Portable device/instrument

Direct Reading Instrument A portable device that measures, and displays, in a short period of time, the concentration of a contaminant in the environment. 

In parallel with improvements in chemical sensor performance, analytical science has also seen tremendous advances in the development of compact, portable analytical instruments. For example, lab-on-a-chip (LOAC) devices enable complex bench processes (sampling, reagent addition, temperature control, analysis of reaction products) to be incorporated into a compact, device format that can provide reliable analytical information within a controlled internal environment. LOAC devices typically incorporate pumps, valves, micromachined flow manifolds, reagents, sampling system, electronics and data processing, and communications. Clearly, they are much more complex than the simple chemo-sensor described above. In fact, chemosensors can be incorporated into LOAC devices as a selective sensor, which enables the sensor to be contained within the protective internal environment. Figure 5... 

Practical FTIR solutions have been developed by paying attention to the fundamental design of the instrument. Moving an FTIR instrument out of the benign enviromnent of a laboratory to the more alien environment of either a process line or that of a portable device is not straightforward. A major emphasis on the instrument design in terms of both ruggedness and fundamental reliability of components is critical. Furthermore, issues such as enviromnental contamination, humidity, vibration and temperature are factors... 

In general, the commercially available biosensors in the food industry are based on a very similar technology, either an oxygen electrode or a hydrogen peroxide electrode in conjunction with an immobilised oxidase. They are available in several forms, such as autoanalysers, manual laboratory instruments and portable devices. Nevertheless,... 

In other circumstances IPCs can be used to control intelligent instrumentation, analysis equipment, or small-scale prodnction units. The technology can be found as a ruggedized PC, a Windows terminal, panel-monnted, rack-mounted, or hand-held portable device, or as a portable terminal with radio freqnency communications. The term IPC here is treated as covering all these types of equipment. 

Several prototypes of the portable device described above have been produced, including the instrument, GlucoDay , now commercialized by A. Menarini Diagnostics (Florence, Italy). 

One area where LIMSs have not provided out-of-the-box support is in the automation of sample preparation. This may be due to the fact, that analytical labs do not have sample-preparation workstations or that there is no standard for these workstations. Nevertheless, the authors think that sample preparation can be automated, providing similar benehts as in high throughput screening, for example. The use of portable devices such as pocket has been reported in the laboratory [74]. Commercially available applicahons such as LimsLink (Labtronics, Inc.) can upload laboratory instrument data from handheld devices to any LIMS. 

Other sectors have been reached since then by the combined use of microfabrication and MS techniques, such as forensics and homeland safety. For instance, microfabrication techniques are now also used in view of the miniaturization of the mass spectrometer itself and its implementation on a microchip to kill the current paradox of combining tiny devices for sample preparation to bulky and almost room-sized instrumentation. From such ongoing development, one can expect soon the appearance of fully integrated and portable devices for on-site analysis, with both the implementation of the microfluidic-based sample preparation step and the MS analysis on a single device of a few inches in size. 

The drive to reduce the size of conventional instrumentation has come about from a need to take equipment out of the laboratory to the sampling site. This requires an instrument that can be transported easily and that can work in the field, ideally from batteries for at least a few hours. The batteries may be disposable or rechargeable. Some portable devices have the option that they can work from mains electricity consequently, they can also be used back in the laboratory, where they save space due to their smaller footprint and often cost less to run and maintain than their benchtop counterparts. Where equipment may need to be moved from one location to another, even for coupling to another instrument, a smaller footprint and portability is again advantageous. Compact instruments usually require less sample and reagent volumes, which in turn reduces waste. Often, portable equipment is more user-friendly than the benchtop version as it is designed for use by nonscientists as well as scientists. 

In designing portable instruments, one of the considerations that must be taken into account is that they should be very user-friendly, as they need to be used in the field and should work quickly. Ease of use is important as nonscientists need to be able to use these instruments in certain situations, and the speed of obtaining the result is important from a battery life perspective. Portable devices should ideally give no false positive results but, in the real world, this means they should be as accurate as possible as the resultant data are often used there and then to make important decisions. Einally, they should be robust and easy to maintain and they should have enough memory to store the pertinent data obtained, at least until the user returns to a base station. 

The environment is another major area for the use of portable analytical instruments. Many devices used in the field must be, at the very least, transportable so that they can be brought to a location quickly. Many of the instruments discussed in Section 8.1 can be used when analysing environmental samples. The greatest growth area in environmental held devices has been in monitoring applications. 

Besides EDXRF spectrometers that are intended for use in the laboratory, a number of portable EDXRF instruments are also available. These devices are used in various fields for on-site analysis of works of art, environmental samples, forensic medicine, industrial products and waste materials etc. In their simplest form, the instraments consist of one or more radioisotope sources combined with a scintillation or gas proportional counter. However, combinations of radio-sources with ther-moelectronically cooled soHd-state detectors are also available in compact and lightweight packages (below 1 kg). In Fig. 11.21, schematics of various types of radiosource based EDXRF spectrometers are shown. In Fig. 11.21a, the X-ray source is present in the form of a ring radiation from the ring irradiates the sample from below while the fluorescent radiation is efficiently detected by a solid-state detector positioned at the central axis. Shielding prevents radiation from the source from entering the detector. In Fig. 11.21b and c, the X-ray source has another... 

Because of that risk, gas detection safety is of increasing importance to safety officials. A gas safety program requires more than just a fleet of gas detee-tors. Though portable gas instruments can play a crucial role in protecting a company s assets and people, it is the information gained from the gas detection device and the ability to share that information with key people that is most valuable. It is the datalogging. 

Point-of-care testing has now become feasible with the introduction of the handheld i-STAT instrument and similar portable devices, such as the optically based Reflotron. The i-STAT (Fig. 2) contains both potentiometric and amperometric sensors integrated into sensor arrays that are included within disposable cassettes [87-89]. Eight tests are possible with the most advanced cassette, the ECg+, and these are sodium, potassium, chloride. 

Because of the toxicity of hydrogen sulphide (H2S), a variety of portable devices have been developed to monitor H2S levels in air. Many of these devices have alarms that alert workers when H2S levels are dangerously high. These instruments can be purchased from various suppliers. In addition, detector tubes attached to air pumps can be used to measure H2S levels in air. 

Abstract— This paper describes the development of a portable device to register the respiratory activity based on the impedance pneumography method. The core of the system is the analog Front-End ADS1292R of Texas Instrument , which incorporates all necessary stages for performing the measurement of the respiratory activity. The developed device includes a Bluetooth transmission for sending data to mobile phone or Personal Computer (PC). The system was tested with a multiparameter patient simulator and also with a healthy subject. 

Electromechanical extensometers include sonic probes that allow for up to 20 permanent anchors up to a 6-m (20-ft) height. The probes have the added benefit of being remotely read by portable devices or by connection to a data acquisition system. Recently, NIOSH introduced an easy to fabricate and install extensometer called the Remote Monitoring Safety S5rs-tem (RMSS). This instrument can be read remotely with a multimeter or can be connected directly to a data acquisition S5rstem. 

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