The soils situated near the abandoned mines are highly polluted with metals due to the discharge and dispersion of mine waste into nearby air, water (surface and groundwater) and soil. Heavy metals may be transferred to humans through ingestion, inhalation or dermal absorption and can produce serious health problems affect the nervous, endocrine and immune systems, hematopoietic function and cellular metabolism. This paper investigates the presence of metallic elements from fourteen soil samples (seven sampling points) and thirty-six vegetation samples (different types of leaves, plants, roots and tree barks). The samples were collected from six different sites located in an abandoned mining area and from a point (blank sample) located 5 km in the SV direction of the quarry. The results obtained for soil samples show an overrun of the alert and / or intervention threshold for the following metals: arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, copper, manganese, nickel, lead and zinc. The analytical investigation for vegetation samples indicated that concentration for calcium, magnesium, cadmium, chromium, manganese, nickel, lead, zinc were situated over the normal range in some samples. The analytical investigations were performed by optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The study�s conclusion indicates that, as result of soil acidic pH and high mobility of some metals, metallic elements migrate from soil to vegetation.

The presence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic ecosystem has received great attention from the scientific community in the last decades, due to their potential impact on living organisms. This paper presents a short review of the results of investigations performed by INCD-ECOIND concerning the occurrence of 32 pharmaceutical compounds belonging to important therapeutic classes and 2 disinfectants along the Danube River and its tributaries. Grab water samples were collected from multiple points along the River (10 sites) and from 2 locations for each of the tributaries Jiu, Olt and Argeș, upstream and downstream of large cities. All samples were quantified via solid phase extraction, followed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Results of these studies show that various pharmaceutical compounds are present in the dissolved water phase of the Danube River and its tributaries in low to moderate amounts with variation due to season and location.

The paper presents a monitoring study of the platinum group metals concentrations in 17 samples of road dust and vegetation from areas with heavy car traffic on several European and national roads in eastern Romania. The Ir, Pd, Pt, Rh, Ru concentrations were determined by the ICP-MS technique, the reported values being below the method�s limit of determination for Ir, Pt and Ru both in soil and vegetation. As regards the Pd content, it showed a maximum of 794 mg / kg dry matter in Focsani area (DN2), an area where, according to national data published by National Road Infrastructure Management Company, the traffic average is 16,000 vehicles / 24 h. Approximately 50% of the collected vegetation samples showed a Pd transfer factor from the solid part to the vegetation higher than 0.5, thus indicating the existence of Pd toxic compounds bioavailable for vegetation. The highest concentrations of Rh in soil were recorded on a high traffic section on the E85, in Ramnicu Sarat area, where the traffic interval ranges from 8,001 to 16,000 vehicles / 24 h.

The paper presents soil quality assessment using pollution and bioavailability indexes in order to highlight possible pollution generated by a decommissioned mining area in Certej, Deva County, Romania. Metals such as Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn were analyzed in pseudo-total and mobile form and the results were correlated with the content found in the vegetation collected from the same points during a previous study. The research shows a high mobility for Ni, Pb and Zn, respectively, a moderate mobility for Cd.

Contemporary Project Management has conceived tools based on mathematical models for planning, scheduling and controlling the projects, the costs and resources. Critical Path Method (CPM) and Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) are two network-based methods which were independently developed to assist the project managers in order to schedule complex real-life projects. A scheduling of a small-scale R&D project using these optimization time-oriented methods was accomplished. In many models of project network some activities are closely related to each other such as procurement activities of basic resources and research activities. If this precedence relationship is on the critical path, that means without no event slack or float time for activities, then some procurements delay may cause lag in the project’s completion time. Thus a good estimation for procurement and research activities duration is needed for a Just-in-Time project.