Progress in science often follows or parallels the development of new techniques. The optical microscope helped convert medicine and biology from a speculative activity in old times to today's sophisticated scientific disciplines. The telescope changed the study and interpretation of heavens from mythology to science. X-ray diffraction enabled the flourishing of solid state physics and materials science. The technique object of this review, Ambient Pressure Photoelectron Spectroscopy or APPES for short, has also the potential of producing dramatic changes in the study of liquid and solid surfaces, particularly in areas such as atmospheric, environment and catalysis sciences. APPES adds an important missing element to the host of techniques that give fundamental information, i.e., spectroscopy and microscopy, about surfaces in the presence of gases and vapors, as encountered in industrial catalysis and atmospheric environments. APPES brings electron spectroscopy into the realm of techniques that can be used in practical environments. Decades of surface science in ultra high vacuum (UHV) has shown the power of electron spectroscopy in its various manifestations. Their unique property is the extremely short elastic mean free path of electrons as they travel through condensed matter, of the order of a few atomic distances in the energy range …

Citric acid forms bidentate, tridentate, binuclear or polynuclear species with transition metals and actinides. Biodegradation of metal citrate complexes is influenced by the type of complex formed with metal ions. While bidentate complexes are readily biodegraded, tridentate, binuclear and polynuclear species are recalcitrant. Likewise certain transition metals and actinides are photochemically active in the presence of organic acids. Although the uranyl citrate complex is not biodegraded, in the presence of visible light it undergoes photochemical oxidation/reduction reactions which result in the precipitation of uranium as UO{sub 3} {center_dot} H{sub 2}O. Consequently, we developed a process where uranium is extracted from contaminated soils and wastes by citric acid. The citric-acid extract is subjected to biodegradation to recover the toxic metals, whereas uranyl citrate which is recalcitrant remains in solution. Photochemical degradation of the uranium citrate complex resulted in the precipitation of uranium. Thus the toxic metals and uranium in mixed waste are recovered in separate fractions for recycling or for disposal. The use of naturally-occurring compounds and the combined chemical and microbiological treatment process is more efficient than present methods and should result in considerable savings in cost.

Detailed chemical speciation of the dry residue particles from individual cloud droplets and interstitial aerosol collected during the Marine Stratus Experiment (MASE) was performed using a combination of complementary microanalysis techniques. Techniques include computer controlled scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersed analysis of X-rays (CCSEM/EDX), time-of-flight secondary ionization mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS), and scanning transmission X-ray microscopy with near edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (STXM/NEXAFS). Samples were collected at the ground site located in Point Reyes National Seashore, approximately 1 km from the coast. This manuscript focuses on the analysis of individual particles sampled from air masses that originated over the open ocean and then passed through the area of the California current located along the northern California coast. Based on composition, morphology, and chemical bonding information, two externally mixed, distinct classes of sulfur containing particles were identified: chemically modified (aged) sea salt particles and secondary formed sulfate particles. The results indicate substantial heterogeneous replacement of chloride by methanesulfonate (CH3SO3-) and non-sea salt sulfate (nss-SO42-) in sea-salt particles with characteristic ratios of nss-S/Na>0.10 and CH3SO3-/nss-SO42->0.6.

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space telescope (GLAST) is a gamma-ray satellite scheduled for launch in 2008. Before the assembly of the Tracker subsystem of the Large Area Telescope (LAT) science instrument of GLAST, every component (tray) and module (tower) has been subjected to extensive ground testing required to ensure successful launch and on-orbit operation. This paper describes the sequence and results of the environmental tests performed on an engineering model and all the flight hardware of the GLAST LAT Tracker. Environmental tests include vibration testing, thermal cycles and thermal-vacuum cycles of every tray and tower as well as the verification of their electrical performance.

