COLUMNS
THE BASELINE
Group Theory and Symmetry, Part IV: Great or Grand, We’ve Got GOT
David Ball continues his treatment of symmetry and group theory by introducing a very useful mathematical tool in group theory. It has two names in common use, with the same acronym: the GOT.
David W. Ball

FOCUS ON QUALITY
Dear Esteemed Vendor?
Bob McDowall looks at the question: How good is documentation supplied by a vendor to support the qualification of an instrument or the validation of a laboratory computerized system?
R.D. McDowall

MASS SPECTROMETRY FORUM
Ion Burn and the Dirt of Mass Spectrometry
Ken Busch explores the dirt of mass spectrometry — its origins and its visible consequences in a deposit on metal surfaces called ion burn.
Kenneth L. Busch

ARTICLES
Preliminary Field Measurement of Cotton Fiber Micronaire by Portable NIR
The authors demonstrate the rapid and accurate laboratory measurement of cotton fiber micronaire trends at the cotton field with portable near infrared instrumentation.
James Rodgers, Sho Yeung Kang, Chanel Fortier, Xiaoliang Cui, Gayle Davidonis, Ernest Clawson, Don Boquet, and William Pettigrew

WEBCASTS
Achieving Ultra Fast, Low Cost Elemental Analyses in Compliance with EPA Protocols
LIVE WEBCAST: Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010 at 11:00 AM ET; 4:00 PM BST
This webcast will provide the audience with essential information on how to maximize productivity for analysis of environmental samples with emphasis on meeting USA EPA-based protocols and will reference a range of demanding environmental applications. The presenters will describe innovative new technologies to enable high speed liquid sample introduction and ultra fast data acquisition using ICP instrumentation and will discuss the impact of these advances on the global environmental analysis market.
Register Free at www.spectroscopyonline.com/EPA

Basic Principles of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy
LIVE WEBCAST: September 29, 2010
The analytical use of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) has its origins back to 1963 with the study of Mrs. Debras and Guedon. Since then, the technology associated with LIBS has evolved (lasers, spectrometers, detectors, data analysis). However despite considerable advantages that only laser-induced plasmas can provide, the delicacy to control and model their basic fundamentals leads to a slower integration of LIBS in the analytical field than other established plasma based techniques such as GD- or ICP-OES. A review of the basic principles of LIBS will be given and discussed to better understand the technique, the reasons of its slower integration but nevertheless appreciate and explore the unique possibilities that only LIBS can provide to the analytical community.
Register Free Here