I must have a story to write now as long as I live

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Ultramicroscopy 108 (2008) 375–392 www.elsevier.com/locate/ultramic

I must have a story to write now as long as I live P.W. Hawkes CEMES-CNRS, B.P. 94347, F-31055 Toulouse, cedex, France

William Morris to his wife, on her birthday, 1889

1. Proceedings They talk, talk, talk, and none of them knows—not one— and all the time great hidden movements are going on that will change the world, unnoticed, unsuspected, out of reach of the furthest sight. Edward Burne-Jones 1.1. International and national The year 2006 was even-numbered but not divisible by four, which tells ultramicroscopists that an international microscopy congress (no longer ‘electron’) was held. The bid for IMC-16 was won by Japan and an extremely wellorganized congress resulted in Sapporo. The proceedings [1] exist both printed and on CD-ROM, a great blessing for, despite the weight and shelf-space requirements, it is much more congenial to turn pages than to scroll and click (and wait). The three volumes contain more than 2000 pages even though no-one, not even the plenary lecturers, is allowed more than one page (a very sensible decision: much better to have a one-page limit than several thousand pages of abstracts). The most relevant volume here is the one on Instrumentation, with Materials Science as a close runnerup. The Plenary Lectures are included in all three volumes and for physicists there are D. Eigler on ‘Excitation spectroscopy with the STM’, H. Rose on ‘Principles and prospects of aberration correction’ and S. Iijima on ‘Highresolution electron microscopy and carbon nanotubes’. H. Rose manages to squeeze a lot of information into his page. The remainder of the volume is divided into 20 sections and there are papers of immediate interest in all of them. We begin with ‘Basic optical elements’ and any E-mail address: [email protected] doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2007.05.009

selection I might make would be invidious. First come M. Rauscher et 3 al. with an ‘Advanced low-energy FIB design based on immersion optics’. F. Hosokawa et 11 al. describe the Cs-corrector being developed for the JEOL 300 kV TEM and STEM, with refinements to compensate parasitic aberrations. J. Ba¨rtle and E. Plies use an electrostatic O-monochromator. T. Ohye et 2 al. have evaluated the coefficients of the asymptotic spherical aberration polynomial for the accelerating tube of a HVEM and find that the relativistic effect is considerable for some coefficients but not all and, in particular, not for the high-magnification term. The second section, ‘Advancing HR-TEM and HRSTEM’ (yet another Cowley memorial), contains numerous papers on aberration-corrected electron microscopy, beginning with ‘Prospects and limitations to materials science problems’ by K. Urban et 5 al. J.L. Hutchison et 5 al. describe an application of the Oxford Cs-corrected microscope and the other corrected instruments are represented by similar findings. T. Walther and H. Stegmann evaluate the performance of the Zeiss 200 kV FE-STEM. On a related and important theme, S. van Aert et 2 al. show that a combination of exit-wave reconstruction and statistical parameter estimation theory makes image interpretation much more precise. There are accounts of the present state of corrector design from M. Haider et 3 al. at CEOS and O. Krivanek et 10 al. at Nion. T. Kaneyama et 11 al. present the 300 kV super-resolution FETEM from JEOL. M. Hibino et 2 al. calculate the best way of balancing third and fifth-order spherical aberration. K. Nakamura et 8 al. describe the Hitachi Cs-corrected STEM. Q. Ramasse et al. discuss aberration diagnosis and there are many more I should like to list but must not! The third section, ‘Advances in SEM’, has papers on low-energy SEM, a ‘thumb-size SEM’ (K. Nishikata et 6 al.), wet-STEM and

