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The Australian Synchrotron introduced Top-Up operations in May 2012. Upgrading the machine for Top-Up has required major developments in many of the accelerator systems. Investigations prior to the start of Top-Up operations demonstrated that the Infrared Microspectroscopy beamline was particularly sensitive to injection noise. A gating event has been implemented as part of our timing system upgrade to pause the data collection during injection. In Top-Up mode injections can happen when the gaps of insertion devices are closed. A variable vertical aperture has been installed in the BTS to scape potentially damaging electrons and protect the equipment.

Rho Kinase Inhibition Improves Cross Bridge Cycling In Early Diabetic Heart Disease M. Waddingham1,∗, A. Edgley1,2, A. Astolfo 3, T. Inagaki 4, H. Tsuchimochi 4, D. Kelly 1, N. Yagi 5, M. Shirai 4, J. Pearson2,6,7 1Department of Medicine, St. Vincent’s Hospital, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia 2 Department of Physiology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia 3 Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute, Zurich, Switzerland 4 National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center Research Institute, Suita, Japan 5 Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute, Harima, Japan 6 Monash Biomedical Imaging Facility, Melbourne, Australia 7 Australian Synchrotron, Melbourne, Australia

Italian and Australian synchrotron scientists came together May 14–15, 2012, at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, for the latest of a series of topical workshops, the Fifth Italian-Australian Workshop on Synchrotron Radiation X-ray Imaging for Life Sciences and Cultural Heritage. Both scientific communities are interested in applying synchrotron light to solve problems in medicine, zoology, archaeology, art conservation and analysis, palaeontology, and musical instruments.

Roiled by management disputes, the Australian Synchrotron, brought online in 2007, was set to run out of funding last month before the federal and state governments rode in with a 4-year rescue package. Now, the facility may find long-term stability. The federal government is expected to announce next month that the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation will take the troubled facility under its wing.

This paper reviews work carried out in the Centre for Biospectroscopy, Monash University, at the Infrared Microspectroscopy Beamline on the Australian Synchrotron since the first synchrotron light. It discusses the attributes and advantages of the beamline for chemical spectroscopy and imaging of cellular and tissue samples and briefly summarizes new techniques that will come online in the near future.

Synchrotron light sources are highly versatile research tools, with applications in a vast range of science from medicine to earth science. In fact, there are few areas of science to which synchrotron radiation cannot make a contribution, which is a credit to the designers of the many synchrotron light sources around the world and to those who have conceived and implemented the many beamlines and end-stations that make such a diverse range of experiments possible. Australia has recently joined the ranks of countries with an advanced third-generation light source since the opening of the Australian Synchrotron (AS) in Clayton, Victoria, in 2007. Synchrotron science in Australia dates back well before the opening of the AS, from the early days when intrepid scientists travelled to early light sources without the support structures that are taken for granted today, through the period of the Australian National Beamline Facility to the Australian Synchrotron Research Program (ASRP). The ASRP was a visionary programme that provided the experience and much of the impetus needed for Australian scientists to push for the establishment of a synchrotron light source in AustraliaandfromthatcametheASasweknowittoday.Although still in its earlystages of development and with only9 of apossible 38 beamlines,theAS has auser base of over 3000 scientists and an output of over 250 papers with AS data in 2011 alone. Many of the current beamlines are useful to those in the chemical sciences. Some, such as infrared spectroscopy, are methods that are quite familiar to chemists. The synchrotron infrared microspectroscopy beamline offers advantages over its laboratory counterpart such as greatly increased signal-to-noise ratio and the ability to perform mapping rapidly and with high spatial resolution, but is nevertheless quite similar at heart to an instrument that may be found in a lab, albeit with a synchrotron as the source of IR radiation. Others, with the X-ray absorptionspectroscopy(XAS)beamlinebeingagoodexample, rely on the unique properties of synchrotron radiation and offer capabilitiesthatcannotbeachievedwithoutasynchrotron.XAS offers unique opportunities for structural studies of metal centres that are of enormous value to chemists, biologists and materials scientists. This issue of Aust. J. Chem. contains a selection of papers by Australian groups that demonstrate some of the power of synchrotron radiation when applied to chemical problems. While some are more in the style of reviews and others are research articles, all give a useful perspective on how this versatile tool is a powerful weapon in the chemist’s armoury. A short review on applications of synchrotron radiation to medicinal chemistry [1] gives a summary of the way several beamlines (microprobe X-ray fluorescence imaging, XAS and infrared microspectroscopy) can individually and in combinationbeusedtohelpsolveimportantproblemsinthechemistryof health, while applications of infrared spectroscopy to biological systems is the focus of another review. [2] Other papers come from a materials chemistry perspective, highlighting the use of synchrotron powder diffraction for the structural elucidation of perovskite oxides, [3] the application of small angle scattering to the study of superhydrophobic surfaces, [4] structure determination of triiron carbonyl sulfide clusters using X-ray absorption spectroscopy [5] and finally a demonstration of the power of insitu measurements combining electrochemistry and X-ray diffraction to study electrocrystallization. [6] As more sources come into service and beamlines are constructed and upgraded, synchrotron techniques will continue to grow in importance to chemists. It is encouraging to see the breadth and quality of science being produced by Australian scientists using these techniques, and provided governments continue to recognize the importance and power of synchrotron science, there are exciting times ahead.

