November 2011

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Briefs: Motion Control

Wireless foot switches for the control of medical devices are gaining acceptance and growing in popularity — prompting OEMs to design medical equipment for use with a wireless foot switch or to...

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Briefs: Medical

Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System and their colleagues have developed a software tool that aims to make the detection of abnormalities in cell and tissue...

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Briefs: Medical
Benefits of Polypropylene Availability

Material selection plays an important role in the design of a medical device or bioprocessing system. It can improve end-user satisfaction, product reliability, and manufacturability of the device, as well as simplify the 510(k) application process. Various certifications such as animal-derivative-free, USP...

Products: Motion Control
Variable Frequency Drive System

The Eazy Series Variable Frequency Drive system from Amtech Drives (Atlanta, GA) is designed to precisely manage the electrical current for ultra high-speed motors and spindles. It utilizes a proprietary PWM sinusoidal waveform and provides control and protection to AC induction motors in the 40 to 1875 horsepower...

Products: Photonics/Optics

Accuratus (Phillipsburg, NJ) offers light-reflecting ceramic that maximizes light uniformity and intensity in high-energy laser systems, LED-based therapies, and intense pulsed light sources. The total reflectance...

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Products: Medical

Amplitude Systemes (Bordeaux, France) offers the s-Pulse HP ultrafast laser, designed to process medical devices such as stents, percutaneous valves, catheters, and electrodes. It can cut cobalt-chrome and Nitinol stents as...

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Products: Materials

Argotec (Greenfield, MA) has introduced ArgoMedPLUS 18411, a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) film-on-paper product that provides a controlled release between the paper carrier and the TPU film. It can be extruded in...

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Products: Medical

AVX Corporation (Greenville, SC) offers the Transguard® 0201 miniature multilayer varistor, designed for small handheld devices and embedded components such as hearing aids and camera modules. It presents a 16VDC...

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Products: Medical

The EPOS2 36/2 motherboard from Maxon Precision Motors (Fall River, MA) gives the designer either a standalone multi-axis motor controller or one that can be integrated into the final product as a sub board....

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Products: Materials

Foster Corporation (Putnam, CT) has introduced the NanoMed™ EX compounds with greater stiffness and without reduction in elongation, compared to the Pebax 7233 MED. The compounds are designed to bridge the gap between the Pebax...

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Products: Medical

Bern Optics (Westfield, MA) offers custom optical elements with dimensions as small as 0.20 mm. They can be custom engineered, ground, and polished to micron tolerances in a variety of configurations including...

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Products: Medical

Concept Group (West Berlin, NJ) has developed the Insulon® Shaped-Vacuum Thermal Barrier, suitable for delivering vacuum insulation at small scales. Applications that need to overcome cooling or heating challenges in...

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Products: Medical

Nordson ASYMTEK (Carlsbad, CA) has introduced the Select Coat® SC- 280, a film coater for automated, selective, and precision application of conformal coating materials. The film coater applies conformal coating material in a...

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Products: Medical

Standex Electronics (Cincinnati, OH) offers a range of microminiature magnetic reed switches suitable for hearing aids, pill cams, bone shavers, and other surgical and medical devices. Custom components are also...

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Products: Medical

Rhythmlink International (Columbia, SC) has launched a hybrid of two of its current products: the Disposable Webbed EEG Electrode, which combines the Disposable EEG Cup and the Spider™ EEG Electrode. It...

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Products: Medical

Texas Instruments (Dallas, TX) offers the SM320F28 335-HT Delfino 32-bit fl oatingpoint microcontroller (MCU) for extreme temperature operation from -55 °C to 210 °C. It is suitable for harsh and h ot...

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Products: Motion Control
Positioning Platform

Dover (Westborough, MA) offers the Airglide LED Wafer System, now available in a wide base version for additional stiffness and support for larger payloads up to 50 kg, over travels up to 1 full meter. This positioning solution is designed for stepping or scanning applications, and is suitable for laser processing of LED or...