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cryo-STEM, aberration correction in SEM and FIB by J. Zach, the pioneer in this area, image processing (Y. Asushi et 8 al.) and again, lots more. Next comes a huge section on electron tomography, which used to be limited to the biophysicists but has now invaded materials science. J.R. Jinschek et 5 al. are striving to achieve ‘Atomic resolution electron tomography based on discrete mathematics’. Electron holography is another big section, though not as big as one might expect in a congress in Japan. It is opened by A. Tonomura, who surveys the field and is followed by K. Harada et 4 al. (one of whom is Tonomura) on three-biprism interferometry. There are several contributions from H. Lichte’s Triebenberg Laboratory and from E. Snoeck and others here in Toulouse. I also noticed papers on coherence by R. Herring. I have covered only five of the 20 sections and must treat the others in more summary fashion. Section 6 is on scanning probe microscopy, mostly applications, and Section 7 is on ‘Advanced Optical Microscopy’. Next, ‘Atom-probe field-ion microscopy’ which brings us to ‘EELS and energy-filtered imaging/mapping’. Here we meet several papers in which the advantages of using instruments equipped with monochromators or aberration correctors are demonstrated (W. Sigle et 9 al.; E. Okunishi et 2 al.). M. Tence´ et 7 al. have built a four-quadrant detector for EELS. This too is a huge section. Section 10 is concerned with ‘Advances in X-ray, CL and other spectroscopies and imaging’, in which I noticed a paper on DEPFET active pixel sensors (see [33]) by L. Strueder et 20 al. and, more exotic, ‘Preliminary investigations of a ‘‘Green Earth’’ found as a coating and intrusion in agates from Botswana’ by P.K. Jain et 3 al. The authors capture our attention from the start: The microcrystalline quartz minerals are commonly divided into two groups based upon their petrographic textural types. Flint, jasper and chert are typically granular, with chalcedony showing a fibrous structure; banded chalcedony is known as agate. Agates are found primarily in fine-grained volcanic rocks around the world aged from 38 to 3480 Ma. Agates have a silica content of 98% with up to 2% water being the major impurity. A variety of trace impurities are primarily responsible for the colours that are found in agate. In Botswana, agates are found in the Bobonong area in the north-east. The agate host rock is the basalt from the 180 Ma Karoo volcanics. The wall-lined agates are the usual small sized nodules covered with the characteristic green coating, celadonite, a weakly structured clay mineral. Another variety, known locally as the green moss agate, is found in the same area as agate-containing basalt. Having eroded from the basalt, it is found in blocks of a few kgs up to 70 kg in mass. Because it resembles the Italian gorgonzola cheese it is also known locally as gorgonzola, and has white marble finish, with streaks of green inclusions.

Section 11 is devoted to in situ and UHV EM and Section 12 to ‘Digital imaging and processing techniques’, opened by J.C.H. Spence on lensless, aberration-free imaging. There are papers on phase retrieval, exit-wave reconstruction, 3D electron microscopy and on new detectors. This is followed by ‘Environmental microscopy’, ‘Quantitative electron diffraction techniques’, ‘X-ray microscopy’ and ‘Surface microscopy’. The section on remote microscopy has only 10 papers; it will be interesting to see how many are submitted in 2010 in Brazil. Section 18 covers specimen preparation, Section 19 ‘FIB and ionbeam techniques’ and the volume ends with another truly instrumental section on ‘Advances in instrumentation and techniques’: a multi-beam SEM (M. van Bruggen et 3 al.), an ultrahigh voltage TEM with an O-filter (K. Omoto et 14 al.), designed to operate at 1250 kV, an O-type monochromator from Zeiss and CEOS (G. Benner et 6 al.), a sub-a˚ngstro¨m S/TEM from FEI (M. van der Stam et 6 al.), a ‘super-coherent bio phase TEM’ from Hitachi (Y. Takai et 3 al.), an electrostatic phase plate for TEM (W.J. Wang et 4 al.) and much else. Volumes 1 (Biological and Medical Science) and 3 (Materials Science) are just as thick and well-filled but I cannot give details here. I looked for specifically Japanese specimens in Volume 1 and was indirectly rewarded by A. Kimura et 8 al. who made an ‘Ontogenic study of the foetus sperm whale lung’: ‘‘The fetal sperm whale used in this study was reserved by the late Professor Kusunoki of Yokohama city university. The foetus sperm whale was in the cow whale’s uterus captured in the Bering sea on August in the year 1962, when Professor Kusunoki was a ship’s doctor of the whale catcher boat. And his successor Professor Kishida provided this material for us on August in the year 2000’’. The most colourful contributions came from Thailand, with papers on the Black Tiger Shrimp and the Common Palm Civet (which varies ‘‘from olive-gray to cream with three dark stripes on back and addition dark spots on flanks’’), with India and the Philippines close behind. V.S. Tolentino et 3 al. have studied the ovule and embryo of the Petroleum Nut Plant, ‘‘an interesting and important species, especially at this time when we are experiencing oil crisis. It is a potential alternative source of energy [and] is endemic in the Philippines’’. Across the Pacific now to the USA, where the MSA, MAS, the Canadian Microscopical Society and the International Metallographic Society met in Chicago in 2006. Here, the proceedings [2] have shrunk so dramatically that only 113 of the 1782 abstracts appear, all the rest being consigned to the CD, with the result that no papers at all appear in the book for several topics (including electron holography). Among the topics of direct interest here are microscopy in nanoscience and nanotechnology, catalytic materials (three printed papers, including one by P.L. Gai), quantitative X-ray microanalysis, the 50th anniversary of the observation of dislocations, magnetic materials, TEM automation, EELS, FIB and FIB/SEM, ultrafast EM, low-voltage microscopy, the 1-A˚ barrier in

