New areas of analysis

With the new risk-based approach to assessing contaminated land sites, there are a number of new areas of analysis that are required by risk assessors. 

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The development of methods and instrumentation, especially in the high field range, will already open up quite new areas of uses already in the near future. These may at least partly replace and complete solid-state vibration spectroscopy in the polymer field in cases where the amount of material is not the limiting factor. As far as we are able to predict the future, the development of exact quantitative methods of analysis, in particular, will rapidly develop to a high degree of accuracy. 

It may be useful to point out a few topics that go beyond a first course in control. With certain processes, we cannot take data continuously, but rather in certain selected slow intervals (c.f. titration in freshmen chemistry). These are called sampled-data systems. With computers, the analysis evolves into a new area of its own—discrete-time or digital control systems. Here, differential equations and Laplace transform do not work anymore. The mathematical techniques to handle discrete-time systems are difference equations and z-transform. Furthermore, there are multivariable and state space control, which we will encounter a brief introduction. Beyond the introductory level are optimal control, nonlinear control, adaptive control, stochastic control, and fuzzy logic control. Do not lose the perspective that control is an immense field. Classical control appears insignificant, but we have to start some where and onward we crawl. 

A new area of research concerns exposure assessment for beryllium in the production of nuclear weapons at nuclear defense industries. A safe level of exposure to beryllium is still unknown. Potential explanations include (1) the current exposure standard may not be protective enough to prevent sensitization, or (2) past exposure surveillance may have underestimated the actual exposure level because of a lack of understanding of the complexity of beryllium exposures. Task-based exposure assessment provides information not directly available through conventional sampling. It directly links exposure to specific activity associated with contaminant generation and provides in-depth evaluation of the worker s role in a specific task. In-depth task analysis is being used to examine physical, postural, and cognitive demands of various tasks. 

In all the foregoing discussion on reverse osmosis transport, system analysis and process design, no new chemical engineering principle Is Involved. But the manner In which the known principles are combined and expressed Is new the kind of results arising from such expressions Is new and the direction such approach sets for future work on the subject Is also new, all of which open a new area of chemical engineering. 

Characterization of the state, nature and structure of the starch granule surface has been somewhat limited. Over the past few years, however, substantial progress in starch surface chemical analysis and surface imaging has been made. The following two sections detail recent developments in these two new areas of starch research. 

Applications of pulse techniques in electrochemistry have been predominantly in the area of analysis, relying on the linear dependence of peak height on potential, although recently their use in mechanistic studies, particularly square-wave voltammetry, has begun to be exploited. The reason for their use in analysis is intimately linked with the low detection limits that are attainable, particularly in combination with pre-concentration techniques, as will be seen in Chapter 14. Finally, since nowadays the pulse sequences are generally controlled and responses analysed using microprocessors, the development of new waveforms for particular situations is now a much easier task than it was even a decade ago. 

Relatively new areas of species-selective analysis of As in food concern terrestrial plants [44, 70], especially rice [24, 29, 71], and chicken meat [26]. 

It often happens that upon exploration into a new area of research objectives these well defined methods do not work. Such misfires are, in themselves, discoveries of previously unknown chemical properties intrinsic to a particular structure. It is unlikely that such discoveries could be made merely upon investigation of compounds unrelated to the needs of synthesis. The investigator cannot remain indifferent the elucidation of the cause of the observed anomaly is paramount for the success of the synthetic efforts. Such analysis may give some clues either in the elaboration of a modified version of the same reaction or in the search for alternative approaches based upon completely different ideas. 

It is evident that a new area of Single Molecule Analysis has started and the interest will be concentrated on the cellular level. The development of genetic markers like GFP and others will make molecular details and their connection visible and accessible for detailed studies. FCS as a powerful tool of dynamic analysis has already substituted classical relaxation kinetics in equilibrium but is also able to work at non-equilibrium conditions as found in a living cell. It will play a very important role and we are seeing just the beginning. 

Compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) is a rather new tool in environmental analysis. It is not used for quantitative analysis of organic compoimds but rather for the characterization of environmental fate by monitoring changes in the isotopic composition of organic molecules. Analytical aspects are covered here because this rather new area of research is expected to mature to a standard tool in environmental analysis that will complement the quantitative analysis in the environment [70]. 

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