Features: Medical

In 1985, Kasai, Namekawa, Koyana, and Omoto published a paper titled “Real-Time Two-Dimensional Blood Flow Imaging Using an Autocorrelation Technique” that changed...

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Features: Imaging

The increasing popularity of smart phones and interactive netbooks are influencing other industries to incorporate a touch interface in their devices. Products...

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Features: Medical

Medical equipment and devices must be designed with rigorous standards to function in environments where patient safety and product reliability are critical. Today, there is...

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Applications: Photonics/Optics

According to Pantec Biosolutions AG (Liechtenstein, Europe), the global aesthetic market, which includes skin rejuvenation, is expected to grow from a $4.4 billion market...

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Mission Accomplished: Medical

A compact fiber-optic probe initially developed for the space program has now proven valuable for patients in the clinic as the first non-invasive early...

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Mission Accomplished: Robotics, Automation & Control

While surgeon and surgical educator Howard Champion was conducting research and training for improving U.S. military combat care, he noticed the need for the...

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INSIDER: Medical
15-Minute MRIs

The magnetic resonance imaging process usually requires patients to lie still in the machine for up to 45 minutes. Now, that scan time could be cut to just 15 minutes, with a newly developed algorithm from MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics.

News: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Last week, at Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) Minneapolis, we had the chance to catch up with some companies and, in some instances, view their latest products in action on the trade show floor.

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INSIDER: Medical
Could 2D Surpass 3D for Visualization of Heart Disease?

A team of computer scientists, physicists, and physicians at Harvard have developed a simple yet powerful method of visualizing human arteries that may result in more accurate diagnoses of atherosclerosis and heart disease. The prototype tool, called “HemoVis,” creates a 2D diagram of...

INSIDER: Medical
Aiming to Make Monitoring Aneurysms a No-Brainer

Aneurysms can occur in any blood vessel in the body and usually cannot be detected unless there is a rupture or leakage. About 33,000 North Americans suffer a rupture every year, leading to stroke with up to a 60 percent fatality rate and permanent disability in about 50 percent of survivors. Now,...

INSIDER: Medical
Keeping Pace With Pacemaker Trends

In 2009, the first wireless pacemaker was implanted in a patient in the U.S., but there is still a lot of work that remains to be accomplished. About a year ago, Medtronic offered a sneak peek of a leadless pacemaker under development, and other medical device firms and startups have also announced similar...

INSIDER: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Lab-on-a-Chip Prepares for Takeoff

In yet another example of how medical technology designed for humans in space can also benefit humans on Earth, Radisens Diagnostics (Cork, Ireland) recently announced that it will be working with the European Space Agency to develop a blood testing device. According to the press release, the ESA contracted the...

INSIDER: Medical
Microwaves Make Waves in Medicine

Swedish researchers at Chalmers University are developing new techniques of cancer diagnosis and treatment that utilize the power of microwaves. One method is an alternative to mammography. The other method aims to treat tumors by heating the cancer cells. Eventually, they hope to combine the two methods into...

INSIDER: Materials
Bones, Hot Off the Press?

3D printers have the potential to quickly produce complex structures and materials — including bone scaffolds, if Washington State University scientists have their way. An interdisciplinary team of chemistry, materials science, biology, and manufacturing researchers produced a bone-like material using a 3D...

Ask the Expert

Dan Sanchez on How to Improve Extruded Components
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Improving extruded components requires careful attention to a number of factors, including dimensional tolerance, material selection, and processing. Trelleborg’s Dan Sanchez provides detailed insights into each of these considerations to help you advance your device innovations while reducing costs and speeding time to market.

Inside Story

Inside Story: Ensuring Reusable Devices Are Safe for the Next Patient
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To find out more about the expertise required to establish safe processes for cleaning and disinfecting reusable medical devices, MDB recently spoke with Elizabeth Sydnor, Director of Microbiology Medical Device Testing, Eurofins Medical Device Testing (Lancaster, PA).

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