This volume includes 19 contributions to the 13th International Symposium on Analytical Ultracentrifugation which took place at the university of Osnabruck on March 6th and 7th, 2003. The contributions from leading scientists cover a broad spectrum of topics concerning: Technical Methods, Data Analysis, Innovations; Polymers, Colloids, Supramolecular Systems; Biological and Interaction Systems; Hydrodynamics and Modelling.

Due to the increasing significance of Analytical Ultracentrifugation for both scientific and technical applications, this book will be an essential source of information with respect to recent developments and results related to this important analytical method."

This volume contains the Proceedings of the Third International EXAFS Conference, hosted by Stanford University and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory on July 16-20, 1984. The meeting, co-chaired by Professors Arthur Bienenstock and Keith Hodgson, was attended by over 200 scientists representing a wide range of scientific disciplines. The format of the meeting consisted of 51 invited presenta tions and four days of poster sessions. This Proceedings is a compilation of 139 contributions from both invited speakers and authors of contributed posters. The last ten years has seen the rapid maturation of x-ray absorption spectrosco pyas a scientific discipline. The vitality of the field is reflected in the diver sity of applications found in the Proceedings. Recent work continues to probe the limits of x-ray spectroscopy, with proven techniques being extended to, for examp le, very low or high energy studies, to very dilute systems, and to studies of surface structure. In fact, the title of the conference does not at all reflect the breadth of the science discussed at this meeting. The number of fields in which x ray absorption spectroscopy is finding applications has increased dramatically even in the two years since the previous International Conference held in Frascati*. The prospects for continued growth and innovation will be even further enhanced if a new generation 6 GeV storage ring is constructed in the next five years."

This series presents critical reviews of the present position and future trends in modern chemical research. It contains short and concise reports on chemistry, each written by the world renowned experts. The volume is still valid and useful after five or ten years. More information, as well as the electronic version of the whole content, is available at: springerlink.com.

These Proceedings contain both oral and poster contributions to the first interna tional conference" Field Screening Europe - Strategies and Techniques for On-Site Investigation and Monitoring of Contaminated Soil, Water and Air," held in Karls ruhe September 29 - October 1, 1997. Environmental monitoring and the assessment of chemical contaminations are be coming more and more important. The integrated study of environmental con tamination in the field is a rather recent approach. "Field screening" indicates such field analytical tools, (quick) methods and strategies for on-site or in-situ environmental analysis and assessment of contamination. The classical strategy for investigating contaminants consists of the following steps: site studies, sampling, sample transport to the laboratory, sample preparation, and analysis. This strategy is rather expensive and time consuming. Some investiga tions, including sample preparation, may last several days. In many cases, the results must be available immediately and are of importance for further decisions. Field screening is an alternative or complement to this strategy that attempts to be cheaper and faster and may achieve the same quality of results. The most important argument for field analytical methods is that the superior accuracy and high costs of laboratory methods are disproportional to the possibility of arti facts from sampling and errors originating from spatial variations of contaminants."

The Sixth International Conference on Miniaturized Chemical and Biochemical Analysis Systems, known as /JTAS2002, will be fully dedicated to the latest scientific and technological developments in the field of miniaturized devices and systems for realizing not only chemical and biochemical analysis but also synthesis. The first /JTAS meeting was held in Enschede in 1994 with approximately 160 participants, bringing together the scientists with background in analytical and biochemistry with those with Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) in one workshop. We are grateful to Piet Bergveld and Albert van den Berg of MESA Research Institute of the University of Twente for their great efforts to arrange this exciting first meeting. The policy of the meeting was succeeded by late Prof. Dr. Michael Widmer in the second meeting, /JTAS'96 held in Basel with 275 participants. The first two meetings were held as informal workshops. From the third workshop, /JTAS'98 (420 participants) held in Banff, the workshop had become a worldwide conference. Participants continued to increase in /JTAS2000 (about 500 participants) held in Enschede and /JTAS2001 (about 700 participants) held in Monterey. The number of submitted papers also dramatically increased in this period from 130 in 1998, 230 in 2000 to nearly 400 in 2001. From 2001, /JTAS became an annual symposium. The steering committee meeting held in Monterey, confrrmed the policy of former /JTAS that quality rather than quantity would be the key-point and that the parallel-session format throughout the 3.

