The impact of LIMS design and functionality on laboratory quality achievements

 A laboratory information management system (LIMS) can make a major contribution to the quality and therefore to the efficiency and competitiveness of a laboratory. Since it can impact all aspects of a laboratory's organization it must be the key if not the principal player of the laboratory's quality system. It should support the laboratory in establishing, maintaining and applying quality procedures thereby enabling the laboratory to achieve its quality goals. As a tool, LIMS permits the laboratory to input and use its own know-how and experience to optimize the total organization (internal and external) and workflow of generated information. However, perceived "quality" in the context of an LIMS, can be viewed as being made up of different facets such as the security, reliability and accessibility of information as well as its turn around time and production cost. This paper reviews the role of a LIMS in the laboratory and the contribution that both system design and functionality can have on "building quality ". Received: 5 October 1998 · Accepted: 20 October 1998     

Information content of data and variables and types of weighting in least-squares regression methods

Algorithms are given for evaluating the relative amount of useful information related to a particular parameter which is carried by individual data points and intervals of the variables. The algorithms provide an efficient means of using the information contained in a set of data. Applications to the optimization of weighting in regression methods are described. Several informational and combined informational-statistical types of weighting are studied as a means of improving the accuracy and precision of the parameters obtained by non-linear regression.     

Pattern-specific neural network design

We present evidence that the performance of the traditional fully connected Hopfield model can be dramatically improved by carefully selecting an information-specific connectivity structure, while the synaptic weights of the selected connections are the same as in the Hopfield model. Starting from a completely disconnected network we let genuine Hebbian synaptic connections grow, one by one, until a desired degree of stability is achieved. Neural pathways are thus fixed notbefore, butduring the learning phase.     

Hexagonal Ferrites from Melts and Aqueous Solutions,Magnetic Recording Materials

Owing to their particular crystallographic properties, ferrimagnetic hexagonal ferrites exhibit a far greater coercive force than the conventional magnetic pigments. They therefore appear to be suitable for use in magnetic information storage procedures, some of which are novel and are at the development stage. Thus, magnetic tapes of high coercive force containing barium ferrite could be used as master tapes for copying magnetic information or for producing forgery-proof magnetic cards, if magnetic heads having high-order write fields were successfully developed. Moreover, platelet-like ferrite pigments in which the preferred direction of magnetic orientation is perpendicular to the plane of the platelet are of great interest for perpendicular magnetic recording. In this progress report, the crystal structures, magnetic characteristics of hexagonal ferrites, and chemical processes for their production are discussed. In particular, reactions in salt melts or under hydrothermal conditions produce finely divided pigments whose particles have a pronounced hexagonal, plate-like habit, a narrow particle size distribution, and advantageous magnetic properties. The magnetic properties of the pigments crystallized from salt melts may be adjusted by cation exchange.     

Some results on the behavior and estimation of the fractal dimensions of distributions on attractors

The strong interest in recent years in analyzing chaotic dynamical systems according to their asymptotic behavior has led to various definitions of fractal dimension and corresponding methods of statistical estimation. In this paper we first provide a rigorous mathematical framework for the study of dimension, focusing on pointwise dimension(x) and the generalized Renyi dimensionsD(q), and give a rigorous proof of inequalities first derived by Grassberger and Procaccia and Hentschel and Procaccia. We then specialize to the problem of statistical estimation of the correlation dimension and information dimension. It has been recognized for some time that the error estimates accompanying the usual procedures (which generally involve least squares methods and nearest neighbor calculations) grossly underestimate the true statistical error involved. In least squares analyses of and we identify sources of error not previously discussed in the literature and address the problem of obtaining accurate error estimates. We then develop an estimation procedure for which corrects for an important bias term (the local measure density) and provides confidence intervals for. The general applicability of this method is illustrated with various numerical examples.     

A simple optimization strategy based on Rs-minimum and information theory of chromatography

Summary A simple optimization method based on the well-known Rs-minimum method and on the information theory of FUMI Φ is proposed. Resolution (Rs), peak area and height (or width) are the only parameters necessary for the calculation of the information Φ and information flow ϑ. The most precise analysis can be selected as the chromatogram having maximal ϑ. Mobile phase composition, column length, flow rate, detection wavelength, amount of internal standard, etc. can be optimized by this method.     

Degradation in gain for a free electron laser amplifier due to electron momentum spread

A finite spread in axial momentum for the electron beam in a free electron laser amplifier is shown to decrease the small-signal gain. For millimeter and sub-millimeter wave amplifiers, where exponential growth dominates the gain, it is shown that the gain is approximately 3 db below that for a cold beam if the relative momentum spread (u/u)_1/2 = (G_o/248)^1/2 (_o/L), where G_o1 is the gain in db for the cold-beam case, _o is the magnetic wiggler period, and L is the amplifier length. Exact numerical examples are given for representative FEL amplifiers at 35 and 550 GHz.This research was sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and by the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation.     

Relevance and truthfulness in information correction and fusion

A general approach to information correction and fusion for belief functions is proposed, where not only may the information items be irrelevant, but sources may lie as well. We introduce a new correction scheme, which takes into account uncertain metaknowledge on the source’s relevance and truthfulness and that generalizes Shafer’s discounting operation. We then show how to reinterpret all connectives of Boolean logic in terms of source behavior assumptions with respect to relevance and truthfulness. We are led to generalize the unnormalized Dempster’s rule to all Boolean connectives, while taking into account the uncertainties pertaining to assumptions concerning the behavior of sources. Eventually, we further extend this approach to an even more general setting, where source behavior assumptions do not have to be restricted to relevance and truthfulness. We also establish the commutativity property between correction and fusion processes, when the behaviors of the sources are independent.     

Optimal recovery of integral operators and its applications

In this paper we present the solution to a problem of recovering a rather arbitrary integral operator based on incomplete information with error. We apply the main result to obtain optimal methods of recovery and compute the optimal error for the solutions to certain integral equations as well as boundary and initial value problems for various PDE’s.     

Preparation and photochromic properties of pyrazolones/polyvinyl alcohol composite films

Novel photochromic composite films have been successfully fabricated by dispersing pyrazolone derivative:1,3-Diphenyl-4-(3-chlorobenzal)-5-hydroxypyrazole 4-phenylsemicarbazone (1a) into hydrosol of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). The microstructure, photochromic behaviors and thermal bleaching properties were investigated by Raman spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and ultraviolet-visible absorption spectroscopy (UV-vis). The results showed that 1a was not only blended but also well dispersed in the PVA polymer films with a suitable content of chromophore. Upon UV light irradiation, the composite films gradually changed from colorless to yellow and recovered fully to the initial state upon thermal bleaching. The time constants of photochromic reactions were almost the same as those of 1a observed in their crystalline state, indicating that the photochromic phenomenon is barely disturbed by the polymer matrix.