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CTEM, ESEM, cathodoluminescence tomography, digital imaging, holography and STEM techniques for materials characterization. Returning to the disproportion between the number of printed pages and the number of abstracts banished to the CD, may I suggest that MSA and CUP consider limiting abstracts to one page, which could be much more densely filled than at present. In this way, more than half the abstracts could be printed in a volume of 500 pages, which is not excessive. The lifetime of CDs is likely to be far shorter than that of paper! The sections on STEM, which includes many papers on aberration-corrected instruments, and the 1-A˚ barrier in CTEM, of which the same is true, will be much consulted. The abstracts corresponding to the ‘Pre-meeting congress’ on ‘Materials research in an aberration-free environment’ are not included but can be downloaded from the web. The communications at the 29th Annual Symposium of the Microscopical Society of Ireland were tucked into Infocus, the new name of the Proceedings of the Royal Microscopical Society [3]. Many of the papers use techniques other than electron microscopy but there are two papers from Dublin (where the meeting was held) on aberration-corrected STEM (V. Nicolosi et 6 al. and P.D. Nellist). The Proceedings [4] of EMAG-NANO 2005 were available on paper only to participants and a favoured few; otherwise, they are available (free) on the IoP website in the Journal of Physics: Conference Series, vol. 26 (2006). The broad themes of the meeting were imaging, analysis and fabrication on the nanoscale, which were thought to be appropriate for the Einstein year, though I cannot imagine Einstein sitting through many of the presentations without fidgeting. In practice, there is a plenary lecture on ‘Novel zinc oxide nanostructures discovered by electron microscopy’ given by Z.L. Wang followed by 12 sections. Wang tells us that ‘‘ZnO is unique because it exhibits semiconducting and piezoelectric dual properties. Structurally, ZnO y has diverse structures, whose configurations are much more rich than any of the known nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes.’’ Among those he illustrates are nanopropellers, nanosprings, nanohelixes, nanobows and nanorings, which grow ‘‘slinkily’’. The first section, ‘Imaging and aberration correction’, is particularly relevant, with papers on aberration-corrected STEM (P.D. Nellist et 10 al.), EELS, HAADF in a corrected instrument (M. Falke et 2 al.), aberration-corrected TEM (L. Cervera Gontard et 5 al.) and electron tomography (A.C. Twitchett et al., J. Tong and P. Midgley). ‘Biological and soft materials’ and ‘Surface imaging techniques’ come next, which brings us to ‘Spectroscopy’. This begins with a 6-page contribution on ‘Monochromators and aberration correctors’ by N.D. Browning et 8 al., who describe results obtained with an FEI Tecnai F20 fitted with a monochromator and with a VG HB50 equipped with a Nion corrector. The remaining sections are concerned with various types of materials. As in the past, authors were

