Polymer-supported liquid-crystal membranes have been designed for neutral-carrier-type potassium ion-selective electrodes, aiming for practical applications of high-performance liquid-crystalline membrane ion sensors. Two types of polymer-supported liquid-crystal membranes were tested for their usefulness; one is microporous poly(tetra fluoroethylene) (PTFE) membranes impregnated by thermotropi...

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Carbon nanostructured materials in general and carbon nanotubes in particular exhibit remarkable and unique properties that make them promising candidates for a wide range of applications. In the field of sensors, for example, carbon-based materials such as fullerene (C60) [1], three-dimensionally ordered macroporous (3DOM) carbon [2], and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) [3] have been u...

The advent of ion-selective electrodes made possible the potentiometry of sodium in serum and plasma. These methods were based on dilution of serum, as done in flame photometry, and the results were identical. Analysis of whole blood precludes dilution and so "direct" potentiometry was developed. Results by this technique are variable but tend to compensate for the spurious hyponatremias found ...

echocardiography. All attending phy-sicians/cardiologists were blinded to the BNP results. To determine the diagnostic accuracy of the two assays for CHF, we performed ROC plot analysis, and areas under the curve (AUC) were calculated for both BNP assays. Comparisons between AUC were assessed according to the method of Hanley and McNeil (10). Cutoff values for the two methods were determined at...

The recent introduction of miniature liquid ion-exchanger electrodes provides the possibility of overcoming previously encountered limitations on the measurement of specific ionic activities in biological fluids. Hydrogen ion and sodium ion activities have been stuccessfully determined by means of glass-membrane electrodes(l-5). However, in the presence of sodium, glass electrodes are usually i...