Until the 1980s, researchers studied and measured only the physical properties of aerosols. Since the 80s, however, interest in the physicochemcal properties of aerosols has grown tremendously. Scientists in environmental hygiene, medicine, and toxicology have recognized the importance held by the chemical composition and properties of aerosols and the interactions of inhaled, "bad" aerosols. This book offers the first comprehensive treatment of modern aerosol analytical methods, sampling and separation procedures, and environmental applications, and offers critical reviews of the latest literature. This important field has developed rapidly in the last 15 years, but until now, no book effectively summarized or analyzed the existing research. Analytical Chemistry of Aerosols reviews procedures, techniques, and trends in the measurement and analysis of atmospheric aerosols. With contributions from acknowledged, international experts, the book discusses various methods of bulk analysis, single particle analysis, and the analysis of special aerosol systems, including fibrous and bacterial aerosols.

The two volumes "New Developments in Polymer Analytics" deal with recent progress in the characterization of polymers, mostly in solution but also at s- faces. Despite the fact that almost all of the described techniques are getting on in years, the contributions are expected to meet the readers interest because either the methods are newly applied to polymers or the instrumentation has achieved a major breakthrough leading to an enhanced utilizaton by polymer scientists. The first volume concentrates on separation techniques. H. Pasch summarizes the recent successes of multi-dimensional chromatography in the characteri- tion of copolymers. Both, chain length distribution and the compositional h- erogeneity of copolymers are accessible. Capillary electrophoresis is widely and successfully utilized for the characterization of biopolymers, particular of DNA. It is only recently that the technique has been applied to the characterization of water soluble synthetic macromolecules. This contributrion of Grosche and Engelhardt focuses on the analysis of polyelectrolytes by capillary electopho- sis. The last contribution of the first volume by Coelfen and Antonietti sum- rizes the achievements and pitfalls of field flow fractionation techniques. The major drawbacks in the instrumentation have been overcome in recent years and the"triple F techniques" are currently advancing to a powerful competitor to size exclusion chromatography.

The continued search for rapid, efficient and cost-effective means of analytical measurement has introduced supercritical fluids into the field of analytical chemistry. Two areas are common: supercritical fluid chroma tography and supercritical fluid extraction. Both seek to exploit the unique properties of a gas at temperatures and pressures above the critical point. The most common supercritical fluid is carbon dioxide, employed because of its low critical temperature (31 DegreesC), inertness, purity, non-toxicity and cheapness. Alternative supercritical fluids are also used and often in conjunction with modifiers. The combined gas-like mass transfer and liquid-like solvating characteristics have been used for improved chroma tographic separation and faster sample preparation. Supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) is complementary to gas chro matography ( GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), providing higher efficiency than HPLC, together with the ability to analyse thermally labile and high molecular weight analytes. Both packed and open tubular columns can be employed, providing the capability to analyse a wide range of sample types. In addition, flame ionization detection can be used, thus providing 'universal' detection.

Toyiochi Tanaka, Mitsuhiro Shibayama, "Phase Transitions and related Phenomena of Polymer Gels", Akira Onuki "Theory of Phase Transition in Polymer Gels", Alexei Khokhlov, Sergei Starodybtzev, Valentina Vasilevskaya "Conformational Transitions in Polymer Gels: Theory and Experiment", Michal Ilavsky " Effect on Phase Transition on Swellingand Mechanical Behavior of Synthetic Hydrogels", Shozaburo Saito , M. Konno, H. Inomata "Volume Phase Transition of N-Alkylacrylamide Gels", Ronald Siegel "Hydrophobic Weak Polyelectrolyte Gels: Studies of Swelling Equilibria and Kinetics".

