and Catholic) in Germany, there was a dynamic development of missiology in Europe. In the second half of the twentieth century several academic missiological centers were established in America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. The missiologists of the first half of the twentieth century through their scientific work have proved that missiology is a theological and interdisciplinary science. This was achieved by emphasizing in their publications that the essence of missiology finds its foundations not in references to history and direct missionary practice, but the theology of mission, i.e., the theological justification of the Church’s missionary activity. This trend of missiological reflection was highlighted in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and in numerous papal documents of the post-conciliar period. Teaching on the missionary nature of the Church has become the subject of scientific and interdisciplinary missiological reflection. Unfortunately, up to these days the acceptance of missiology as a theological science, is not yet fully understood and not always accepted.

Jesuits arrived in the land of the New Kingdom of Grande (Colombia) at the beginning of the 17th century. They founded colleges in all most important towns and began the mis-sionary service among Indians, according to the scheme of so-called ‘doctrinas’, i.e. villages inhabited by autochthons. During the years 1605-1660 they worked in a few doctrines on Altiplano in the surroundings of Bogota and Tunja and on eastern slopes of the Andes. Their service was usually very effective and carried out according to the established methodology of the missionary work. They were appealing to the following rules: systematic and regular religious education, knowledge of the local languages by missionaries, development of the educational system including study of the singing and the music, practising solemn liturgy based on solid and well equipped churches. The past experience of the work in ‘doctrinas’ was used in the second half of the 17th century during the establishment of Jesuits’ reductions in Casanare, Meta and Orinoko.

This paper presents material and technological studies on lab-on-chip (LOC) devices as a first step towards biocompatible and reliable research on microscopic fungi and soil organisms on a microscale. This approach is intended to respond to the growing need for environmental control and protection, by means of modern, miniaturized, portable and dependable microfluidics instrumentation. The authors have presented herein long-term, successful cultivation of different fungi representatives (with emphasis put on Cladosporium macrocarpum) in specially fabricated all-glass LOCs. Notable differences were noted in the development of these creatures on polymer, polydimethylosiloxane (PDMS) cultivation substrates, revealing the uncommon morphological character of the fungi mycelium. The utility of all-glass LOCs was verified for other fungi representatives as well –  Fusarium culmorum and Pencilium expansum, showing technical correspondence and biocompatibility of the devices. On that basis, other future applications of the solution are possible, covering, e.g. investigation of additional, environmentally relevant fungi species. Further development of the LOC instrumentation is also taken into consideration, which could be used for cultivation of other soil organisms and study of their mutual relationships within the integrated microfluidic device.

The work presents doping characteristics and properties of high Si−doped InGaAs epilayers lattice−matched to InP grown by low pressure metal−organic vapour phase epitaxy. Silane and disilane were used as dopant sources. The main task of investigations was to obtain heavily doped InGaAs epilayers suitable for usage as plasmon−confinement layers in the construction of mid−infrared InAlAs/InGaAs/InP quantum−cascade lasers (QCLs). It requires the doping concentration of 1×10¹⁹ cm^–3 and 1×10²⁰ cm^–3 for lasers working at 9 μm and 5 μm, respectively. The electron concentration increases linearly with the ratio of gas−phase molar fraction of the dopant to III group sources (IV/III). The highest electron concentrations suitable for InGaAs plasmon−contact layers of QCL was achieved only for disilane. We also observed a slight influence of the ratio of gas−phase molar fraction of V to III group sources (V/III) on the doping efficiency. Structural measurements using high−resolution X−ray diffraction revealed a distinct influence of the doping concentration on InGaAs composition what caused a lattice mismatch in the range of –240 ÷ –780 ppm for the samples doped by silane and disilane. It has to be taken into account during the growth of InGaAs contact layers to avoid internal stresses in QCL epitaxial structures.