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New modes of everyday communication--textual, visual, audio and video--are already part of almost every high school and college student's social life. Can such social networking principles be effective in an educational setting? In this article, the author describes how the students at his school, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), are provided with opportunities to share their work through a new generation of Web 2.0 solutions that are easier to use, more engaging, and have an increasing impact upon collaboration and communication in the classroom than complex technologies of the past. Technologies adopted in schools today, including blogs, wikis, social networking, and online learning communities, are keeping teachers and students connected in and out of class. They are creating opportunities for groups to share, collaborate, showcase and grow together. In addition, they allow exchange of information and ideas not only within the confines of a classroom, but across schools, districts, states and the world.

Oil spill forensic investigations are often challenging due to many confounding variables such as sample weathering, oil composition complexities, and the quality or quantity of collected materials, but the difficulty is further compounded when dealing with mixed oils. In this case, well-established oil fingerprinting techniques become inadequate, including gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC/FID) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) diagnostic ratio analysis. In dealing with mixtures of highly refined lubricating (lube) oils, GC/FID analysis often yields inconclusive results, while diagnostic ratio analysis can be compromised by missing or low response biomarker compounds. The present study explored the feasibility of addressing the challenges of mixed lube oil analysis through a multi-tiered analytical approach. This analysis supplemented traditional GC/FID and GC/MS diagnostic ratio analyses with multivariate statistics to rapidly screen large data sets. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) proved to be effective and intuitive qualitative methods for visualizing, differentiating, and characterizing four highly similar lube oil mixtures. Non-linear mixing patterns that were significant in the diagnostic ratio analysis were far less evident through LDA. Overall, these findings lay the groundwork for promising future study involving multivariate statistical approaches to complex mixed oil forensic cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A saponification extraction method with gas chromatography pseudo-MRM (pMRM) mass spectrometry detection was developed for the determination of 50 total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (TPAH50, a combination of parent and alkylated homologues) in biota. The method was aimed at monitoring and identification of potential TPAH contaminants in bitumen impacted environments. Alkylated PAHs were determined by multi-level, quantitative calibration using parent PAHs. The developed and thoroughly validated method required only one injection for TPAH50 analysis which represents significant saving of time and expensive authentic alkylated standards. The current method was tested with certified reference mussel tissue NIST 1974c and performed well. In a comparison study, the method reached a limit of quantitation (LOQ) for the TPAH50 between 0.1 and 0.2 ng g−1, while the QuEChERs enhanced matrix removal – lipid (EMR) kit produced by Agilent showed an LOQ of 5–10 ng g−1. The current method relied on response factors (RF) for the quantitation of alkylated PAHs determined against parent PAHs. These RFs were shown to be stable and consistent over the course of 1 year, during which over 200 routine environmental biota monitoring samples were analyzed. The environmental biota monitoring samples analyzed include muscle, carcass and liver, with an average total PAH50 concentration of 13, 90 and 135 ng g−1, respectively. Results show significant differences in the distributions of 1 ringed, 2 ringed, 3 ringed, 4 ringed, and 5+ ringed TPAHs between the types of biota samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sulfur anions and their derivatives have long been recognized for their high selectivity and reactivity toward Pb2+ ions and formation of highly absorptive yet water-insoluble compounds with both acid and base media. This phenomenon has been used for qualitative analysis of lead ions in water. We demonstrate a new method to quantitatively determine the Pb2+ concentration in the range of 0.5-500 ppm in water using colorimetric measurement, based on forming "soluble" lead sulfide in water enhanced with non-precious-metal nanoparticles. This method has inherent high selectivity for lead over other alkali-metal and alkaline-earth-metal ions. The colorimetric measurements of the absorptive solutions provide accurate determination of the lead concentration in water comparable to that measured using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. To our knowledge, this is the simplest, lowest cost, and easiest-to-use method for detecting and determining the lead concentration in water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]