SPRINGFIELD, NJ - Valcor Scientific, a division of Valcor Engineering Corp. is offering its new SV700 Series of inert, solenoid operated micro pumps. Celebrating its 50th year, Valcor Scientific has been a leader in the design and manufacture of a broad range of pumps and valves for analytical chemistry, biomedical, medical instrumentation, and light industrial applications.

Typical applications for Valcor's new SV700 Series are dispensing reagents in clinical instrumentation, dispensing dilutants in analytical instrumentation, dispensing lubricants in various other industry-specific applications.

The SV700 Micro Pumps feature:

• Small size to meet market demands
• Compatibility with wide range of fluids and standard materials
• Positive shut-off to prevent siphoning when not in use
• Easy to set required dispense volumes.

Less than 3" high, with a diameter of 1.10", and a dispense volume of 50 to 250 �l, Valcor's new SV700 Series is specifically designed to meet the demands of the instrumentation marketplace.

It can reliably dispense small volumes of low-density fluids with a low wattage solenoid (5.3 watts). A broad selection of standard materials of construction is available to allow for a wide range of fluid compatibility.

Manufactured with a glass-filled polypropylene pump head, and either EPDM or Viton Elastomers, the SV700 is available with a variety of fluid connections. These include: �-28 flat bottom ports, tube stubs, and a surface mount manifold configuration. Offered in both 12 and 24 VDC, the standard electrical connection is 10" TFE insulated flying leads. Amp and Molex connections can be provided.

Valcor's SV700 series of Micro Pumps was specifically designed to be user friendly in both its ease of installation and settability. Several configurations of the SV700 Micro Pump-Series are being offered, all versions based on a core group of components. This allows for ease of field service and conversion between both elastomeric compounds and port configurations.

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Offshore proofing yourself need not involve radical shifts in Careers away from IT. Those drastic steps may not be needed if you understand what works and what does not in IT Offshoring!Notwithstanding all the insanity with offshoring that is going right now, If you are in IT, I would not move away from it. You may just need to make sure you are in environments where offshoring does not work! Here are five simple ways to do it:

1. Positions Dependent Upon Constant Communication - Offshoring is not suitable for IT positions that are dependent upon constant communication - Business Intelligence and Reporting is one such area. Constant communication and changes are the norm rather than exceptions. This may not be because the business users are fickle. It's just the nature of Business Intelligence and Reporting.

2. Positions That Involve Lots of Internal and External Touchpoints - A good example might be IT careers in Consulting Companies that require interactions with customers here. More touchpoints mean bodies that are in the same time zones as yourself. They may try offshoring those positions but they will not work in the longer run.

3. Positions where Requirements are Changing Fast all the time - Fast growing businesses do these to you. Requirements cannot be frozen long enough for them to follow any process. That may also mean you need to be nimble on your feet, be familiar with Rapid Prototyping and faster release cycles if you are in software development. Good examples might be fast growing online companies.

4. Positions where Technology is the Core Set of Products - For Intellectual Property reasons as well as speed with which you need to do things (not very mature companies but younger ones) IT positions within such companies cannot be outsourced easily without pain. If you join a Retailer in their IT department, IT is a support process. It is subject more to outsourcing as it is not a core competency.

5. IT Careers that involve fast changing technologies - RFID, Wireless are all examples of fast changing technologies that cannot step outside the U.S simply for availability reasons. Wireless standards (Wide-area, telecom not local area) vary from country to country and is resistant to outsourcing simply for the reason that it cannot be done elsewhere. Fast changing technologies like RFID may require resources - people, knowledge, access to information, capital, etc that are very localized. They cannot be simply outsourced.

That said, already Computer Science enrollments are shrinking in schools. This may drastically alter the demand-supply equation in local IT workers favor soon. Hang in there, hide out for a while and the sun will come out. Hype machines work both ways, very optimistic and very pessimistic. Currently it is painting an unwarranted pessimistic picture. I don't believe it at all, if not for any reason other than simply what experience teaches you.

Offshore Software Outsourcing | B2B Software

Area planted to fall potatoes in 2009 is estimated at 932,900 acres [=377,540 hectare], up slightly from the 2008 crop year [930,500].

Harvested area is forecast at 922,700 acres, also up slightly from 2008.

