Networked instruments

Keywords Software Accuracy, Sensor Networks, Instrumentation Network Design. 

The "Plant Life Assessment Network" (PLAN), was started on the 1/12/1997, established around EU funded research projects working in the area of inspection, instrumentation, monitoring, structural mechanics and maintenance. 

Edcfy-cufrent NDT inspections using spatial data (sampled scans) ha >e many benefits. They separate the two conflicting aspects of an inspection scanning and signal interpretation. An instrument/display (client/server) based NDT inspection based on sampled scan data aides in the training and certification of inspectors. It can be used over the Internet or in-house Intranet networks to train or examine inspectors at multiple or remote sites. This saves travel time and resources as defects, instrumentation and teaching can all be consolidated Samples can be maintained and distributed from a central certification body providing more control andflexibility. 

The instrument/display (client/server) paradigm allows for synchronous and asynchronous analysis, locally or remotely via the Internet or in-house Intranet network. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has established National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for protection of human health and welfare. These standards are defined in terms of concentration and hme span for a specific pollutant for example, the NAAQS for carbon monoxide is 9 ppmV for 8 hr, not to be exceeded more than once per year. For a state or local government to establish compliance with a National Ambient Air Quality Standard, measurements of the actual air quality must be made. To obtain these measurements, state and local governments have established stationary monitoring networks with instrumentation complying with federal specifications, as discussed in Chapter 14. The results of these measurements determine whether a given location is violating the air quality standard. 

Figure 15-1 shows the Los Angeles, California, basin stationary air monitoring network, one of the most extensive in the United States (6). At most of these locations, automated instruments collect air quality data continuously. Five pollutant gases are monitored, and particulate matter filter samples are collected periodically. 

In addition to fulfilling the in-house requirements for quality control, state and local air monitoring networks which are collecting data for compliance purposes are required to have an external performance audit on an annual basis. Under this program, an independent organization supplies externally calibrated sources of air pollutant gases to be measured by the instrumentation undergoing audit. An audit report summarizes the performance of the instruments. If necessary, further action must be taken to eliminate any major discrepancies between the internal and external calibration results. 

The study of acid-base interaction is an important branch of interfacial science. These interactions are widely exploited in several practical applications such as adhesion and adsorption processes. Most of the current studies in this area are based on calorimetric studies or wetting measurements or peel test measurements. While these studies have been instrumental in the understanding of these interfacial interactions, to a certain extent the interpretation of the results of these studies has been largely empirical. The recent advances in the theory and experiments of contact mechanics could be potentially employed to better understand and measure the molecular level acid-base interactions. One of the following two experimental procedures could be utilized (1) Polymers with different levels of acidic and basic chemical constitution can be coated on to elastomeric caps, as described in Section 4.2.1, and the adhesion between these layers can be measured using the JKR technique and Eqs. 11 or 30 as appropriate. For example, poly(p-amino styrene) and poly(p-hydroxy carbonyl styrene) can be coated on to PDMS-ox, and be used as acidic and basic surfaces, respectively, to study the acid-base interactions. (2) Another approach is to graft acidic or basic macromers onto a weakly crosslinked polyisoprene or polybutadiene elastomeric networks, and use these elastomeric networks in the JKR studies as described in Section 4.2.1. 

Minimum number of mass exchanger units. Combinatorics determines the minimum number of mass exchanger units required in the network. This objective attempts to minimize indirectly the fixed cost of the network, since the cost of each mass exchanger is usually a concave function of the unit size. FuithetTnore, in a practical context it is desirable to minimize the number of separators so as to reduce pipework, foundations, maintenance, and instrumentation. Normally, the minimum number of units is related to the total number of streams by the following expression (El-Halwagi and Manousiouthakis, 1989). 

Take adequate steps to achieve noise rejection both by the choice of a suitable instrument and by using external networks if necessary. 

The sensor usually consists of a coil of wire made from the material that is wound on a former and the whole sealed to prevent oxidization, although a film of the metal deposited on a ceramic substrate can also be used. The resistor is connected in a Wheatstone bridge network (Figure 17.17), using fixed resistors in the other three arms. The instrument connected across the bridge is calibrated directly in terms of temperature. The range is limited by the linearity of the device and the upper temperature, which can be measured, must be well below the melting point of the material. 

