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The following fourth and fifth chapters are devoted to paper-based electrochemical devices, including interesting and new points of view such as the role of paper in electroanalytical devices with special emphasis on its use as reactor as well as on the employ of different electrochemical techniques (amperometric, voltammetric, impedimetric or potentiometric), on the development of lateral and vertical flow paper-based microfluidic devices or on the detection in liquid and gas phases. The first chapter explores paper as a substrate for electrochemical micro-devices, being this principle of detection the most promising in the (bio)sensor field. The following three chapters (nineth, tenth and eleventh) are more specific, related to nanopaper-based (optical and electrical) sensors, nanoparticle-based lateral flow assays, and flexible cellulose-based devices for monitoring physical parameters. [Extracted from the article]

Microfluidics has also influenced other fields recently, especially diagnostics in low-resource environments, which the book covers with two chapters on paper microfluidics. However, the book should not be understood as a basic introduction in the physical phenomena at the microscale or fabrication aspects of microfluidic devices, but rather summarizes the capabilities in the particular fields of biology and medicine. Readership recommendation This book should be recommended for any scientist or medical practitioner, seeking to get a glimpse of the recent capabilities demonstrated with microfluidics in biology and medicine. [Extracted from the article]

Increased interest in the fate, transport and toxicity of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) over the past few years has led to a variety of studies reporting different methods of analysis for these persistent organic pollutants. Because PBDEs encompass a range of vapor pressures, molecular weights and degrees of bromine substitution, various analytical methods can lead to discrimination of some PBDE congeners. Recent improvements in injection techniques and mass spectrometer ionization methods have led to a variety of options to determine PBDEs in environmental samples. The purpose of this paper is therefore to review the available literature describing the advantages and disadvantages in choosing an injection technique, gas chromatography column and detector. Additional discussion is given to the challenges in measuring PBDEs, including potential chromatographic interferences and the lack of commercial standards for higher brominated congeners, which provides difficulties in examining degradation and debromination of BDE congeners, particularly for BDE 209. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]