Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopic Societies (FACSS) XXI St. Louis MO USA The 1994 FACSS meeting held in St. Louis was my first experience of a North American conference. As such I was totally unprepared for the size of the meeting; 113 separate sessions containing nearly 900 oral presentations and all to be completed in only 44 days! It is surely a testament to the work of the FACSS committee and organizers that such a large conference ran as smoothly as this one did. With such a large number of sessions the conference is able to cover a wide range of topics. Although the traditional analytical spectroscopic techniques (atomic molecular and mass) provided the greater parts of this years programme sessions covering electrochemistry separation science and bioanalytical clinical and pharmaceutical sciences also contributed significantly to the agenda.I was personally pleased to see that a number of chemometrics sessions were offered in the programme. These sessions including a session of practical tutorials offered a glimpse into the power that mathematics and statistics have to offer the analytical chemist in both academia and industry. In all of the sessions I attended the session chairs did an excellent job in keeping to the schedule. This is essential if people are to be able to move between lectures in parallel The Conference Hall 2-7 October 1994 sessions which is only natural at a conference the size of FACSS. often as many as 13 offered the conference a wide choice of lectures at any given time. This choice is I believe both the strength and weakness of such a large meeting.Often throughout the week I found myself wanting to be in two or even three places at the same time. This is obviously a very healthy situation for any conference. Unfortunately though the natural consequence of this choice is that a number of what can perhaps be called non-mainstream (in the context of the conference) sessions were poorly attended. This is unfortunate because a number of excellent talks were given with only small audiences in attendance. There will always be certain people who draw large audiences. These people are after all the cornerstone of any successful conference. However it can be disheartening for any speaker to present their work at a major conference like FACSS and only receive a small audience.One session that did not suffer from a small audience was the GF-AAS session dedicated to the memory of Professor Klaus Dittrich who passed away last year. The speakers invited by session organizer Debbie Bradshaw had The large number of parallel sessions Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry collaborated with or were friends of Professor Dittrich. The presentations covered many aspects of AAS including the application of hydride generation techniques the reduction of chloride interferences solids analysis and instrumentation. Denton presented a comparison of charge-injection device (CID) and charge-coupled device (CCD) technology. Although the paper appeared in the first ‘Recent Advances in Raman Spectroscopy’ session it was general enough to be of interest to any spectroscopist wishing to keep abreast of this rapidly advancing field.R. E. Russo and A. J. Fernandez in two separate papers described the use of an ICP to study the fundamental principles involved in the laser ablation of solid samples. Good correlation was found between the laser power density and the ICP signal intensity. However due to the poor reproducibility of the ablation process the technique provided poor precision for analytical use. Cynthia Mahon described some preliminary work completed on a field deployable instrument for the analysis of bulk solids. The instrument based upon a dc-arc with a CID-based spectrograph is designed to give a complete sample fingerprint in the field and thus minimize the time between sample collection and preliminary analysis.Direct sample injection as a high efficiency method of sample introduction for ICP-AES and ICP-MS was described by Eric Salin where improvements in detection limits of up to 500 were reported. Lisa Wright discussed the use of non-invasive spectroscopic techniques to monitor the conditions of an ICP for diagnostic purposes. This is likely to be an increasingly important topic as instrument manufacturers strive to design evermore intelligent instrumentation. In a chemometrics session Stephen Morgan described how mathematics and statistics can be used to help the analyst to optimize the design of an experiment and to interpret the data correctly. This lecture clearly demonstrated the advantages that can be gained by employing experimental optimization procedures at an early stage in the design of any experiment.The ICP Atomic Emission session on Early on the first morning M. Bonner Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry February 1995 Vol. 10 15 NDaran Sadler The Exhibitors’ Hall Delegates enjoying the gala evening Wednesday afternoon included two presentations both from instrument manufacturers describing axial viewing of an ICP. This is currently the ‘hot’ topic in ICP-AES at least amongst instrument manufacturers. Both papers described improvements to detection limits that can be gained from mounting the torch horizontally and viewing the plasma along its axis rather than through its radius. The degree of improvement could not be agreed upon and seems to be dependant upon instrumentation plasma operating conditions and sample composition.There is clearly much more work to be done in this area. The exhibitors’ hall. which was also used for the poster presentations had stands from over 50 companies. Several manufacturers used th.e conference to launch new instruments or products of which the multi-element ET-AAS instrument from Perkin-Elmer attracted a great deal of interest. The two poster sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday were reasonably well attended although it was a pity that the posters were not available for viewing until late in the afternoon. The Wednesday afternoon poster session did not seem as well attended as the Tuesday session possibly because delegates had returned to their hotels to prepare for the Gala later in the evening.The Gala evening held in the St. Louis Zoo Living World Center was a great success. The delegates had the chance to explore the Living World Center a mix of live animals and interactive displays prior to dinner. A 25 minute film ‘A World Alive’ then followed. After the film the presentation of awards was made; the FACSS Distinguished Service Award was presented to Mr. L. Felix Schneider and to Dr. F. Monte Evans. The Hirschfeld Awards went to Jeanette K. Rice and W. Russell Everret whilst Diana S. West was awarded the FACSS Student Award. At the end of the conference I was left with the feeling that it had been a week well spent. The lectures had on the whole been informative and lively whilst discussions with delegates working in similar fields were always thought provoking often stimulating and certainly never dull. I shall look forward to the next FACSS meeting in Cincinnati. DARAN SADLER Department of Strathclyde Glasgow G1 l X L UK 16 N Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry February 1995 Vol. 10