Identification and quantitation of trace amounts of barbiturates with glass capillary gas chromatography

Pre-chromatographic reactions are no longer a necessary evil. Equipment such as the microrefluxer now allows reproducible 7-μl-reactions to be carried out in a short time. Thus multiple derivatisations can be used together with glass capillary GC for routine identifications. The method has been succesfully applied to barbiturates. Retention data of their methyl-, allyl- and benzyl-derivatives are given. Quantitative blood level determinations are briefly discussed.     

A sulfonated capillary that gives reproducible migration times for capillary zone electrophoresis and micellar electrokinetic chromatography

To obtain reproducible migration times and rapid analyses of analytes, sulfonate groups were chemically introduced to the inner wall of untreated fused-silica capillary with 2-(4-chlorosulfonylphenyl)ethyltrichlorosilane. The sulfonated capillary showed relatively constant electroosmotic mobility which was greater than that obtained by an untreated fused-silica capillary over the pH range studied (pH 2-9). In both CZE and MEKC, the RSDs of the migration times of analytes with the sulfonated capillary were less than 0.2% which were significantly lower than those obtained with an untreated fused-silica capillary (0.5-3.5%). When BGE were set at pH 7.0 for CZE and MEKC, the analysis times with the sulfonated capillary were about half those obtained with an untreated fused-silica capillary. These results indicate that the sulfonated capillary can provide highly reproducible and rapid analyses in CE.     

Pyrolyze this paper: Can biomass become a source for precise carbon electrodes?

To advance science and technology, we must stand on the shoulders of others; they do not have to be giants, but they must be steady. Carbon electrodes made by dry pyrolysis of biomass are ubiquitous thanks to the enormous abundance and variety of biomass. However, making precise and reproducible carbons from highly varied precursors is challenging. One approach is to erase differences by intense etching or heating. Other strategies harness the richness of biomass by investigating biomass–carbon–electrochemistry correlations systematically and by developing chemical and thermal treatments for gentle homogenization. Comparing ～120 articles on ～80 biomass sources demonstrates that full reporting of the biomass origin, organ, age, and other parameters is essential for further development of precise and reproducible carbon electrode materials.     

Reproducibility of Florida weathering data

We have investigated the consistency and reproducibility of Florida outdoor weathering data for aromatic engineering thermoplastics. Weather and broadband (295–385 nm) UV dose data for the 14-year period from 1989 to 2002 show that considerable variability is expected for exposures with duration < 1 year, but that standard deviations for UV exposure and temperature are approximately 7% of the mean at 1 year and <5% at 2 years and greater. Only rainfall shows significant long-term variability. Weathering data on pigmented aromatic engineering thermoplastics were consistent with these expectations. Overall trends and rates of color and gloss shifts were generally reproduced for samples exposed at different times. Color shift data were generally reproducible within a ΔE of 2 and 60° gloss loss within 10 units for samples beginning exposure 6 months apart. However, very large differences in absolute values for properties can occur for data taken near periods of rapid change, especially for gloss loss. Surprisingly, considering the data as a function of broadband UV dose rather than exposure time did not seem to reduce scatter. This emphasizes the problem of comparing results between data sets for exposure times < 1 year. We conclude that Florida data do provide a useful benchmark when rates and general trends are compared, but not for absolute values at arbitrary times.     

A study of repeated measures of softest and loudest phonations

One common way to describe one's voice in an objective way is to measure the sound levels of the softest (pianissimo) and loudest possible (fortissimo) phonations at given pitches (voice range profile measurement). However, the reliability of the measurement has not been thoroughly investigated. The aim of the present study was to describe the repeatability and reproducibility of the sound level measurement in statistical terms, focusing on five target frequencies within the estimated speaking pitch range. Ten healthy female university students volunteered as test subjects. The voice range profiles within the speaking pitch range were defined 10 times in succession and in five sample sessions between 45-minute-long oral readings. Our study followed the ideas of the Gage repeatability and reproducibility design. The results showed that the method used was reliable in fortissimo phonations at four of the measured frequencies. Better reliability can be achieved by measuring three successive phonations at each pitch prior to the next target tone.     

CIEF method optimization: Development of robust and reproducible protein reagent characterization in the clinical immunodiagnostic industry

Several method parameters have been refined for application of CIEF methods to provide optimal capillary robustness and performance longevity while maintaining desired analytical output for the ever increasing characterization scrutiny of protein reagents used in clinical assay formulations. Demonstrated here are significant modifications to the existing protocols in order to attain a robust, reproducible method that achieves as much as a 20‐fold increase in the number of consecutive runs before capillary degradation. Not only is it a concern for the rudimentary analysis of acidic and basic components of the isoform profile for monoclonal antibodies, but a comprehensive identification of each individual isoform to obtain a characteristic fingerprint is necessary for minor distinguishable properties between multiple proteins in unambiguous identification. In order to maintain the integrity of these modifications, extensive studies were conducted on an implemented system suitability standard protein with specifically defined parameters indicating either sufficient or poor separation performance.     