One of the major problems associated with the disposal of chemical weapons is that the agents have degraded over time, some quite seriously. Detecting and identifying the products of this decomposition are necessary prerequisites to the safe, complete and environmentally benign destruction of stockpiled weapons. The book presents and discusses both basic and novel techniques in a variety of areas of analytical chemistry which are relevant to achieving the ultimate destruction of chemical weapons. Presentations address sample collection and preparation, mass spectrometry, chromatographic techniques, NMR, and air monitoring techniques. The work shows that analytical methods do exist to effectively support the destruction of chemical munitions. While further research is needed, the book provides an excellent baseline for further advances in the field.

Contents G. Blasse, "Vibrational Structure in the" "Luminescence Spectra of Ions in Solids."-
A. Ceulemans, "The Doublet States in Chromium(III) Complexes." "A Shell-Theoretic View."-
H.-H. Schmidtke, "Vibrational Progressions in Electronic" "Spectra of Complex Compounds Indicating Strong Vibronic" "Coupling."-
P.E. Hoggard, "Sharp-Line Electronic Spectra and Metal-Ligand" "Geometry."- M. Colombo, A. Hauser, H.U. Gudel, "Competition" "Between Ligand Centered and Charge Transfer Lowest Excited" "States in bis Cyclometalated Rh3+ and Ir3+ Complexes."- D. Wexler, J.I. Zink, C. Reber, "Spectroscopic Manifestations of" "Potential" "Surface Coupling Along Normal Coordinates in " "Transition" " Metal Complexes.""

Shunsuke Hirotsu "Coexistence of Phases and the Nature of First-Order Transition in Poly-N-isopropylacrylamide Gels," Masayuki Tokita "Friction between Polymer Networks of Gels and Solvent," Masahiro Irie "Stimuli-Responsive Poly(N-isopropyl- acrylamide), Photo- and Chemicals-Induced Phases Transitions Edward Cussler, Karen Wang, John Burban"Hydrogels as Separation Agents," Stevin Gehrke "Synthesis, Equilibrium Swelling, Kinetics Permeability and Applications of Environmentally Responsive Gels," Pedro Verdugo "Polymer Gel Phase Transition in Condensation- Decondensation of Secretory Products," Etsuo Kokufuta "Novel Applications for Stimulus-Sensitive Polymer Gels in the Preparation of Functional Immobilized Biocatalysts," Teruo Okano "Molecular Design of Temperature-Responsive Polymers as Intelligent Materials," Atsushi Suzuki "Phase Transition in Gels of Sub-Millimeter Size Induced by Interaction with Stimuli," Makoto Suzuki, O. Hirasa "An Approach to Artificial Muscle by Polymer Gels due to Micro-Phase Separation."

This volume of the series gives an overview on Rigid Polymer Networks written by two reputed experts in the field. A broad range of densely-branched, highly-crosslinked aromatic networks and gels of increasing rigidity are discussed, with special emphasis on aromatic rigid liquid-crystal polymer networks. The synthetic procedures to create the networks are briefly described and extensively referenced. Features of one-step and two-step rigid networks in their pre-gel and post-gel states are discussed. Some first steps are then taken in the theoretical treatment of LCP networks with long aromatic segments of decreasing stiffness. The current state of theory dealing with the broader class of highly-crosslinked rigid aromatic networks and gels is finally mentioned.

The inspiration for this volume lies in Edisbury's Practical Hints for Absorption Spectrometry which was published 17 years ago. Dr Edisbury was a founding member of the Photoelectric Spectrometry Group, served as its first Secretary and edited the Bulletin for many years. His wisdom, humour and pragmatism was evident in early meetings of the Group and in the first issues of the Bulletin, and these qualities were distilled in the writing of Practical Hints. In 1977, the Committee of the Group, which by then had been re-named The UV Spectrometry Group, decided to make use of the expertise available amongst the members of the Group in writing some monographs on the practice of UV and visible spectrometry. Working parties were set up which formulated and produced the first two volumes of the series on Standards in Absorption Spectrometry and Standards in Fluorescence Spectrometry. The success of these volumes lead the present Committee of the Group to set up a new Working Party in 1981 to plan a modern version of Edisbury's book. The idea really caught fire' at the first meeting of the Working Party, when ideas sufficient to fill ten vol umes were put forward. We would not pretend to emulate Edisbury's unique style, but hoped to produce a readable book for the newcomer to UV -visible absorption spectrometry, and perhaps to improve the technique of more experienced users."