We investigated ZnO(0001) single crystals annealed in high vacuum with respect to their magnetic properties and cluster formation tendency after implant-doping with Fe. While metallic Fe cluster formation is suppressed, no evidence for the relevance of the Fe magnetic moment to the observed ferromagnetism was found. The latter along with the cluster suppression is discussed with respect to defects in the ZnO host matrix, since the crystalline quality of the substrates was lowered due to the preparation as observed by x-ray diffraction.

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) was used to study the dissociative adsorption of H{sub 2} on Ru(001) near saturation coverage, when the number of residual hydrogen vacancies (i.e., unoccupied Ru sites) is small. We found that H{sub 2} dissociation takes place only on Ru sites where the metal atom is not bound to any H atom. Such active sites are formed when at least 3 H-vacancies aggregate by thermal diffusion. Sites formed by single H-vacancies or pairs of adjoining vacancies were found to be unreactive toward H{sub 2}. As a similar phenomenon was found previously on Pd(111), the present results indicate that the active sites for H2 dissociation share a common characteristic among catalytically active transition metals.

A detailed chemical kinetic mechanism has been developed to study the oxidation of the straight-chain isomers of hexene over a wide range of operating conditions. The main features of this detailed kinetic mechanism, which includes both high and low temperature reaction pathways, are presented and discussed with special emphasis on the main classes of reactions involved in alkene oxidation. Simulation results have been compared with experimental data over a wide range of operating conditions including shock tube, jet stirred reactor and rapid compression machine. The different reactivities of the three isomers have been successfully predicted by the model. Isomerization reactions of the hexenyl radicals were found to play a significant role in the chemistry and interactions of the three n-hexene isomers. A comparative reaction flux analysis is used to verify and discuss the fundamental role of the double bond position in the isomerization reactions of alkenyl radicals, as well as the impact of the allylic site in the low and high temperature mechanism of fuel oxidation.

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Sulphate-reducing bacteria are anaerobes readily found in oxic-anoxic interfaces. Multiple defence pathways against oxidative conditions were identified in these organisms and proposed to be differentially expressed under different concentrations of oxygen, contributing to their ability to survive oxic conditions. In this study, Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough cells were exposed to the highest concentration of oxygen that sulphate-reducing bacteria are likely to encounter in natural habitats, and the global transcriptomic response was determined. 307 genes were responsive, with cellular roles in energy metabolism, protein fate, cell envelope and regulatory functions, including multiple genes encoding heat shock proteins, peptidases and proteins with heat shock promoters. Of the oxygen reducing mechanisms of D. vulgaris only the periplasmic hydrogen-dependent mechanism is up-regulated, involving the [NiFeSe]hydrogenase, formate dehydrogenase(s) and the Hmc membrane complex. The oxidative defence response concentrates on damage repair by metal-free enzymes. These data, together with the down regulation of the Fur operon, which restricts the availability of iron, and the lack of response of the PerR operon, suggest that a major effect of this oxygen stress is the inactivation and/or degradation of multiple metalloproteins present in D. vulgaris as a consequence of oxidative damage to their metal clusters.

We give a representation of the parity-even part of the planar two-loop six-gluon MHV amplitude of N = 4 super-Yang-Mills theory, in terms of loop-momentum integrals with simple dual conformal properties. We evaluate the integrals numerically in order to test directly the ABDK/BDS all-loop ansatz for planar MHV amplitudes. We find that the ansatz requires an additive remainder function, in accord with previous indications from strong-coupling and Regge limits. The planar six-gluon amplitude can also be compared with the hexagonal Wilson loop computed by Drummond, Henn, Korchemsky and Sokatchev in arXiv:0803.1466 [hep-th]. After accounting for differing singularities and other constants independent of the kinematics, we find that the Wilson loop and MHV-amplitude remainders are identical, to within our numerical precision. This result provides non-trivial confirmation of a proposed n-point equivalence between Wilson loops and planar MHV amplitudes, and suggests that an additional mechanism besides dual conformal symmetry fixes their form at six points and beyond.