Development of a new analytical method for the evaluation of hazards from slow decomposition of waste streams and process solutions

A wide variety of liquid streams are generated as part of the process research and development effort. Frequently these streams are drummed off, either as intermediates that must be held for processing or as wastes that must be sent off-site for disposal. Because of the long times and low concentrations often involved, current thermoanalytical techniques were inadequate to detect the potential of streams to generate gas. A custom-made apparatus, the gas evolution test cell (GETC), was developed in the Merck Research Laboratories to measure the gas generation potential of various streams under precisely defined conditions, is the key innovation for the development of a quantitative gas-generation test method.     

Determination of paraquat in human blood plasma using reversed-phase ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatography with direct sample injection

This report describes the determination of paraquat (PQ) in human blood plasma samples by a direct-injection reversed-phase ion-pair chromatographic method. Blood plasma filtrate was injected directly into the LiChrospher® RP-18 alkyl-diol silica (ADS) precolumn integrated in a column switching system using a mixture of 3% 2-propanol and 10 mM sodium octane sulfonate (SOS) in a 0.05 M phosphate buffer (pH 2.8). After washing with this phase, the ADS precolumn was back-flushed with the analytical mobile phase consisting of 40% of methanol and 10 mM SOS in a 0.05 M phosphate buffer (pH 2.8) at a flow rate of 1.0 ml min⁻¹, in order to carry the analyte to a conventional reversed-phase analytical column, where the separation of PQ was achieved and finally detected by UV at 258 nm. The recoveries of PQ from human blood plasma samples ranged between 95.0 and 99.5% at nine different concentrations (from 0.05 to 3.00 μg of PQ ml⁻¹) with coefficients of variation <2.5% (n=3). The precision expressed as relative standard deviation was below 3.5% for between-day and below 4.3% for within-day measurements (n=5). The detection limit (signal-to-noise ratio, S/N>3) was 0.005 μg ml⁻¹ with an injection volume of 200 μl. The proposed method is promising for the identification and quantification of PQ at low concentration levels and is suitable for its analysis in human blood plasma samples from intentional or accidental poisonings cases with a sample throughput of 5 samples per hour.     

四川省重点河段水环境安全性评价

为研究四川省重点河段水环境的安全性,利用综合评价指数法和模糊综合评价决策的数学模型对主要水系干流和支流河段的水质安全性做出了评价.结果显示,岷江流域的水质安全性较差,主要的污染物为重金属汞和铁,沱江和涪江流域的水质安全性较好.     

基于前景理论的药品质量安全监管演化博弈分析

现有药品质量安全监管的相关研究多从理性假设出发探讨政府与企业的互动机理,鲜有考虑企业质量安全意识的有限理性,导致模型对现实的解释能力不足。运用前景理论,通过价值函数和权重函数构建演化博弈的收益前景矩阵,研究了政府和药品生产企业的博弈过程,得到了影响企业质量安全意识的约束条件及因素。同时,研究了上市许可持有人质量激励、惩罚机制对药品生产企业质量安全意识的影响。研究结果表明:过度自信、风险偏好等是影响企业质量安全意识的重要因素;上市许可持有人的质量激励与惩罚能否发挥作用取决于企业的风险态度;在质量激励、惩罚条件下,上市许可持有人需加大监督或惩罚力度来改善企业的质量安全意识。     

Microporous hypercrosslinked polystyrene Styrosorb as a restricted access packing in sample clean-up for high performance liquid chromatography. Part I: Evaluation of restricted access properties

Summary Styrosorb is a beaded microporous polystyrene with particle sizes between 2 and 4 m. In spite of hypercrosslinkage the material was seen to swell in organic solvents. The native material is functionalized with Tris-groups at the outer surface of the particles. The average pore diameter was determined as 1.45±0.3 nm from size exclusion data using polystyrene and polyethylene standards in THF. The reversed phase behavior of the restricted access phase Styrosorb was investigated by injection of two test mixtures. Mixture I contained five aromatic amines, mixture II consisted of Amperozide^R and four related compounds. The optimum range of mobile phase composition was assessed so that analytes were separated whilst any proteins present were eluted unretained. Due to the small particle size short columns of 29×4 mm can be used for both sample clean-up and analytical separation of Amperozide^R and its metabolite.     

