July 13th, 2006 - Volume 1 Issue 7

Automation is a cornerstone of scientific instrumentation. Now, the top professional societies in the automation world are joining forces to form the Automation Federation, a "one-stop shop" for information. The Instrument Society of America (ISA), the Open Modular Architecture Controls Users' Group (OMAC), and the World Batch Forum (WBF) recently signed incorporation documents and organized the umbrella organization that will focus on education, information, standardization, and professional development for the automation world. Typically, societies combine to pool resources and achieve economies of scale. In some cases, mergers can worry members of the individual organizations that they'll lose valued aspects of their home. Does the formation of the Automation Federation concern you?

The Tuff Tilt Digital tiltmeter (inclinometer) delivers precision in a compact and rugged package. Features include: Biaxial or uniaxial measurement, RS232 or RS485, 16-bit A/D, Software selectable output rates and data formats, Autozero, easy interface to GPS and wireless transmission.

Powerful, yet affordable. Get the power you need to perform at the top of your game with a sharp, high-resolution color screen, 32MB memory, and a fast ARM processor. TigerDirect.com was established to serve the needs of computer users, and today they are one of the industry's top computer and computer-product retailers.

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are big business — 53% of antimalaria tablets sold in Asia are reportedly counterfeit. Liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry can ferret out the fakes in hours. Now researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have refined desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) and direct analysis in real time (DART) to analyze a solid sample in seconds. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also will require drug wholesalers to document the chain of custody of drugs.

Trying to analyze synthetic polymers with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry? Don't re-invent the wheel — turn to the MALDI Methods Online Database of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST recently added 150 new "recipes" to the database. Read instructions for analysis of a range of materials, plus the original citations and sources.

Hollow fiber membranes used to extract and preconcentrate analytes sometimes fail, with the acceptor solution diffusing outward. New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) researchers fixed that by applying a barrier film of decane to the membrane and tested a solution of six polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The membrane extracted all six PAHs with acceptor losses of just 3.3% over a span of 30 min. Read more...

Access state of the art chromatography applications in the special 20th anniversary issue of Biomedical Chromatography: Metabolic and Drug Profiling. The double issue focuses on everything from drug discovery to proteomics and metabolomics. Review the table of contents, read abstracts, or even download one of the papers at no charge.

HygroGen® is a generator of controlled relative humidity and temperature environments, primarily for the calibration of humidity instrumentation. The HygroGen, by Rotronic Instrument Corp., is completely self-contained, requiring no external resources except mains power, and is light enough for portable use. The HygroGen uses a mixed flow method for generating the humidity (%RH) required by the user.

For the highest sensitivity available for chiral detection, JASCO offers the CD-2095 Circular Dichroism (CD) detector. With a similar ease of use and the sensitivity of standard UV detectors, the CD-2095 allows detection of enantiomers down to the nanogram level. Since the CD-2095 is UV absorption-based, it functions as a chiral detector and also provides a second channel of data corresponding to the UV absorption of the eluted compound.

Cryo-cooling your IR photodetector is supposed to enhance performance, right? Maybe. Did you know that photodetectors cooled with Dewars can actually suffer spectral responsivity drifts of several percent per minute? It's caused by a thin film of ice that can form on the cold finger. Find out techniques to avoid this and stabilize your photodetector performance.

The diffraction limit is a limit no more as Portland State University researchers, with collaborators at Harvard University, pushed the spatial resolution of near-field optical microscope (NSOM) to below 25 nm. To eliminate fluorescence quenching by 50- to 100-nm metal features, the group coated the metal probe tip with 10 nm of silicon dioxide (SiO2). To optimize the probe tip design to further improve resolution, they turned to finite-difference time-domain simulations.

We've all seen ISO/IEC 17025 tossed around, but as a calibration lab customer, what does it mean to you? And if you are running a calibration lab, whether your customers are external or internal, what do you need to do to achieve certification, or at least operate to that level? Read this white paper and find out.

There was a time when college students didn't need computers. Heck, even your car didn't need a computer. But the world has changed and the laboratory IT environment has changed with it. Is the laboratory information system (LIMS) a must for the R&D lab or simply a commodity product? Find ways you can make LIMS pay off for you.

Easily handle audio measurements, fractional-octave analysis, sound and vibration displays, and much more with the National Instruments LabVIEW Sound and Vibration Toolkit. Combined with the industry-standard LabVIEW development environment, this toolkit has one of the most comprehensive lists of sound and vibration application tools. Learn more.

The Model 4500 automated low humidity generating system is based on the fundamental, NIST proven, "two temperature" and "two pressure" principles. This system is capable of continuously supplying extremely accurate humidity values for instrument calibration and evaluation. Find out more about Thunder Scientific Corporation.

DiceEngineering.com offers thousands of quality engineering jobs at top technology and engineering companies. Find jobs in your area of expertise. Search now.

These days, career success is all about networking and finding many ways to cast a job search net. LinkedIn's site leverages the power of the Internet to help you connect with ex-colleagues, like-minded professionals, and even job search specialists and potential employers. Take a look and see how networking might work for you.

Have a background in analytical chemistry with a special emphasis in chromatography? This could be the job for you. A biotech/pharmaceutical firm seeks a scientist who can carry out wet chemistry experiments, analyze final purified compounds with nuclear magnetic resonance technology, liquid and gas chromatography, mass spectroscopy, etc. The ideal candidate has three to six years experience.

Admit it, unit conversion is a pain. Sure, you probably know a dozen conversion factors by heart, but don't you hate having to look up the others? No more. This Web site converts most commonly used units (even some we might call aberrations, like microinches). Choose your category on the right side and convert to your heart's content.

We know the analytical capabilities of mass spectrometers and chromatographs, but were you aware that a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration testing lab uses such techniques to detect the geographic origins of drugs? Drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin have spectral signatures that can help law enforcement officials track their sources. Chromatography and mass spectroscopy do the rest.

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