Repeatability and reproducibility study of thin film optical measurement system

Investigation on surface roughness of thin films is an important issue in manufacturing engineering because the performance of a coated film is significantly affected by the surface roughness of thin films. A fast and flexible optical measurement system to measure surface roughness of hard coatings deposited by cathodic arc evaporation is developed in this work. The objective of this work is to examine the repeatability and reproducibility (R&R) of an optical measurement system. Percentage of equipment variation, appraiser variation and R&R is 7.25%, 1.42% and 7.39%. Thin film optical measurement system developed is acceptable according to the measurement systems analysis and the R&R technique.     

Reproducibility and biases in high field brain diffusion MRI: An evaluation of acquisition and analysis variables

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) of in-vivo human brain provides insights into white matter anatomical connectivity, but little is known about measurement difference biases and reliability of data obtained with last generation high field scanners (> 3 T) as function of MRI acquisition and analyses variables. Here we assess the impact of acquisition (voxel size: 1.8 × 1.8 × 1.8, 2 × 2 × 2 and 2.5 × 2.5 × 2.5 mm³, b-value: 700, 1000 and 1300 s/mm²) and analysis variables (within-session averaging and co-registration methods) on biases and test-retest reproducibility of some common tensor derived quantities like fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial and radial diffusivity in a group of healthy subjects at 4 T in three regions: arcuate fasciculus, corpus callosum and cingulum. Averaging effects are also evaluated on a full-brain voxel based approach. The main results are: i) group FA and MD reproducibility errors across scan sessions are on average double of those found in within-session repetitions (≈ 1.3 %), regardless of acquisition protocol and region; ii) within-session averaging of two DTI acquisitions does not improve reproducibility of any of the quantities across sessions at the group level, regardless of acquisition protocol; iii) increasing voxel size biased MD, axial and radial diffusivities to higher values and FA to lower values; iv) increasing b-value biased all quantities to lower values, axial diffusivity showing the strongest effects; v) the two co-registration methods evaluated gave similar bias and reproducibility results. Altogether these results show that reproducibility of FA and MD is comparable to that found at lower fields, not significantly dependent on pre-processing and acquisition protocol manipulations, but that the specific choice of acquisition parameters can significantly bias the group measures of FA, MD, axial and radial diffusivities.     

Integrated internal standards: A sample prep‐free method for better precision in microchip CE

Point‐of‐care systems based on microchip capillary electrophoresis require single‐use, disposable microchips prefilled with all necessary solutions so an untrained operator only needs to apply the sample and perform the analysis. While microchip fabrication can be (and has been) standardized, some manufacturing differences between microchips are unavoidable. To improve analyte precision without increasing device costs or introducing additional error sources, we recently proposed the use of integrated internal standards (ISTDs): ions added to the BGE in small concentrations which form system peaks in the electropherogram that can be used as a measurement reference. Here, we further expand this initial proof‐of‐principle test to study a clinically‐relevant application of K ion concentrations in human blood; however, using a mock blood solution instead of real samples to avoid interference from other obstacles (e.g. cell lysis). Cs as an integrated ISTD improves repeatability of K ion migration times from 6.97% to 0.89% and the linear calibration correlation coefficient (R²) for K quantification from 0.851 to 0.967. Peak area repeatability improves from 11.6–13.3% to 4.75–5.04% at each K concentration above the LOQ. These results further validate the feasibility of using integrated ISTDs to improve imprecision in disposable microchip CE devices by demonstrating their application for physiological samples.     

Improving chip‐to‐chip precision in disposable microchip capillary electrophoresis devices with internal standards

To realize portable systems for routine measurements in point‐of‐care settings, MCE methods are required to be robust across many single‐use chips. While it is well‐known internal standards (ISTDs) improve run‐to‐run precision, a systematic investigation is necessary to determine the significance of chip‐to‐chip imprecision in MCE and how ISTDs account for it. This paper addresses this question by exploring the reproducibility of Na quantification across six basic, in‐house fabricated microchips. A dataset of 900 electrophoerograms was collected from analyzing five concentrations of NaCl with two ISTDs (CsCl and LiCl). While both improved the peak area reproducibility, the Na/Cs ratio was superior to the Na/Li ratio (improving the RSD by a factor of 2–4, depending on the Na concentration). We attribute this to the significant variation in microchannel surface properties, which was accounted for by cesium but not lithium. Microchip dimension and detector variations were only a few percent, and could be improved through commercial fabrication over in‐house made microchips. These results demonstrate that ISTDs not only correct for intrachip imprecision, but are also a viable means to correct for chip‐to‐chip imprecision inherent in disposable, point‐of‐care MCE devices. However, as expected, the internal standard must be carefully chosen.