My point of departure in this essay is that student approaches to assessment appear to have become more instrumental, and that there has been a correlative propensity in my teaching practice to "teach to the test". Hence, both learners and teachers seem to have become more strategic in relation to assessment. This situation, I argue, is…

An experiment using real hardware and under real test conditions can be remotely conducted by engineering students and other interested individuals in the world via the Internet and with the capability of live video streaming from the test site. The presentation of this innovative experiment refers to the determination of the current voltage…

Discusses: (1) the design of the Fourier Transform-Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) spectrometer; (2) the computation of the spectrum from the interferogram; and (3) the use of apodization. (Part II will discuss advantages of FT-IR over dispersive techniques and show applications of FT-IR to difficult spectroscopic measurements.) (JN)

Reviews literature on Raman spectroscopy from late 1981 to late 1983. Topic areas include: instrumentation and sampling; liquids and solutions; gases and matrix isolation; biological molecules; polymers; high-temperature and high-pressure studies; Raman microscopy; thin films and surfaces; resonance-enhanced and surface-enhanced spectroscopy; and…

The National Science Foundation's College Science Instrumentation Program (CSIP) provides four-year colleges with money to buy modern instruments. Accomplishments of the program during its first year (including 234 awards totaling $5.5 million) and future directions are summed up by Robert F. Watson, head of the CSIP program. (JN)

Reviews techniques for online coupling of high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry, emphasizing those suitable for application to nonvolatile samples. Also summarizes the present status, strengths, and weaknesses of various techniques and discusses potential applications of recently developed techniques for combined liquid…

A project was designed to expose students to the complexities of designing an instrumentation and control system for the overall plant design. Project objectives, format, and student activities, accomplishments, and shortcomings are described. (JN)

Discusses two surface techniques: X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (ESCA) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). Focuses on fundamental aspects of each technique, important features of instrumentation, and some examples of how ESCA and AES have been applied to analytical surface problems. (JN)

Examines recent developments in techniques for obtaining high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra on solid samples, discussing the kinds of applications for which these techniques are well suited. Also discusses the characteristics of NMR of solids and generating magnetization for NMR in solids. (JN)

The fundamentals of two surface techniques--secondary-ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and ion-scattering spectrometry (ISS)--are discussed. Examples of how these techniques have been applied to surface problems are provided. (JN)

Describes an empirical method for tuning a piano by matching measured fundamental frequencies to values determined using a pocket calculator. (Author/GA)

Presents two lists: (1) important considerations for any total chemical analysis and (2) a condensed version that can be used by students to evaluate each analytical procedure. Benefits of using the condensed version (such as seeing that instrumentation is only one of several components of an analysis) are noted. (JN)

Software-driven instrumentation makes measurements that demand a computer as an integral part of either control, data acquisition, or data reduction. The structure of such instrumentation, hardware requirements, and software requirements are discussed. Examples of software-driven instrumentation (such as wavelength-modulated continuum source…

Describes a birefringence apparatus that can be assembled for less than $100 and can be used to measure both the dimensions and dipole moments of many macromolecules. Details are given of the construction and manipulation of the apparatus. (JN)

A microcomputer-controlled system for instrument processing and billing for complex analytical instruments funded by multiple sources in the University of California at Berkeley's College of Chemistry is described and its potential applications in other administrative situations are outlined. (MSE)