research – Page 13 – Greg's Teaching & Researchblog

Last week …

… was extremely enjoyable, because I was on vacation in Churchill, MB – watching polar bears, checking out the boreal forest and the tundra. I also visited the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. People there were extremely friendly and helpful and I was given an extended tour of the research station and the possibilities they offer. It is run as a facility that provides logistical support (food, lodging, transportation), local advice (sampling locations, terrain, flora & fauna) to researchers, who typically arrive with their projects. Some tasks can also be performed by the centre (sampling,…).

The place is very interesting and attractive with regard to equipment, rates, accessibility,… although, personally, I am a bit concerned about anthropogenic influence (a former rocket range, former military installations, the airport and the town are close-by), when it comes to sampling for VOC in snow and air. It would be necessary to choose sampling spots very carefully. Environment Canada is running a few automated instruments there, including a Tekran Hg Analyzer.

One thing at a time, but still lots of things to do …

There are a couple of things that I currently work on. First there are the measurements of my snow samples collected at Alert with lots of other samples (especially the air canisters) in the queue. The calibration curves for the liquid phase and headspace are ready (18 compounds each) and I have started crunching numbers.

I also write a manuscript on my data from snow samples collected in the winter/spring of 2005, which is quite advanced and on a good track. All the introductory and experimental stuff is written including results and discussion with a few calculations missing. It should be ready soon.

I am working with a student on ice-nucleation and training her on how to use the instrument, prepare solutions,… She is running blanks at the moment and trying to make the instrument behave in a repeatable manner.

I am also closely tracking open positions at Montreal universities, with one application pending for a temporary teaching position (1 course for 1 semester) to add to my teaching experience.

So, what is a CEGEP?

I am checking out open positions and I have recently visited a CEGEP (John Abbott College) to inform myself, about how this system works. It was extremely interesting and I had a lot of questions, which were answered patiently.

CEPGEP (College d’enseignement general et professionnel) is a Quebec speciality and is a mandatory 2-year “college”, before entering university. The curriculum consists of the last year of high-school and the first year of university including several advanced courses recognized at university level, so students with a DEC degree from CEGEP skip the first university year. Attendance is not mandatory and the atmosphere is very university like, although students are younger. There is also a strong carreer advice component. CEGEPs also offer 3-year programmes in engineering and other technical fields and graduates usually start working straight away. CEGEP teachers are eligible for federal and provincial research grants.

The atmosphere was very friendly and open. They do not have a suitable open position for now, but I will keep my eyes peeled.

For more info see: Wikipedia (French)

Being on the department’s seminar committee …

… is a fun thing. In the last 6 weeks we have put together the departmental seminar for the current academic year. One professor and 3 graduate students and a postdoc (me being the latter) solliceted names from department members and hammerd out a schedule for this year. We even got a grant from the postgraduate student society to supplement the meagre budget reserved for speakers.

So now everything is on track and the first speakers are coming in. I will be the contact point for three of them – organising the talk, student-lunch and other meetings with faculty and graduate students/postdocs. It should be fun.

Been to Dresden – Won an Award

I went to Dresden last week (with a short visit to my hometown Vienna as well) to participate in the 35^th German Food Chemistry Day, held at the TU Dresden. The main reason, why I was there, was for the award ceremony, because I have received the Bruno-Rossmann Prize from the German Chemical Society/Food Chemistry Section. It was quite a pleasant surprise (I submitted the paperwork ages ago) and a very nice ceremony, if a tad long.

Part of the trip was also a boat tour on the Elbe river including a banquet and I got to see Dresden quite a bit. I have also met a professor, who I collaborated with in the past, who happend to be on sabbatical in Dresden (what a coincidence). We had a really nice chat over some good German beer.

Now it’s back to work – measurements, data analysis,… – and it is fun too.

Reviewing other people’s work

I have started reviewing other people’s manuscripts – just received another one at the beginning of September. It is very interesting with procedures varying from journal to journal and different deadlines, but it is indeed a lot of work.

I have now settled into a procedure to make sure not to forget anything: I start with reading the article several times, each time with a different focus (e.g. objectives stated and reviewed, consistency, clarity) making remarks as I go along. I also read some key articles in the field, should I not be 100% familiar with the topic to place the manuscript into the current research context.

Then it is about structuring and clarifying my remarks, so that the authors can understand them and get my point. Alltogether it takes quite a bit of time (1-2 full days), but it is quite interesting, especially on a plane to Europe, when you are bored ;). The deadline is approaching fast anyway.

Submitted 2 Articles

I was busy writing in the past few weeks and I have recently submitted two manuscripts for review. One is about my previous work at the IFA-Tulln, where I have compiled details about the sample preparation procedure for the spectroscopic analysis of corn and wheat for contamination with mycotoxins and how chemometric results depend on the investigated size fraction of the ground cereal. It is data that has not been published or reported before and makes a nice package.

The other manuscript deals with current work – fungi and micro-organisms found in snow were identified and their ability to transform dicarboxylic acids as part of their metabolism was investigated. Quite a few analytical methods were used for this study including Solid-State-NMR and GC/MS.

I now have a couple of weeks to concentrate on other stuff, before the reviewer comments will come in.

Running samples …

I have been running samples lately and things are looking good. Baseline of the GC-FID is solid at 2.7 pA for the instrument background. The only exception was this morning, when I had to fix a leak on the ultra-zero air cylinder (I wonder, where that came from?), which took a while to locate. But now things are working fine, although I am in for a long evening.

I use the same water that I have used at Alert for rinsing and cleaning (except that the feed is different – I have used DI water at Alert and I now use water from our standard MilliQ system as feed, because the pre-treated water is RO, which the cartridge in the portable system is not suitable for). Water quality is fine and blanks are very similar to those in Alert.

Today I run snow samples collected on June 2 at the Special Studies Trailer (SST), snow layers from 2-6 cm and 36-53 cm from the surface. I carry out headspace and liquid phase measurements in duplicates using a divinylbenzene-coated SPME fibre.

Baseline problem solved

Finally, the ultra-zero air has arrived and things improved as I had expected. The baseline is down to 2.8 pA and stable. So I am ok to run under similar conditions as in Alert, which is fine. Bring on the samples.

I am also quite happy that I have moved the GC to a new lab, where there is more space available and a fumehood close by (with a space for my acid bath). I am still waiting for a 20 Amp jack to be installed, but for now an extension cord from a jack at the far side of the lab will do. I have also hooked up the GC computer to the network, which makes it nice and easy for me to back up my raw data.