A simple, compact and low-cost device is presented. It is able to measure, store and transfer to a computer the beat-to-beat interval of the heart, using a POLAR chest belt and receiver. The conception of this device is based on a microcontroller 8051 associated with flash memory and a real time clock. The statistical error on this interval is below one millisecond. The device suits particularly well for studying the heart rate variability (HRV) at rest in athletes.

Society, as a client and as an end-user, looks at quality assurance (QA) in terms of net economic benefits gained by solving real-life problems that contribute to national development. As a measurable parameter, economic benefit is a reliable indicator of sustained attention and public support for QA. In the world of food as a trading commodity, we are moving towards a global but borderless-trade situation. Food safety being a prime concern under this scenario, reliable food and nutritional (F&N) measurements take centre stage in decision-making. A measurement process characterized by metrological concepts enhances the reliability of analytical results and ensures sustainability to the QA process. These steps infuse authority to the F&N analytical results, and to the ensuing public health decisions from well-designed projects. Integration of metrological concepts into the F&N measurement system strengthens the very base of nutrition education for young professionals (scientific and technical), improves institutional measurement infrastructure, and contributes to the much-needed capacity development in F&N areas. The World Bank and several other United Nations Agencies are now embarking on human capacity building as a critical focal point in the context of national development. Simply put, QA promotes economic benefits. This is the challenge to be met in practice in the field.

A set of partial working procedures has been designed for standardizing the laboratory setup modeling the control of harmful acitivity of termites in nature by affecting caste differentiation by a juvenogen. This set of verified procedures monitors the metabolism of the juvenogen in both the worker and the metamorphosis-derived soldier. The standardization permits an evaluation based on using only a single worker and a single soldier from the whole experimental group and increases thereby considerably the efficiency of the monitoring. The methodology is based on the use of radiolabeled juvenogen and transmission X-ray radiography of the selected termite.

The paper presents an optical setup for diffusing temporal light spectroscopy of living tissues. The system allows to study the dynamical properties of living tissues molecules. The proposed approach exploits the hollow beam geometry in conjunction to mode-selective detection. First experiments, aimed to demonstrate the functionality of the measuring system, have been performed.

Force calibration of micro pipettes is described used for the application of mechanical stress to isolated ventricular cardiomyocytes which are immobilized on glass substrates. For this purpose two methods have been developed based on a nano-Newton compensation balance at PTB and cantilever-type silicon sensors used as transferable force standards, respectively.