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allowed four or six pages, depending on their status; for some unexplained reason, the format of the old IoP Conference Series has been abandoned in favour of a larger size with a more brittle binding; neither change is an improvement! The Russian conferences on electron microscopy and on SEM continue to be recorded in the Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences—Physics (translated from Izvestiya Ross. Akad. Nauk, Ser. Fiz), though only a small subset of the papers presented are printed there. For a full record, you need the ‘Tezisy Dokladov’ distributed to participants. I am late in reporting the SEM-2003 Symposium published in Izvestiya in 2004 and in BRAS in 2005 [5]. Only 14 papers were included there, three of which deal with instrument design. V.G. Galstyan has a good memory, for he recalls that ‘‘The first commercial models of scanning electron microscopes (SEMs), JSM-2 and JSM-3 (JEOL, Japan), contained an attachment for operation in transmission and made it possible to use a 50-keV electron beam. Subsequent models did not contain this attachment since JEOL SEMs could not compete with conventional transmission microscopes and, in addition, they were intended to study mainly massive objects. However, some SEM manufacturers did not give up the concept of using the transmission mode, thus offering this operation mode to the user as a supplement for additional (and rather large) charge. Generally, an attachment for implementing the transmission mode in a SEM is an additional unit in which electrons transmitted through a thin sample are selected by an annular diaphragm or a small opaque screen. Then electrons hit a scintillator which is installed in front of a photomultiplier. The attachment as a whole is placed below the sample holder. This type of attachment for operation in transmission has no particular drawbacks concerning the electron microscopy characteristics but needs some manipulations to prepare it for operation and increases the cost of the microscope. In addition, a resolution competitive with transmission electron microscopes cannot be obtained. The common drawback of all SEMs operating in transmission is that very thin samples are required because the accelerating voltage of a SEM does not exceed 40–50 kV.’’ Galstyan has therefore designed a ‘‘microdevice (with a size no larger than that of a conventional rod for samples), which makes it possible to observe objects by a SEM both in the emission and transmission modes y The device proposed is very simple and inexpensive.’’ The idea is that electrons traverse the specimen and impinge on a gold dynode just beyond it; backscattered or secondary electrons then return through the specimen and are collected by the appropriate detector. Next, A.A. Melnikov et 2 al. have analysed the optics of the specimen-detector region in a SEM. Lastly, O.D. Potapkin (one of Melnikov’s co-authors) continues his work on the optics of electron guns; here he considers the ‘Fernfokus’ mode.