Recent advances in analytical chemistry have turned it into a virtually unrecognizable science compared to a few decades ago, when it lagged behind other sciences and techniques. However, advances in analytical science have been far from universal: while innovations in instrumentation and data acquisition and processing systems have reached unprecedented levels thanks to parallel breakthroughs in computer science and chemo metrics, progress in preliminary operations has been much slower despite their importance to analytical results. Thus, such clear trends in analytical process development as automation and miniaturization have not reached preliminary operations to the same extent, even though this area is pro bably in the greatest need. Improvement in preliminary operations is thus an urgent goal of analytical chemistry on the verge of the twenty first century. Increased R&D endeavours and manufacture of commercially available automatic equipment for implementation of the wide variety of operations that separate the uncollected, unmeasured, untreated sample from the signal measuring step are thus crucial on account of the wide variability of such operations, which precludes development of all-purpose equipment, and the complexity of some, particularly relating to solid samples. Supercritical fluid extraction opens up interesting prospects in this context and is no doubt an effective approach to automatioI1 and mini aturization in the preliminary steps of the analytical process. The dramatic developments achieved in its short life are atypical in many respects."

EPR of Free Radicals in Solids: Trends in Methods and Applications, 2nd ed. presents a critical two volume review of the methods and applications of EPR (ESR) for the study of free radical processes in solids. Emphasis is on the progress made in the developments in EPR technology, in the application of sophisticated matrix isolation techniques and in the advancement in quantitative EPR that have occurred since the 1st edition was published. Improvements have been made also at theoretical level, with the development of methods based on first principles and their application to the calculation of magnetic properties as well as in spectral simulations. EPR of Free Radicals in Solids II focuses on the trends in applications of experimental and theoretical methods to extract structural and dynamical properties of radicals and spin probes in solid matrices by continuous wave (CW) and pulsed techniques in nine chapters written by experts in the field. It examines the studies involving radiation- and photo-induced inorganic and organic radicals in inert matrices, the high-spin molecules and metal-based molecular clusters as well as the radical pro-cesses in photosynthesis. Recent advancements in environmental applications in-cluding measurements by myon resonance of radicals on surfaces and by quantitative EPR in dosimetry are outlined and the applications of optical detection in material research with much increased sensitivity reviewed. The potential use of EPR in quantum computing is considered in a newly written chapter. This new edition is aimed to experimentalists and theoreticians in research involving free radicals, as well as for students of advanced courses in physical chemis-try, chemical physics, materials science, biophysics, biochemistry and related fields.

We take great pleasure in presenting Vol. IV of Biological Magnetic Resonance, a series that continues to give us pride. In this volume, we are pleased to have our first chapter on the applications of ESR to problems in medicine, written by Butterfield. Armitage and Otvos describe their extensive Cd-l13 NMR study in a chapter that should delight the spectroscopists as well as the biochemists, since the systems investigated have not yet been modeled. Kaptein presents an eloquent exposition of the principles and applications to biological systems of the photo-CIDNP technique, to which he has made pioneering contributions. Perkins tells everything one always wanted to know about the applications of ring current calculations in structural studies of biological macromolecules. Our philosophy has been, and continues to be, to present topics of current interest by authors who are active in their field, while maintaining the inter national flavor of the series. Ideally, the coverage of each topic should approach that found both in a textbook and in a reference book, rather than being a mere literature review. We are grateful to the authors for their cooperation in this respect. We continue to solicit the comments and suggestions of our readers and our colleagues, and thank those who have already responded, including the reviewers in the periodicals. Lawrence J. Berliner Jacques Reuben ix Contents Chapter 1 Spin Labeling in Disease D. Allan Butterfield 1. Introduction ...................................... . 2. Membrane Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . . 2.1. General Principles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2.2. The Erythrocyte Membrane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . .

