NEWS
Coetzee Given Pittsburgh Award The ACS Pittsburgh Section has pre sented its 1989 Pittsburgh Award to analytical chemist Johannes Coetzee. This annual award recognizes an indi vidual who has made outstanding con tributions to the Pittsburgh chemistry community. Coetzee, professor of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, was cited for his research detailing interactions in solution—particularly among elec trolytes in dipolar aprotic solvents— and his electroanalytical studies. He was also recognized for his enthusiastic teaching of analytical chemistry. Coetzee received his B.Sc. (1944) and M.Sc. (1949) de grees from the University of the Orange Free State in his homeland of South Africa and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota (1956). He taught for a short time at South Africa's University of Witwatersrand before joining the Pittsburgh faculty in 1957.
Pittsburgh Conference College Grants The Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, Inc., the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh, and the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh will once again sponsor the Pittsburgh Confer ence Memorial National College Grants Award Program. Established in 1974, the program is designed to enhance science education through grants to small colleges. Ten col leges each will receive up to $3000 for the purchase of un dergraduate teaching materials (e.g., scientific equipment, audio-visual equipment, and library materials). To be eligible, a college must have an enrollment that does not exceed 2500 students and must receive no more than 25% of its operating budget from national or state governments. Two-year community colleges sponsored by political subdivisions of a state are not bound by these re quirements. Awardees are ineligible for another grant for three years following receipt of their award. Interested faculty members should request applications from George L. Vassilaros, The Pittsburgh Conference Inc., 300 Penn Center Boulevard, Suite 322, Pittsburgh, PA 15235. The deadline for completed applications and pro posals is March 1,1990. Award winners will be announced by May 1,1990.
Concentrated Neutrons Improvements in the beam delivery system have boosted the peak neutron flux for Los Alamos National Laborato ry's Lujan Neutron Scattering Center (LANSCE) to the highest in the world. The neutron beam intensity regularly runs approximately 20% higher than neutron beams gener ated at comparable facilities.
LANSCE is a national user facility dedicated to research on the fundamental structure of important materials such as polymers and superconductors. With a higher neutron flux, smaller samples can be studied and more precise data can be collected in a shorter period of time. The center's neutron beam is generated from short, re petitive pulses of protons striking a tungsten target, each proton producing about 20 neutrons. The protons, in turn, are generated in Los Alamos's linear accelerator and stored in the neutron facility's proton storage ring. Inside this unique storage ring, protons are concentrated before strik ing the target. Improvements in this system have increased the beam delivery efficiency by 70%. Protons now strike the target 20 times per second with an average current of 50 μΑ. Eventually, predict Los Alamos scientists, the system should reach 100-μΑ currents.
For Your Information R. Bruce Prime of IBM's General Products Division De velopment Laboratories in San Jose, CA, has won the 1989 Mettler Award for distinguished achievements in the area of thermal analysis. Prime was honored for his work char acterizing the cure and composition of coatings for rigid magnetic recording disks, for which he codeveloped the TGA-APCI/MS/MS approach and applied time/tempera ture superposition to kinetic processes. The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) requests assistance in developing two new standards. The subcommittee on Geotechnics of Waste Management needs participants to help in the formulation of a new standard practice for the decontamination of field equipment used at low-level radioactive waste sites. For more information, contact G. David Knowles, Malcom Pirnie, 4 Corporate Plaza, Albany, NY 12203 (518-869-7257) or Bob Morgan, ASTM, 1916 Race St., Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215-299-5505). The subcommittee on Methods of Sampling and Analysis is seeking laboratories willing to test new methods for measuring Cr in welding fumes, Cr in the workplace, and ethylene oxide. For more information, contact S. D. Allen Iske, Mobay Corp., P.O. Box 4913, Kan sas City, MO 64120 (816-242-2498) or George Luciw, ASTM (215-299-5571). Bruce Lewenstein, a communication professor at Cornell University, is investigating the roles scientists, journalists, and others played in the recent University of Utah claims of room-temperature fusion. He is requesting that scien tists send seminar, lecture, or laboratory notes; computer bulletin board notices; bibliographies; and any other docu ments related to cold fusion that can be archived. His ad dress is 640 Stewart Avenue, Ithaca, NY 14850. Merck has produced a new version of The Merck Index, 100 years after publication of the first edition. The first copy of this centennial edition was presented to the ACS at this fall's national meeting in Miami.
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 61, NO. 22, NOVEMBER 15, 1989 · 1255 A