Idaho potato growers increased planted area 5 percent from last year but these [last year] are the lowest acres planted since 1986. As of July 5, crop conditions were rated 95 percent good to excellent.

Washington potato producers planted 6 percent fewer acres than a year ago. Cool, wet conditions delayed planting throughout the State. Significant planting did not begin until early-April but high temperatures late in the month enabled progress to advance quickly. By late-May, virtually the entire crop was in the ground.

Oregon potato growers increased planted area 2 percent from last year. The crop got off to a good start without any widespread delays to planting. In Colorado, planted area dropped 2 percent from the previous year as growers continued to voluntarily limit acreage for water conservation and supply management. Planting finished slightly ahead of schedule and the crop was rated in mostly good condition.

Fall potato planted area remained unchanged from last year in California, Maine, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. Potato growing areas in Maine received frequent and intense rain events during June after a cool, dry planting season. Northern areas of Aroostook County did not receive as much rain as southern locations and excellent crop conditions were reported. Further south, conditions ranged from fair to good, depending on moisture levels.

Michigan’s planted area increased 5 percent from 2008. Plants were in good to excellent condition, benefitting from above normal rainfall this season. Planted area also increased in Nebraska, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico.

Growers in North Dakota planted 2 percent fewer acres than last year. Planting began later than normal and remained behind average throughout the planting season. As of June 28, crop condition was rated 63 percent good to excellent.

Planted area also decreased from last year in New York and Minnesota.

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PHILADELPHIA, PA For years controversy has surrounded whether electronic medical records (EMR) would lead to increased patient safety, cut medical errors, and reduce healthcare costs. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered a way to get another bonus from the implementation of electronic medical records: testing the efficacy of treatments for disease.

In the first study of its kind, Richard Tannen, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, led a team of researchers to find out if patient data, as captured by EMR databases, could be used to obtain vital information as effectively as randomized clinical trials, when evaluating drug therapies. The study appeared online last week in the British Medical Journal.

Our findings show that if you do studies using EMR databases and you conduct analyses using new biostatistical methods we developed, we get results that are valid, Tannen says. Thats the real message of our paper this can work.

In January 2009, President Barack Obama unveiled plans to implement electronic medical records nationwide within five years, arguing that such a plan was crucial in the fight against rising health care costs. Of the nearly $900 billion in Obamas planned stimulus package currently before the United States Senate, $20 billion is proposed for electronic health records.

Tannen says he and his group recognized that the large EMR databases containing compiled medical information could potentially give researchers the ability to study groups reflective of the total population, not just those who participate in clinical trials, and circumvent studies too costly or unethical for clinical trials. However, such databases contain observational information, which critics argue do not offer the same level of control as randomized trials.

Our study cautiously, yet strongly, suggests that enormous amounts of information within electronic medical records can be used to expand evidence of how we should or shouldnt manage

healthcare, Tannen says.

To address criticisms of observational studies, Tannens group had to first determine a way to use EMR databases for insights on therapy efficacy and then prove the results they found were valid.

Beginning six years ago, Tannens team selected six previously performed randomized trials with 17 measured outcomes and compared them to study data from an electronic database the UK general practice research database (GPRD), which included the medical records of roughly 8 million patients. Treatment efficacy was determined by the prevalence of cardiovascular outcomes, such as stroke, heart attack and death.

After using standard biostatistical methods to adjust for differences in the treated and untreated groups in the analysis of the database information, Tannen found that there were no differences in the database outcomes compared to randomized clinical trials in nine out of 17 outcomes.

In the other eight outcomes, Tannens group used an additional new biostatistical approach they discovered that controlled for differences between the treated and untreated groups prior to the time the study began. By using the new biostatistical method instead of the standard approach, the researchers showed there were no differences between the outcomes in the EMR database study compared to the randomized clinical trials.

Though Tannen warns the ability to use EMR databases from the United States to measure the efficacy of therapies will take more than 10 years of national data, he says the results of his study should serve as a catalyst for more researchers to explore the accuracy of the information that can be obtained using EMR database studies.