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The proceedings of SEM-2005 are not yet available in BRAS. The abstracts book contains about 140 contributions grouped under the following themes: Diagnostics of semiconductor materials and devices; electron-beam lithography; scanning tunnelling and atomic-force microscopy; applications of SEM in physics, materials science, chemistry and geology; analytical methods in SEM; instruments and electron optics; applications of SEM in biology and medicine. The section on instrumentation and optics contains papers on miniaturization and more gun calculations. Turning now to the Russian conferences on electron microscopy proper, the 20th meeting was held in 2004 and the proceedings therefore appeared in BRAS in 2006 [6]. Nineteen papers were selected for publication there, several concerned with SEM. Only one deals with electron optics: ‘Estimation of the effect of the magnetic field in a directly heated cathode on electron gun parameters’ by L.B. Rozenfeld and D.E. Grinfield. The remainder are concerned with applications to several types of nonbiological specimens. The 21st meeting took place in June 2006 and the abstracts book contains about 250 papers. These are classified into high resolution, nanostructures; microscopy of thin films; instrumentation and electron optics, SEM and TEM; AFM and STM; applications of electron microscopy in materials science and mineralogy; applications of electron microscopy in biology and medicine. Unfortunately, authors rarely include illustrations, which is understandable in the case of micrographs, since the quality of reproduction is not very high; more line-drawings could, however, be included to advantage. The arrival of the proceedings of the Microscopy Society of Southern Africa is eagerly awaited each year and the 2006 edition [7] is well up to standard. The latest Boris Balinsky lecturer was A. Chinsamy, who unravels ‘the biology of extinct vertebrates using bone microstructure’. ‘‘During ontogeny’’, he tells us, ‘‘morphological and allometric changes are well documented for several dinosaur taxa: for example, a decrease in relative orbital size, an increase in tooth counts, and increase or decrease in robusticity of limb elements, and the development of secondary sexual characteristics such as horns and frills’’. The results of skeletochronology are mentioned and any readers at SPOC or MEBS may like to know that ‘‘Collaborative research using Finite Element Analysis and bone microstructure is underway to ascertain the biomechanical stresses caused by masticatory function in dicynodont skulls’’. The 29th John Matthews Memorial Lecture was doubtless an impressive occasion, as P. Stadelmann described the structural and optical properties of HVPE or MOCVD-ELO GaN heterostructures and microcavities, but I somehow feel that Chinsamy must have received more thunderous applause. The long section on Physical Sciences is divided into themes: Pt-group metals, Deformation and recrystallization, Hard metals, Analytical techniques and Chemical analysis. The Life Sciences are subdivided into Microbiology, Botany and

Medicine and Zoology. S.D. Sym have rediscovered Dolichomastix tenuilepis in Cape Town waters and, but for the fact that it is in ‘Botany’, I would have assumed that it is a fish: ‘‘During forward swimming, it glides sluggishly with the right flagellum directed anteriorly’’, which is not very different from how I swim. However, the scale-bar on the micrograph is only 5 mm and subsequent paragraphs indicate that it is phytoplankton. F. Khan et al. are fascinated by carnivorous plants and examine the Cape Sundew, Drosera capensis—a nice reminder of the earliest days of electron microscopy, when L. Marton observed the long-leafed sundew in 1934 with his home-made instrument. How fast do sperm swim? ask G. van der Horst et 3 al. who investigate ‘‘the hypothesis y that the number of sperm mitochondria is species specific and related to sperm morphometric features and sperm velocity’’. Measurements on sperm from humans, Wistar rats, giant rats, mice, gerbils, rodent moles, hyraxes, spring hares and mongooses confirmed their ideas. We are not told which species would win a sperm race but rats (353 mm/s) and mice (270 mm/s) greatly outpaced humans (plodding along at 108 mm/s; note that 100 mm/s ¼ 0.36 m/h). This brings us to the first of several papers on the ostrich, which has a season-ticket for MSSA meetings, and is joined by the emu (‘‘an economically important ratite’’). Despite all this work, much remains mysterious about the ostrich and in particular, so M.Z.J. Elias et al. tell us, ‘‘the arterial microvasculature of the distal ductus deferens, recaptaculum ductus deferens and phallus of the ostrich is unknown’’. They therefore injected India ink into five specimens and examined the result by light microscopy. The mystery continues with M.C. Madekurozwa, who found that ‘‘there do not appear to have been any ultrastructural studies carried out on [the] oviductal region in the immature ostrich’’. The same author examined nerve fibres in the ovary of the emu and, with P.C. Ozegbe, T.A. Aire and J.T. Soley, the testicular capsule and peritubular tissue in both emus and ostriches and nor is their palate neglected (C. Tivane et al.) But all this is mere prelude to the database created by B.B. Janecke et 3 al. (all from Bloemfontein, Rider Haggard country again), ‘for future identification of prey species from hair in leopard scats’. On the assumption that ‘scat’ is cognate with ‘scatological’, it was not difficult for a town-dweller like myself to guess its meaning but I still consulted the OED to be sure; the fifth meaning of the word is indeed ‘Dung, droppings’ with an irresistible quotation from the Devon County Council to illustrate it: ‘‘The two signs of Otters most likely to be found are their footprints and their droppings (usually known as scats or spraints) y recognising spraints requires some practice particularly to avoid confusing them with Mink scats’’. But what have leopards to do here? ‘‘The economic value of game has resulted in losses due to predators being viewed in a serious light and has led to an increased killing of leopards. A research project on leopards was initiated towards addressing the conflict between predators and game farmers. As part of this

