Simple tool skills

It is too often assumed that because precolumn sample preparation devices, such as solid-phase extraction cartridges, are simple tools, they require relatively little skill or attention to detail for successful use. Cartridges do, however, require attention to detail for successful operation in sample enrichment procedures. Two of the most important parameters to control and understand are flow-rate effects and recovery (or loadability) effects. 

The Pareto chart is an established tool for problem analysis and problem solving. The 80/20 rule holds in chemical processing as well as in hard-goods operations. Using this simple tool can improve your problem-solving skills as an engineer or manager. After all, if we can become better... 

Benjamin Franklin and Mme. Marie Curie were experimental physicists. Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were theoretical physicists, perhaps the greatest. In the earlier days, the tools, both experimental and mathematical, were so simple that a single man or woman could become skilled in the use of both kinds. Isaac Newton not only made the thrilling experiment of breaking sunlight into colors with a prism, but actually invented for his own use one of the most useful forms of mathematics, the calculus. Franklin contributed to electrical theory. Nowadays some of the tools are so complex that few physicists are versatile enough to become masters of them all. 

Finally, commercial instruments progressively incorporate software for checking, for instance, the peak purity in a simple way and without needing solid chemometric skills. This may be a first step toward a progressive implementation of other algorithms to be used as standard processing tools. 

The following tools are not specific to the life sciences community but might facilitate the development of a custom workflow solution for a single user or a small group. A simple workflow system offers more flexibility than a basic scripting approach, dependant on the availability of the software and IT skills required to configure and maintain the system. 

Beyond the usual bellows and blowpipe, the tools of the glass-blower are few and simple, since he relies more on his skill than on the tools to produce the desired results. Yet a few words about them may be of some advantage. The blowpipe largely used is of the Herapath type, and the one illustrated in Fig. i, and obtainable of any dealer in scientific requisites, is provided wdth a muldplicity of adjustments, which is greatly in its favour. In addition to the adjustable cocks for the air and gas supply, it has also the different sizes of jets and the flexibility of a universal joint to produce the particular types of fiame required in any direction according to the needs of the work in hand. In the use of this type of blowpipe care must be exercised to keep the air jet central and the external sleeve A drawn out a few milli-... 

---