Early recognition of altered lactate levels is considered a useful prognostic indicator in dis- ease detection for both human beings and animals. It is reasonable therefore to hypothesize that a portable, point of care (POC) spectrophotometric device for analysis of lactate levels, may have an application for field veterinarians across a range of conditions and diagnostic procedures. In this study, a total of 72 cattle in the transition period underwent POC spectrophotometric lactate measurement with a portable device (The Vet Photometer) in the field, with a small portion of blood used for comparative ELISA evaluation. Lactate measurements were compared using a of Passing-Bablok regression analysis and Bland-Altman plots. The Vet Photometer lactate mea- surement results were in agreement with those generated by the ELISA method. Values for the agreement were derived, in a 95% CI between -1.3 and 0.99, and a positive correlation (r=0.71) between the two measurements. The equation y= 0.68x + 0.60 was achieved using a Pass- ing-Bablok regression analysis. There were no statistical differences in mean values between the measurement methods. In conclusion, a novel veterinary POC spectrophotometric device “Vet Photometer” is an accurate device for evaluation of lactate levels in healthy transition cows.

In this paper a possibility of determining a local velocity of the surface acoustic Rayleigh waves using a transducer, with the rigidly connected emitting and receiving parts, is considered. A problem on spatial resolution of such a transducer for investigation of inhomogeneous specimens is also examined. A high spatial resolution can be obtained due to the transducer displacement by a value less than the distance between the emitting and receiving parts. It is shown that in this case it is not necessary to measure the transducer displacement with a high accuracy for precise determination of the velocity. Such an effect is obtained through measuring the velocity of surface waves in one local region of the specimen with respect to the other. The criterion for optimal spatial resolution selection during spatially inhomogeneous specimens study is also proposed. The proposed criterion use is illustrated on the example of the determination of spatial distribution of the surface acoustic velocity in a steel specimen subjected to inhomogeneous plastic deformation.