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research project, the need has arisen to be able to identify the remains of mammal prey species in predator scats. The first phase of the project was to create a hair morphology database and a key to aid in the identification of prey species’’. The authors describe their findings: ‘‘The scale patterns [of the hairs] of the large mammals were found to be either regular or irregular waved mosaic. The dwarf antelopes were differentiated by having regular waved mosaic scale patterns, while the small mammals (such as squirrels, hares, monkeys) mostly had an irregular waved mosaic pattern. Rat and mice hairs were characterized by having mostly a petal scale pattern’’. They conclude that ‘‘Cuticular scale patterns are thus an important characteristic to be included in the key for identification of species. However, additional characteristics such as cortex and medullar structure, hair thickness and pigmentation should also be included y’’. I have alluded to Sherlock Holmes’s little monograph on cigar ash here in the past and once again, cannot refrain from saying how much he would have approved of B.B. Janecke and his colleagues; he would, however, have included a few game farmers among the potential prey. 1.2. Thematic The series of seminars on Recent Trends in Charged Particle Optics and Surface Physics Instrumentation, held in Skalsky´ Dvu˚r in the Czech Republic, has reached No. 10. Each seminar is a mixture of the Old Guard and new names in the field and the 2006 Seminar is no exception. Again like its predecessors, the topics covered appear randomly in the proceedings [8], in which the articles are in alphabetical order by first author. It is therefore J.E. Barth and M.S. Bronsgeest who open the batting, with thoughts on ‘Practical measures for the brightness of electron sources’; their practical brightness is shown to be appreciably different from the reduced differential brightness for Schottky sources. Proceeding through the alphabet, we meet P. Cˇernoch and J. Jira´k on a segmental ionization detector, A. Delong and P. Sˇte˘pa´n on a low-voltage EM and papers on e-beam machining and dopant contrast. H.Q. Hoang et 3 al. have performed direct ray-tracing through curved magnetic sector plates and M. Jacka and A. Pratt enquire whether atom optics is a serious contender to electron optics—they are optimistic. A. Khursheed and D. Yu simulate the performance of a TOF electron emission microscope which brings us to the letter L, with a description of B. Lencova´’s latest program suite, EOD. This is clearly powerful and flexible and a considerable improvement on its predecessors. I. Mu¨llerova´ points out the attractions of the cathode-lens mode in SEM and she is followed by E. Munro et 3 al., who are now into differential algebra. Moving on to ‘‘R’’, T. Radlicˇka has re-examined the Coulomb interaction in ion and electron beams and G. Scho¨nhense describes some intriguing new observations with time-resolved PEEM. M.J. van Bruggen et 2 al. describe a most ingenious way of compensating

