Dedicated computerized systems

It is a dedicated computerized data system that manages all aspects of instrumental control and converts the measured signal intensities into concentrations and generates a final report. 

The safeguards and security-dedicated computer system at the ICPP provides storage basin and operations personnel with a detailed processing list, criticality safety with additional administrative controls, and S S with a means of monitoring process activities. In addition tO providing criticality controls, various operational plans can be readily evaluated. The computerized system has been used for the 1978 and 1980 dissolution campaigns and has proved an invaluable aid to plant operation. 

The character and the degree of automation in chemical control may have been covered in the above treatment of semi-automatic or completely automatic, and of discontinuous or continuous analysis, but something more should be said about the means by which automation proper has been performed in recent times. Whereas in the past automated analysis involved the use of merely, mechanical robots, to-day s automation is preferably based on computerization in a way which can best be explained with a few specific examples. Adjustment knobs have been increasingly replaced with push-buttons that activate an enclosed fully dedicated microcomputer or microprocessor in line with the measuring instrument the term microcomputer is applicable if, apart from the microprocessor as the central processing unit (CPU), it contains additional, albeit limited, memory (e.g., 4K), control logics and input and output lines, by means of which it can act as satellite of a larger computer system (e.g., in laboratory computerization) if not enclosed, the microcomputer is called on-line. 

The first dedicated Curie-point PyMS system was built by Meuzelaar and Kistemaker11 at the FOM Institute (Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics) in Amsterdam. This was followed shortly afterward by the construction of the first fully automated instrument, the Autopyms, which used highspeed ion counting and computerized data processing.18,32 The Autopyms led to the manufacture of two commercial machines the Extranuclear 5000 (Extranuclear Laboratories, Pittsburgh, PA) and the Pyromass 8-80 (VG Gas Analysis Ltd., Middlewich, Cheshire, UK). However, neither of these machines proved popular, probably because machine cost was in excess of 100000. 

Full process control computerization for a multipurpose plant is much more complex and therefore will be also be much more expensive than for a dedicated single-product plant. Whenever possible, all efforts have to be made to choose standard process control systems and to apply standard control software this is a proven measure to control the investment costs in this segment and will also minimize the risk of having excessive investment and startup costs due to initiating problems with the computer control system. 

It was very time-consuming to screen substances in animal tests for efficacy and to prepare lead analogues by classical synthesis. Therefore, it is not surprising that the researchers looked for alternatives. Today pharmaceutical companies apply computerized robotic systems in drug discovery. The starting point is the chemical library. This library does not contain books, but chemicals. Many companies keep small samples of all chemical compounds that they ever synthesized or extracted from the plant material. The amount of the samples is usually small and they are kept in microplates in dedicated temperature-controlled storage facilities. Chemical libraries of large pharmaceutical companies contain several million different compounds. 

Fig. 2.14 Configurations for laboratory computerization dedicated (simple and multiple), centralized and hierarchical systems. I instrument.

The most successful hyphenated method continues to be GC/MS, generally with El ionization, but particularly the inductively coupled plasma MS (ICPMS) has become a successful detector as well. In the form of benchtop instruments, this combination is found in the chromatography laboratory rather than in mass spectrometry laboratories. Instruments such as mass selective detectors and ion traps are dedicated devices for gas chromatography and have developed into robust, dependable instruments with high detection power and selectivity. With modem computerized instruments and the extensive storage capabilities of data systems, series of spectra can be acquired rapidly, and elaborate data extraction procedures have been devised for the identification of important spectra with relevant data. 

The first practical devices were used in the 1970s for dedicated optical purposes. The first report on demonstrating the use of a complete computerized spectrophotometer for NIR analytical purposes based on AOTF was presented in 1986 [33,34]. Bran and Luebbe demonstrated an AOTF-based NIR liquid analyzer in 1990. Other companies, such as Brimrose, Baltimore, MD (Luminar Model 3010/4010) and Infrared Fiber Systems, Silver Springs, Maryland), are also offering AOTF-based process spectrometer systems [35]. 

The very latest development in the area of computerized laboratory aid devices is that of the versatile work station that is to use computers which are not dedicated to an HPLC system alone. Such a work station is a device which may be interfaced to a variety of analytical instruments, including HPLC, mass spectrometers, IR spectrometers etc., which will operate them and perform any required calculations on the... 

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