Analysis of grid file algorithms

Grid file algorithms were suggested in [12] to provide multi-key access to records in a dynamically growing file. We specify here two algorithms and derive the average sizes of the corresponding directories. We provide an asymptotic analysis. The growth of the indexes appears to be non-linear for uniform distributions:O(v ^c ) orO(v ), wherec=1+b^–1, =1+(s-1)/(sb+1),s is the number of attributes being used,v the file size, andb the page capacity of the system. Finally we give corresponding results for biased distributions and compare transient phases.     

GC-MS监测生活饮用水输配水管材及防护材料中溶出的挥发性有机物

我国的生活饮用水行业中,目前常使用的管材分为金属类管材和非金属类管材两种。由于金属类管材本身的化学特性,行业内必须在此类管材的内壁上进行防腐处理,通常采用一些高分子防腐涂料。可用于给水行业的涂料品种繁多,涂料质量好坏直接影响到水质。我们针对一些常用产品作了浸泡试验,用吹扫捕集-GC-MS方法对水中溶出的可挥发性有机物进行了检测,发现一些产品在水中溶出了大量的甲苯、乙苯、二甲苯、甲乙苯等苯系物,且浸泡30d后仍有溶出物。这些物质长期存在会导致人体中枢神经系统紊乱,严重危害人体健康。行业内关于水源水中此类有机物污染的监测比较充分,而对于防护涂料可能污染水质的状况并未引起足够重视。     

Is it safe to have a laboratory test?

A recent US Institute of Medicine report indicated that up to 98,000 deaths and more than 1 million injuries occur each year in the United States due to medical errors. These include diagnostic errors, such as an error or delay in diagnosis, failure to employ indicated tests and the use of outmoded tests. Laboratory tests provide up to 80% of the information used by physicians to make important medical decisions, therefore it is important to determine how often laboratory testing mistakes occur, whether they cause patient harm, where they are most likely to occur in the testing process, and how to prevent them from occurring. A review of the literature and a US Quality Institute Conference in 2003 indicates that errors in laboratory medicine occur most often in the pre-analytical and post-analytical steps in the testing process, but most of the quality improvement efforts focus on improving the analytical process. Measures must be developed and employed to reduce the potential for mistakes in laboratory medicine, including better indicators for the quality of laboratory service. Users of laboratory services must be linked with the laboratorys information system to assist them with decisions about test ordering, patient preparation, and test interpretation. Quality assessment efforts need to be expanded beyond external quality assessment programs to encompass the detection of non-analytical mistakes and improving communication between the users of and providers of laboratory services. The actual number of mistakes in laboratory testing is not fully recognized, because no widespread process is in place to either determine how often mistakes occur or to systematically eliminate sources of error. We also tend to focus on mistakes that result in adverse events, not the near misses that cause no observable harm. The users of laboratory services must become aware of where testing mistakes can occur and actively participate in designing processes to prevent mistakes. Most importantly, healthcare institutions need to adopt a culture of safety, which is implemented at all levels of the organization. This includes establishing closer links between providers of laboratory services and others in the healthcare delivery system. This was the theme of a 2003 Quality Institute Conference aimed at making the laboratory a key partner in patient safety. Plans to create a permanent public–private partnership, called the Institute for Quality in Laboratory Medicine, whose mission is to promote improvements in the use of laboratory tests and laboratory services are underway.Presented at the 9th Conference on Quality in the Spotlight, 18–19 March 2004, Antwerp, Belgium.     

The Use of Adiabatic Calorimetry for the Process Analysis and Safety Evaluation in Free Radical Polymerization

Adiabatic calorimetry is a technique that has been introduced as an important approach to hazard evaluation of exothermically reactive systems. In this paper the free radical polymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) has been studied. One of the most important aspects of MMA polymerization is its exothermicity and autoaccelerating behaviour, these characteristics can generate the occurrence of a runaway reaction.In a runaway situation the reacting system is close to adiabatic behaviour because it is unable to eliminate the heat that is being generated. An even worse situation can be reproduced in the laboratory with the Phi-Tec pseudo-adiabatic calorimeter. Process design parameters that are usually calculated from thermodynamic data or using semiempirical rules, such as adiabatic temperature rise or maximum attainable pressure, can be directly determined.The existence of the ceiling temperature has been experimentally demonstrated.This revised version was published online in November 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.