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aberrations in a multibeam source. The book would end with a paper by P. Wandrol and I. Mu¨llerova´ on ‘Detection of signal electrons in low-voltage SEM’ were it not for the fact that the paper by M. Manˇkosˇ et 4 al. on ‘Electron optics for low-energy electron microscopy’ is included as a supplement. The topics examined in the Russian Seminars on Problems of Theoretical and Applied Electron Optics are not so very different from those at Skalsky´ Dvu˚r. The English translation of the proceedings of the seventh such seminar is now available and contains 25 contributions [9]. Among these are papers by D. Greenfield et 3 al. on perturbation techniques and by D. Greenfield on FEM simulation of thermionic guns. In the first of these, the authors argue that a perturbation approach is the best way of studying parasitic aberrations, Coulomb interactions and electron scattering. Further on is a paper by V.A. Zhukov and A.V. Zavyalova on ‘Possibility and example of the axial aberration correction in the combined axially symmetric electromagnetic mirror’. This is a most interesting extension of earlier work on the use of electrostatic mirrors for correction and should not be missed. The subsequent sessions are also of interest but less directly relevant here. The themes are ‘Analytic and technological electron-optical devices and equipment’, ‘Intensive [sic] electron beam simulation and design’ and ‘Electron and ion-beam interactions with matter’. The annual SCANNING conference is regularly recorded in Scanning [10]; the 2006 meeting had sessions on FIB microscopy, advances in scanning imaging and analysis, forensic science, museum objects and LVSEM and ESEM in the pharmaceutical industry as well as applications in the life sciences. There are pearls throughout. The first, by M. dello Staffolo et 2 al. all from Argentina, concerns the ‘Microstructure of functional desserts containing dietary fibers’: Commercial dairy desserts contain milk, sugar, flavors, colorants, thickeners (starches, gums, etc.) and gelling agents (carrageenans, etc.). Addition of fibers has beneficial effects for human health. Their consumption may prevent pathologies such as coronary disease, hypertension, diabetes, hyper-cholesterolemia, and gastrointestinal disorders, and is also associated with weight loss. A daily intake of 25–30 g per adult is recommended. Structure and flavor perception may be modified by minor modifications of the basic formulation. The objective of the work was to evaluate the microstructure of functional dairy desserts with dietary fibers by rheological and microscopy studies. y determining texture quality of these desserts, which depended on fibre type, is necessary because of its relationship with consumer acceptability they conclude fatalistically. W.E. Vanderlinde has revived forward-scattering SEM, and claims that ‘‘the images produced by forward-scattered electron imaging are in many cases superior to the low-loss

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images published in the literature’’. In the forensic science section, J.B. Crippin uses SEM/EDX to analyse ‘flash bangs and flash bang fuzes’:

Lastly, a few words on ‘Scanning museum objects: research, documentation and preservation’, and in particular, those of B. Frolich:

With increased use of distraction devices (flash bangs) by law enforcement forced entry teams, the possibility that these items may produce particles characteristic of those associated with ‘typical’ gunshot residue (GSR) particles [sic]. The ‘bad guys’ are very aware of this fact and are using a defense of ‘I didn’t shoot, the residue is from the flash bang they threw at me.’ The fuse mechanism in flash bangs utilizes a primer cap that is very similar if not identical to the primer cap used in ammunition. It becomes paramount to determine whether this is possible and how it could effect [sic] a ‘normal’ GSR analysis from this type of scene. Are the particles from flash bang consistent with characteristic/ normal GSR particles or do they have different morphology and/or composition? Six flash bang fuses will be initiated and samples by normal stubbing methodology. The stubs will be run under the same conditions as a stub utilized for GSR. At the end of the study it is hoped that the following question can be answered: Are the particles from the flash bang or did the suspect fire a weapon at the officers?