An appropriately configured EMR database could offer an invaluable tool, but we need to get to work now on how to configure it properly, Tannen says. If we dont worry about this issue right now and promote a higher investment in the area of EMR research, well lose an opportunity, an enormous health opportunity for EHR, Medical Transcription, Medical Billing Software

Miniature fluid isolation valves are designed to control acids and basic fluids and reagents in applications where the fluid must be completely separated from the valve control mechanism

The new Asco Scientific 110 Series of miniature fluid isolation valves is designed to control acids and basic fluids and reagents in applications where the fluid must be completely separated from the valve control mechanism.

Rated for a minimum of 1 million cycles operating life, the Series 110 valves are designed high levels of reliability in equipment such as medical and gas analysers and also biotechnology operations.

The 110 Series are direct acting type valves, a design that enables hermetic separation between the fluid and valve parts to prevent contamination, and also ensures reduced heat exchange between the valve coil and fluid.

Ideal for both shut-off and fluid diversion tasks, the 110 Series valves are available in both 2/2 normally closed and open versions and also 3/2 universal types.

The 110 series achieves high levels of reliability via a direct acting rocker design, which is both highly efficient and ensures a very small internal volume within the valve to deliver maximum accuracy in analytical operations.

In addition, the combination of the stainless steel rocker mechanism and an EPDM diaphragm poppet means that no metal parts that could cause contamination come into contact with the fluid.

To enable them to resist the corrosive mediums with which they are used, the 110 Series valves have Trogamid bodies and covers: the latter being transparent, enabling the flow of fluid within the valve to be observed.

In addition all internal valve parts, excepting the diaphragm poppet, are manufactured from stainless steel.

Integration of the 110 Series into analytical machines is simplified by the availability of plain, push-on connections for flexible tubing.

Electrical connection is also simplified by the use of spade connectors on the moulded solenoid coil.

The coils themselves offer the reliability benefits of class "F" installation, and the bonus for mobile use of operation on both 12V and 24v DC.

In addition to providing the Series 110 valves as discrete units, Asco Scientific also provides the valves as a pre-assembled system, mounting up to five of them on support plates.

This is part of wider service designed by Asco Scientific to provide bespoke multi-function modules for use in application areas such as dentistry, microbiology, analysis and respiratory control.

This approach, with assemblies designed and delivered as fully functional units, both reduces costs and speeds-up the overall construction time of the equipment to which the pre-engineered systems are applied.

Further information regarding the Asco Scientific new medical and analytical range of valve products is contained within a new 80-page catalogue produced by the company.

Free copies of the catalogue are available on application to Asco Joucomatic.

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Valcor Scientific, a division of Valcor Engineering Corp. of Springfield, NJ, has just introduced its new SV72 Series of 2-way inert balanced-poppet solenoid valves. Celebrating its 50 year, Valcor Scientific has been a leader in the design and manufacture of a broad range of pumps and valves for analytical chemistry, biomedical, medical, scientific instrumentation, and light industrial applications.

Valcor's new SV72 Series is specifically designed for the control of corrosive fluids by isolating all the metal components from the operating media. It employs two rolling diaphragms, which act as both isolating barriers and balancing areas.

Suitable for such applications as chemical dispensing, water treatment, medical equipment, control of wash or buffer solutions and other general industrial uses, the new SV72 features:

• Inert construction
• High flow and pressure capability
• Bubble tight shut-off
• Mountable in any position

Valcor's new SV72 is 7" H x 3 /4"W x 1 '/2"D and offers a pressure rating of 100 PSIG with a s Cv of 4.0. The series is available with 1 15VAC, or 12 and 24 VDC coils.

Valcor specializes in the design and manufacture of Solenoid Valves and control components for liquids and gases in critical applications in the aerospace, nuclear, light industrial and scientific industries.
Several thousand designs are available to select from.  If one of them is not ideally suited to your specific application, a valve can be custom engineered with unmatched speed.
Our heritage of more than four decades of technical innovation and reliable performance is brought to bear on each and every valve. Valcor's professional and production staffs take pride in applying their skills, with the latest technology and equipment, to create truly superior products.
Thus, the millions of diverse valves we've made have one basic thing in common: QUALITY.
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The need of the hour is to seize the power of web and streamline the technology potential to your business needs. Commerce and business are often used interchangeably; here the prefix ‘e-’ is used for electronic means electronic commerce and electronic business. But in this business world both hold completely different meanings. E-commerce is a subset of e-business, and is an e-business segment that holds the financial change within the business boundaries. E-commerce is e-business but e-business may or may not be e-commerce.

