Medical automation

Polysulfones also offer desirable properties for cookware appHcations, eg, microwave transparency and environmental resistance to most common detergents. Resistance to various sterilizing media (eg, steam, disinfectants, and gamma radiation) makes polysulfones the resin family of choice for many medical devices. Uses in the electrical and electronic industry include printed circuit boards, circuit breaker components, connectors, sockets, and business machine parts, to mention a few. The good clarity of PSF makes it attractive for food service and food processing uses. Examples of appHcations in this area include coffee decanters and automated dairy processing components. 

Petir Victor Edman (1916-1977) was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and received an M.D. in 1946 at the Karolinska Institute. After a year in the United States at the Rockefeller Institute, he returned to Sweden as professor at the University of Lund. In 1957, he moved to St. Vincent s School of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, where he developed and automated the method of peptide sequencing that bears his name. A reclusive man, he never received the prizes or recognition merited by the importance or his work. 

Application Note, The ASPEC System Automated Sample Preparation with Extraction Columns, Gilson Medical Electronics, Middleton, WI (1989). 

The determination of quantity in complex mixtures is also vital in health care and medicine. We are all familiar with the medical examinations in which a sample of blood or urine is sent to a laboratory for analysis. The procedures used have been developed by chemists, and are performed by trained chemical technicians. The high level of automation achieved by the chemists who designed these analytical procedures has greatly reduced the costs of such analyses. Clinical analysis continues to be driven by a need for better methods to detect and measure important proteins, for example, that while present in tiny amounts are relevant to our health and well-being. 

First, determine patient responsiveness. If there is no response, immediately activate the emergency medical response team and obtain an automated external defibrillator (AED) if one is available. 

The reduction in the numbers of incinerators and the limitations of autoclaves have created the need for alternative medical waste treatment systems. Currently, there are over 40 such technologies available from greater than 70 manufacturers within the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. While these systems vary in their treatment capacity, the extent of automation, and overall volume reduction, all alternative technologies utilize one or more of the following methods (1) heating the waste to a minimum of 90 to 95°C by means of microwaves, radio waves, hot oil, hot water, steam, or superheated gases (2) exposing the waste to chemicals such as sodium hypochlorite (household bleach) or... 

Immunosensors have been developed commercially mostly for medical purposes but would appear to have considerable potential for food analysis. The Pharmacia company has developed an optical biosensor, which is a fully automated continuous-flow system which exploits the phenomenon of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) to detect and measure biomolecular interactions. The technique has been validated for determination of folic acid and biotin in fortified foods (Indyk, 2000 Bostrom and Lindeberg, 2000), and more recently for vitamin Bi2. This type of technique has great potential for application to a wide range of food additives but its advance will be linked to the availability of specific antibodies or other receptors for the various additives. It should be possible to analyse a whole range of additives by multi-channel continuous flow systems with further miniaturisation. 

Centrifugation to aid an operation has found considerable use in the General Medical Science/Atomic Energy Commission approach to automation pioneered hy Anderson [S], and was also used hy Bartels et al. [6], in the design of a sohd-hquid extraction system. 

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