GPS and GPRS Based Telemonitoring System for Emergency Patient Transportation.

Telemonitoring during the golden hour of patient transportation helps to improve medical care. Presently there are different physiological data acquisition and transmission systems using cellular network and radio communication links. Location monitoring systems and video transmission systems are also commercially available. The emergency patient transportation systems uniquely require transmission of data pertaining to the patient, vehicle, time of the call, physiological signals (like ECG, blood pressure, a body temperature, and blood oxygen saturation), location information, a snap shot of the patient, and voice. These requirements are presently met by using separate communication systems for voice, physiological data, and location that result in a lot of inconvenience to the technicians, maintenance related issues, in addition to being expensive. This paper presents design, development, and implementation of such a telemonitoring system for emergency patient transportation employing ARM 9 processor module. This system is found to be very useful for the emergency patient transportation being undertaken by organizations like the Emergency Management Research Institute (EMRI).

Dry ashing of organic rich matrices with palladium for the determination of arsenic using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry.

A dry ashing procedure is developed for the determination of As in organic rich matrices such as wheat flour, lichen and tobacco leaves. The volatility of As during dry ashing is avoided by the addition of palladium nitrate [Pd(NO(3))(2)]. The recovery of both As(III) and As(V) is found to be near quantitative. The residue after dry ashing is dissolved in nitric acid (HNO(3)) and analysed by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The process blank and limit of detection (LOD) are 11 and 6.6 ng g(-1), respectively. The procedure is applied for the determination of As in certified reference materials namely wheat flour NIST SRM 1567a (National Institute of Standards and Technology Standard Reference Material), lichen BCR CRM 482 (Institute for Reference Materials, European Commission) and Virginia tobacco leaves CTA-VTL-2 (Poland Academy of Sciences). The results obtained by the present procedure are in good agreement with the certified values and also determined after complete dissolution of samples using closed microwave digestion.

On-line preconcentration and recovery of palladium from waters using polyaniline (PANI) loaded in mini-column and determination by ICP-MS; elimination of spectral interferences.

The applicability of polyaniline (PANI) for the on-line preconcentration and recovery of palladium from various water samples has been investigated. Batch experiments were performed to optimize conditions such as pH and contact time to achieve quantitative separation of Pd spiked at high (microg ml(-1)) and low levels (ng ml(-1)). During all the steps of the removal process, it was found that Pd was selectively removed by PANI even in the presence of various ions. Quantitative removal of Pd occured in the entire studied pH range (1-12) and the K(d) value was found to be >10(6). Kinetic studies show that a contact time of <4 min was adequate to reach equilibrium. The retained Pd was subsequently eluted with a mixture of HCl and thiourea, optimized using a factorial experimental design approach. ICP-OES was used for the micro-level determinations of Pd whereas ICP-MS was used for the determination of Pd at sub-ppb levels. Breakthrough curve using column experiments demonstrated that PANI has an excellent ability to accumulate up to approximately 120 mg g(-1) of Pd from synthetic sample solutions. A preconcentration factor of about 125 was achieved for Pd when 250 ml of water was passed. PANI columns prepared were used up to 10 times in consecutive retention-elution cycles without appreciable deterioration in their performance. The proposed on-line method also has the ability to remove interfering elements Cu and Y for the determination of Pd in waters by ICP-MS. The reported method has been applied successfully for the determination of Pd in ground water, lake water sea-water and waste water samples. The recoveries were found to be >95% in all cases. These studies indicate that PANI has an excellent ability to preconcentrate Pd from various waters making the method very promising for the determination of Pd.

Determination of trace impurities in chromium matrices after separation from Cr(III) using the oxalate form of anion exchanger.

A method has been developed for the separation and determination of a set of 11 impurities from chromium matrices using oxalate form of Amberlite IRA 93. Due to slower kinetics of formation of the anionic complex, Cr(III) passed in the effluent while impurities forming strong complexes rapidly are retained on the exchanger. The adsorption of impurities of interest is found to be uniform in pH range 2-6. The adsorbed impurities are eluted with 2 mol l(-1) HNO(3) and determined by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES). The percentage recoveries of Al, Bi, Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Ga and Zn are in the range 88-101% and separation of matrix is >99.9%. The method has been applied for the analysis of two samples namely CrCl(3).6H(2)O and Cr. The R.S.D. of the method is 5-6% at >10 microg g(-1) level and approximately 15% at <1 microg g(-1) level. The process blank values are in the range sub-microg g(-1) and detection limits are in ng g(-1) range.

Biosynthesis of rifamycin SV by Amycolatopsis mediterranei MTCC17 in solid cultures.

Studies were performed on the production of rifamycin SV, an ansamycin compound, extensively used for curing tuberculosis, leprosy and several other mycobacterial infections, using a strain of Amycolatopsis mediterranei MTCC17 in solid cultures. Wheat bran was employed as a solid substrate. The culture produced 4 g of rifamycin SV/kg of substrate. Pre-treatment of the substrate with dilute HCl was found to increase the yield of rifamycin SV by 300% (from 4 to 12 g x kg of substrate(-1)). Various process parameters were tested to establish the best conditions for the maximum production of the compound and a initial moisture level of 80%, inoculum size of 40%, initial substrate pH of 7.0, incubation temperature of 26 degrees C and a 7 day fermentation period were found to be optimal. Different solvents were used for the extraction of rifamycin SV from the fermented matter and methanol was found to be most suitable. Under optimized conditions, the yield of rifamycin SV further increased from 12 to 32 g x kg of substrate(-1), showing an 8-fold increase from the initial value.

Effect of uracil on rifamycin SV production by Amycolatopsis mediterranei MV35R.

The effect of different organic nitrogen compounds on the production of rifamycin SV by Amycolatopsis mediterranei MV35R and their optimum concentrations have been described. Results obtained indicate that rifamycin SV production increased from 4020 mg l-1 to 4575 mg l-1 when organic nitrogen compound uracil was added at 0.2% (w/v) concentration to the fermentation medium by A. mediterranei MV35R. The rifamycin SV yield was enhanced by 505 mg l-1 using uracil (2 g l-1) when compared with barbital.