The utilization of the high resolution powder diffractometer at the Australian Synchrotron to obtain accurate and precise structures of some perovskite-type oxides is described. The structure of CdTiO3 has been studied from room temperature to 1000°C by high-resolution synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction. It was found that CdTiO3 remains orthorhombic in the Pbnm space group over the entire temperature range, with the expansion in the cell volume well fitted to the expression . The magnitudes of the TiO6 tilts are estimated from the refined structural parameters and these progressively reduce as the temperature is increased. The effect of Sr content on the room temperature structure of the double perovskites Ba2–xSrxInTaO6 is also described. At room temperature Ba2InTaO6 crystallizes in a cubic structure in space group . Doping with Sr results in tilting of the corner sharing octahedra with a concurrent lowering of symmetry with the sequence of structures being

This work was financially supported by the Australian Synchrotron and the Australian Research Council with access to equipment provided by the Australian Nanofabrication Facility. ChemMatCARS Sector 15 is principally supported by the NSF/ DOE under Grant No. NSF/CHE–0822838.

M. Jenkins1,2,∗, A. Edgley1,2, T. Sonobe3, Y. Fujii 3, H. Ishibashi-Ueda3, D. Kelly 1, D. Schwenke4, N. Yagi 5, M. Shirai 3, J. Pearson2,6 1Department of Medicine, St Vincents Hospital, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia 2 Department of Physiology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia 3 National Cardiovascular Center Research Institute, Suita, Japan 4 Department of Physiology, Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand 5 Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute, Harima, Japan 6 Australian Synchrotron, Melbourne, Australia

This work was financially supported by the Australian Synchrotron and the Australian Research Council. ChemMatCARS Sector 15 is principally supported by the National Science Foundation/Department of Energy under Grant No. NSF/CHE-0822838. Use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

P.K. and M.C.R. thank the Australian Research Council for support. P.K., R.G., D.J.S., and M.C.R. were supported by the Australian Synchrotron Research Program, funded by the Commonwealth of Australia via the Major National Research Facilities Program.

We thank the Australian Synchrotron Research Program and the Australian Research Council for financial support.

The third Italian-Australian Workshop on Spectroscopy and Imaging with Synchrotron Radiation (IAW) was held at the Australian Synchrotron on April 14, 2007, and was the first scientific meeting held there. Previous workshops have been held in Trieste (2005) and Lorne, Victoria (2003). Indeed, when the first meeting was held, the Australian synchrotron was an idea and now it is a reality.

Australia's first dedicated synchrotron- radiation facility is set to open its doors to users. The Australian Synchrotron, which is located near Monash University in Melbourne, is a "thirdgeneration" facility that will produce intense beams of X-rays, infrared radiation and ultraviolet light by circulating electrons at energies of 3GeV around a storage ring 69 m in diameter. The synchrotron is expected to open by July, although the exact date has not yet been confirmed.

P.K. and M.C.R. thank the Australian Research Council for support. P.K., B.H., B.J., and M.C.R. were supported by the Australian Synchrotron Research Program, funded by the Commonwealth of Australia via the Major National Research Facilities Program.

The construction of the Australian synchrotron is proceeding on time and nearing completion, and the first suite of beamlines are expected to commence test experiments in April next year. The advent of this facility will be a big boost to the biological community, especially in the area of structural biology and protein characterisation.

The crystallographic orientation distribution and micro-voids in polyacrylonitrile (PAN) based carbon fiber play a key role in controlling the fiber’s strength and modulus. The evolution of microstructure from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) precursor fibers throughout oxidation and subsequent carbon fiber, processed using a 100 ton carbon fiber pilot line (Carbon Nexus, Deakin University), was studied by synchrotron wide angle X-ray scattering (WAXS). A dedicated fiber testing capability has been developed on the X-ray Fluorescence Microscopy beamline at the Australian synchrotron facility, where spatially resolving measurements (Micro-WAXS patterns) were recorded as each single fiber was translated across the focused incident X-ray probe in 1 micron steps. Probing along the lateral fiber direction, (100) and (002) WAXS patterns for the PAN and subsequent carbon fibers respectively revealed a non-uniform distribution of crystallographic properties - quantified in terms of the lattice d-spacing, crystallite size and crystallographic orientation, indicating a skin-core-structure.

We report the identification of minerals in stratified paint layers from a Wandjina motif in the central Kimberley region, Western Australia, via synchrotron powder diffraction. Interpreting our findings with reference to previous pigment characterisations of Wandjina motifs, we outline the potential of this method for rock art investigations. We particularly highlight the implications of successful major and minor phase identification in very small (~3 µg) pigment samples. The results of this pilot study show that crystallographic data is critical in helping to separate environmental/cultural signatures from post-depositional processes within anthropogenically applied pigments. In Wandjina rock art, crystallography facilitates the examination of the cultural context of rock art production within an assemblage ethnographically known to have undergone regular, ritual repainting.

A hard x‐ray micro‐nanoprobe has commenced operation at the Australian Synchrotron providing versatile x‐ray fluorescence microscopy across an incident energy range from 4 to 25 keV. Two x‐ray probes are used to collect μ‐XRF and μ‐XANES for elemental and chemical microanalysis: a Kirkpatrick‐Baez mirror microprobe for micron resolution studies and a Fresnel zone plate nanoprobe capable of 60‐nm resolution. Some unique aspects of the beamline design and operation are discussed. An advanced energy dispersive x‐ray fluorescence detection scheme named Maia has been developed for the beamline, which enables ultrafast x‐ray fluorescence microscopy.