To promote your business, i.e. sell your product or services online you maintain a website, just having a web site online won’t work, starting from online visibility to brand awareness and ultimately maximizing ROI is the main aim behind running an online storefront. E-commerce is all about buying and selling over the internet. Apart from buying and selling of products online, a business analyst needs to implement other business strategies to run a successful business, this is the vertex where e-business begins. It is a business ambience created by integrating all the business systems. Here, all the business elements are connected to each other and web also. This requires 100% collaboration among each element and network. Have you ever thought that to buy and sell products online what all are essential??? Would having a great product do all? Obviously No!! Effective marketing strategies, excellent customer service, solid infrastructure, real time information systems are required to make complete utilization of available internet resources; you must not confuse with E-commerce and E-business.

An E-business platform helps companies to provide good customer services, strong marketing presence, prompt delivery, reliable inventory control and access to real time information. E-business includes following segments: eCommerce, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management, Knowledge Management, Business Intelligence, Collaborative Technologies.

Benefits from having right e-business strategies are you improve your business performance, additional revenue in form of new business, new customers, new products by opening new channels and connectivity at low cost (by reducing complexity) utilizing the latest technologies in the value chain to connect the value chains across businesses. You also gain productive insight and strong brand awarness.

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Offshore Software Outsourcing | Custom Application Development | E-Business Applications | Product Management solution | E-Commerce systems Development | B2B Software | Content Management System | Wireless Application Development | Mobile Application Development

Harvest a red, yellow or purple specialty potato and its skin color will be shiny and bright. That’s paramount, because skin quality drives buyers to put a particular potato in their shopping cart. Store that potato for a month or two, and its skin color will be noticeably duller. It may even have developed unappealing blemishes that prompt consumers to leave it in the store.

Across southern Idaho this year, University of Idaho agricultural researchers will be investigating the in-season, harvest, storage and packing processes that affect skin color and quality in specialty potatoes. They will examine the potentially positive or negative effects of growth regulators, in-season and post-harvest fungicides, harvest timing, disinfectants and storage conditions. Roy Navarre, a research geneticist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service at Prosser, Wash., will add a nutritional twist—studying the impacts of these factors on the healthful phytonutrients in potato skins.

Project leader Mike Thornton, a University of Idaho potato physiologist at Parma, expects the results of the multi-year effort to be a comprehensive set of recommendations for skin quality-enhancing practices. “I think we can make some progress with some fairly simple treatments,” he said.

At Kimberly, colleague Nora Olsen, a University of Idaho Extension potato specialist, will concentrate on the critical, early-storage “wound healing” period when potatoes temporarily need higher humidity and temperatures. She will also evaluate disinfectants and other compounds that are applied as potatoes enter the storage shed or leave the packing shed. Olsen hopes to identify strategies for putting the shine back on the spuds and for keeping appearance-marring diseases and disorders from getting a foothold.

“A bright, beautiful color and top-quality appearance are very important to marketing specialty potatoes: they need to catch the buyer’s eye,” said Olsen.

At Aberdeen, potato pathologist Phillip Wharton will address silver scurf—a blemish-producing disease that leaves only a slightly noticeable silvery sheen on thicker-skinned russet potatoes but very evident dry patches on specialty spuds.

And in Prosser, Navarre will tease out the relationships among the various management approaches and the healthfulness and hue of two sizes of potatoes—tiny one- or two-ounce “baby” potatoes harvested in June and a second crop harvested later and larger in August. Previous research has shown that very small, immature and deeply colored specialty potatoes are exceptionally rich in phytonutrients and that these phytonutrients do not decrease after steaming, boiling, baking, microwaving or stir-frying.

“We have two very desirable goals—higher amounts of phytonutrients and an even more visually appealing potato,” Navarre said. “Hand in hand, that’s a very good combination to have.”

The trial will include Yukon Gem, a white-skinned potato with yellow flesh; All Blue, a purple-skinned potato with purple and white flesh; Red LaSoda, a red-skinned potato with white flesh; Purple Pelisse, a purple-skinned fingerling potato with purple flesh; Bintje, a white-skinned potato with light-yellow flesh, and POR01PG20-12, a red-skinned potato with red and white flesh. Purple Pelisse is a recent release from the Tri-State Potato Variety Development Program, in which the University of Idaho participates.