Interplay between Metal Ions and Nucleic Acids provides in an authoritative and timely manner in 12 stimulating chapters, written by 24 internationally recognized experts from 8 nations, and supported by nearly 1500 references, about 20 tables, and 125 illustrations, many in color, a most up-to-date view on metal ion-nucleic acid interactions; the characterization of which is covered in solution and in the solid state. The volume concentrates on modern developments encompassing topics in the wide range from G-quadruplexes via DNAzymes, catalysis at the DNA scaffold, and metal-mediated base pairs to peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) being thus of relevance, e.g., for chemistry and nanotechnology but also for molecular biology and (genetic) diagnostics.

This is the third volume in the Reviews in Fluorescence series. To date, two volumes have been both published and well received by the scientific community. Several book reviews have also favorably described the series as an "excellent compilation of material which is well balanced from authors in both the US and Europe". Of particular mention we note the recent book review in JACS by Gary Baker, Los Alamos. In this 3rd volume we continue the tradition of publishing leading edge and timely articles from authors around the world. We hope you find this volume as useful as past volumes, which promises to be just as diverse with regard to content. Finally, in closing, we would like to thank Dr Kadir Asian for the typesetting of the entire volume and our counterparts at Springer, New York, for its timely publication. Professor Chris D. Geddes Professor Joseph R. Lakowicz August 20*^ 2005.

Chemical vapor sensing arrays have grown in popularity over the past two decades, finding applications for tasks such as process control, environmental monitoring, and medical diagnosis. This is the first in-depth analysis of the process of choosing materials and components for these "electronic noses", with special emphasis on computational methods. For a view of component selection with an experimental perspective, readers may refer to the complementary volume of Integrated Microanalytical Systems entitled "Combinatorial Methodologies for Sensor Materials."

Numerous works on non-destructive testing of food quality have been reported in the literature. Techniques such as Near InfraRed (NIR) spectroscopy, color and visual spectroscopy, electronic nose and tongue, computer vision (image analysis), ultrasound, x-ray, CT and magnetic resonance imaging are some of the most applied for that purpose and are described in this book. Aspects such as theory/basics of the techniques, practical applications (sampling, experimentation, data analysis) for evaluation of quality attributes of food and some recent works reported in literature are presented and discussed. This book is particularly interesting for new researchers in food quality and serves as an updated state-of-the-art report for those already familiar with the field.

The intrinsic or natural fluorescence of proteins is perhaps the most complex area of biochemical fluorescence. Fortunately the fluorescent amino acids, phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan are relatively rare in proteins. Tr- tophan is the dominant intrinsic fluorophore and is present at about one mole % in protein. As a result most proteins contain several tryptophan residues and even more tyrosine residues. The emission of each residue is affected by several excited state processes including spectral relaxation, proton loss for tyrosine, rotational motions and the presence of nearby quenching groups on the protein. Additionally, the tyrosine and tryptophan residues can interact with each other by resonance energy transfer (RET) decreasing the tyrosine emission. In this sense a protein is similar to a three-particle or mul- particle problem in quantum mechanics where the interaction between particles precludes an exact description of the system. In comparison, it has been easier to interpret the fluorescence data from labeled proteins because the fluorophore density and locations could be controlled so the probes did not interact with each other. From the origins of biochemical fluorescence in the 1950s with Prof- sor G. Weber until the mid-1980s, intrinsic protein fluorescence was more qualitative than quantitative. An early report in 1976 by A. Grindvald and I. Z. Steinberg described protein intensity decays to be multi-exponential. Attempts to resolve these decays into the contributions of individual tryp- phan residues were mostly unsuccessful due to the difficulties in resolving closely spaced lifetimes.