The films are generally dark in colour and often show a fine network of cracks due to differential expansion of oxide and metal on warming to ambient temperature. They are generally left unsealed, since sealing markedly reduces abrasion resistance, but may be impregnated with silicone oils to improve the frictional properties. Applications include movable instrument parts, pump bodies and plungers, and textile bobbins. 

Over the years, many instruments have been developed for and used in the scientific laboratory. Today, the computer is used as a major tool in the scientific laboratory for the capture, manipulation, transfer, and storage of data. Consequently, the concern for data quality has shifted from the instruments that are used in the generation of the data to these electronic systems, often neglecting the fact that the data are only as accurate as the instrument measurements. For instance, many electronic systems can be used in chromatography analysis, from the electronic log book where the test substance inventory is kept, throughout data capture in the instrument, to the digitized electronic signal that is the raw data on the computer network. For crop residue samples, the... 

Fig. 5.20 shows the instrument with the addition of the ion-selective electrode (ISE) module, which performs Na, K and C02 analyses (240 samples or 720 tests per hour) as requested and without interruption of the other analyses. The sample for electrolyte determination is also placed on the sample tray and a third probe aspirates diluted sample from the reaction tray for processing by the ISE module. Finally, the Technicon SRA-2000 system is a computer-controlled network of the subsystems SMAC II and RA-1000. 

Some tanks are installed with permanent leak identification sensors, which can check for leaked fuel vapor or liquid as it comes into contact with the sensors.21 However, these, as well as all the environmental sign tests (visual or instrumental) may be triggered by a spill instead of a leak. The success of external systems depends on the sensitivity of the sensor, the ability of the sensor to distinguish the stored chemical from other chemicals, the ambient background noise level of the stored chemical, the migration properties of the chemical, and the sampling network. 

Several additional instrumental techniques have also been developed for bacterial characterization. Capillary electrophoresis of bacteria, which requires little sample preparation,42 is possible because most bacteria act as colloidal particles in suspension and can be separated by their electrical charge. Capillary electrophoresis provides information that may be useful for identification. Flow cytometry also can be used to identify and separate individual cells in a mixture.11,42 Infrared spectroscopy has been used to characterize bacteria caught on transparent filters.113 Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, with linear discriminant analysis and artificial neural networks, has been adapted for identifying foodbome bacteria25,113 and pathogenic bacteria in the blood.5... 

For PyMS to be used for (1) routine identification of microorganisms and (2) in combination with ANNs for quantitative microbiological applications, new spectra must be comparable with those previously collected and held in a data base.127 Recent work within our laboratory has demonstrated that this problem may be overcome by the use of ANNs to correct for instrumental drift. By calibrating with standards common to both data sets, ANN models created using previously collected data gave accurate estimates of determi-nand concentrations, or bacterial identities, from newly acquired spectra.127 In this approach calibration samples were included in each of the two runs, and ANNs were set up in which the inputs were the 150 new calibration masses while the outputs were the 150 old calibration masses. These associative nets could then by used to transform data acquired on that one day to data acquired at an earlier data. For the first time PyMS was used to acquire spectra that were comparable with those previously collected and held in a database. In a further study this neural network transformation procedure was extended to allow comparison between spectra, previously collected on one machine, with spectra later collected on a different machine 129 thus calibration transfer by ANNs was affected. Wilkes and colleagues130 have also used this strategy to compensate for differences in culture conditions to construct robust microbial mass spectral databases. 

M. L. Magee, J. T. On mass spectrometer instrument standardization and interlaboratory calibration transfer using neural networks. Anal. Chim. Acta 1997,384, 511-532. 

Since the data base for this Instrument resides on the host HP 1000 computer, the experiment setup files must first be transferred from the local computer to the HOST computer. This 1s done using the Dowell Schlumberger local laboratory computer network and the Hewlett Packard DS/1000-IV networking software. The programmatic user interface to the network Is again accessed through the main menu program for the instrument. 

---