The project is funded by both the Idaho Potato Commission and the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

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Privacy becomes an issue with electronic health records

The Obama administration’s drive to implement electronic health records (EHRs) should have strong identity management tools to ensure privacy and security of the records, members of a panel of providers, vendors and policy experts said today.

The coming health information technology policies and standards are to include protections for patient privacy and security and safeguards against medical identity theft. Achieving those goals could be advanced by identity management tools, such as strong authentication standards and smart cards, according to panelists at an event in Washington today organized by the Smart Card Alliance and the Secure ID Coalition. Both groups represent vendors of identity management programs.

For example, patients checking in to Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City are assigned a smart card that contains their photograph and a digital summary of recent clinical information. By delivering the information to doctors providing care, the card helps improve care and reduce medical errors. The card also has proven to be critical in reducing fraud and identity theft, which in turn decreases errors in payments and in patient care, said Paul Contino, vice president of IT at Mount Sinai.

“If you don’t catch the errors at the registration desk, you will see dramatic effects downstream,” Contino said. “If you are going to spend money on health IT, you need the right identification standards.” Without strong ID management, care records are likely to have errors because of false identities, misspelled names, duplicative names and other problems. Even a single error, such as a wrong blood type listed on a patient’s record due to a mix-up with another person’s identity, can lead to catastrophic consequences for a patient, he said.

Congress approved spending $17 billion in incentives for doctors and hospitals that install and use health IT systems as part of the economic stimulus law. The Health and Human Services Department is drawing up standards and policies to distribute payments to providers who can show meaningful use of health IT. HHS also is setting up a framework for secure exchange of the health data and the department’s national coordinator for health IT on May 15 released a road map for creating the standards and policies under the stimulus law.

One standards will involve controls on access to patient records. The leakage of private medical information can affect a patient’s employment, housing and insurance status, and because of that extreme sensitivity, medical information requires more than a password for secure handling, said Michael Magrath, director of business development for North America for Gemalto Inc.

“Health information exchanges and regional information exchanges will be targeted by hackers,” Magrath said. “I have strong concerns about the prospect of minimum standards,” such as passwords alone. Identity authentication standards for receiving medical care and handling medical data should require a password and also use of some type of identity token or certificate issued by a third party, he said.

Ideally, patients would be in charge of — and would have complete access to — all of their health records, said William Yasnoff, managing partner of the National Health Information Infrastructure Advisors consulting firm.

“Who has your complete medical records? For most people, it’s no one,” Yasnoff said.
Medical Billing | Medical Transcription

When pumping CO2 in a liquid form, installers and users must be aware of the difficulties that this liquid presents: Cliff Warne of Axflow explains the potential problems in pumping CO2

Firstly, CO2 is a very low viscosity product, so with a conventional mechanical seal pump, leakage can occur across the faces of the mechanical seal resulting in gas escaping into the atmosphere.

Secondly, ice forms on the pump components and this can cause the mechanical seals to freeze, resulting in pump failure.
For these reasons the optimal approach should be by the installation of a seal-less or canned pump.

The double containment design, free of a shaft sealing device, makes the canned motor pump one hundred percent leak free.

Furthermore, the absence of mechanical seals and the employment of maintenance free slide bearings, as opposed to roller bearings, ensure optimised MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure).

Hermetic Pumps is a specialist in the design and manufacture of hermetically sealed centrifugal pumps for difficult pumping applications.
Recognized worldwide by all major chemical manufacturers, its pumps can be relied upon to contain some of the most toxic chemicals.
Hermetic has taken decades of experience in handling toxic liquids and applied this technology to its refrigeration pump range.

Its refrigeration pumps are of mono-bloc design (pump and motor share a common shaft) and as such are quieter, more compact and easier to install than conventional pumps.

They do not require a base plate, couple or coupling guard, nor is there a need for alignment of motor and pump to ensure totally leak-free operation.
Where applications require a low flow, high differential pressure Hermetic offer its CAM and CAMR models, which are built with multiple impellers to accommodate such duties.

For high flow and low differential pressure applications Hermetic has the CNF series, which differs in that it is a single stage pump.

With the use of high tensile tie bolts and high pressure casings, system pressures in excess of 1000 bar can be contained by Hermetic pumps.

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