The Smithsonian Institution constitutes eighteen major museums, art galleries, a zoological garden, and numerous research facilities, making it the world’s largest museum complex. Almost 150 million objects are curated by the institution and of these, 125 million natural and cultural items are located in the National Museum of Natural History. Two of our museums (Natural History and Air and Space) are consistently among the three most visited museums in the world. Our museums occupy an important niche as our country’s foremost emporium for increasing the diffusion of knowledge of the natural world, history, technology and art. As we look to the future and new ways of discovery through technology, we are finding that many of these millions of objects have more to share with us than ever imagined through the advent of non-invasive 21st Century X-ray techniques y What is the impact of this technology on our research potential? Access to advanced CT equipment combined with the most comprehensive museum collections in the world has enabled us to develop new methods in non-destructive and non-invasive technologies, all relevant to research, conservation, and education. The awareness of this technology is growing. Teams of scientists and scholars have used our equipment to study an array of modern and antique objects from our museums and art galleries. Some examples of this are: Sculptures of the Cuban artist Juan Francisco, to identify decay in material and subsequent planning for restoration. Astronaut Alan Bean’s Apollo 11 space suit from our Air and Space museum has been studied to learn about manufacturing principles and to identify decaying material such as rubber gaskets and seals. More than 40 stringed instruments from our American History museum and the Library of Congress, including violins, violas and cellos made by Stradivari, Gueneri [sic, presumably Guarneri], Amati and Stainer have been scanned and analysed to help understand temporal variations in manufacturing principles. Diseased animals from the National Zoological Garden have been scanned, including the cervical and upper thoracic anatomy of a diseased elephant to identify neurological problems. The newly initiated collaboration with our Zoological Garden is enabling further ventures including the scanning of diseased animals before necropsies and in assisting in diagnosing sicknesses in live animals. From our own Natural History museum, we have used the Somatom scanner to study natural and artificial mummified bodies including mummies from Egypt, the Aleutian Islands, Peru, and Mongolia. This has helped us understand spiritual life in the Aleutians and assist in the forensic reconstruction of the 600 year old execution

The abstract stops there so I cannot tell you whether he could answer it. I particularly liked the introduction to the abstract submitted by K. Simpson of the Forensic Explosives Laboratory in Kent: The Forensic Explosives Laboratory (FEL) is a group within the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) which is part of the Ministry of Defence. The FEL remit is to investigate the terrorist and criminal misuse of explosives on mainland United Kingdom, and as such we are the sole providers of this service to all UK police forces, with the exception of Northern Ireland which has its own resident laboratory. We have also been called upon to assist internationally with incidents such as the 2002 bombings on Bali, and so forth. The FEL claims to be if not the oldest, then one of the oldest forensic laboratories in the world, tracing its history back to the investigation of an explosion at the Patent Gun Cotton Factory, Stowmarket, in August 1871. A. Boyde is a regular participant in these meetings and here he enquires what happens to bones subjected ‘‘to (overload) exercise’’. I cannot reproduce all his discussion of the negative effects of excessive exercise; his concluding remark, ‘‘More attention should be paid to the role of articular calcified cartilage mineralization levels in understanding exercise-induced orthopaedic problems’’ reinforced my lifelong belief in the benefits of a lazy, sedentary lifestyle.

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of nine Mongolian individuals during the Yuan period (AD 1279–1368). We provided, in collaboration with Emory University, the first description and statistical tests of patterns of changes in brain size relative to body size in cetaceans over 47 million years. We have also supported research and preservation of items such as archaeological and ethnographical objects from the Middle East, the Americas, Central and Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe. Our paleobiologists and sedimentologists have used the scanner to study internal variation in large blocks of sediments, in borehole cores, and biological variation in fossils including Permian ophiacodon, Jurassic stegosaurs and brontosaurs, and Cretaceous triceratops. More recently, we initiated a small project including the scanning of antique books to study binding procedures. The Somatom scanner is an excellent tool for objects up to the size and dimensions of a human being. However, the resolution is not good enough for smaller objects. We plan to include a micro CT scanner in our laboratory, which would enable us to obtain excellent images of smaller objects including rodent skulls, cross sections of original strings from antique stringed instruments, trabecular bone structures, detailed images of amber embedded objects such as insects and plants, anthropological material such as beads, and much more. We see CT to be a valuable tool in future research and preservation. It allows researchers and conservators to study and evaluate objects in a non-destructive manner. Future developments include new algorithms for the enhancement of image reconstruction, and the application of micro-CT scanners with resolutions better than 8–20 mm and better viewing and analytical software. Also from the Smithsonian Institution, R. Snyder describes work on Kennewick Man (made necessary by ‘‘the contentious nature surrounding the ownership and access to’’ him. I had never heard of this Man but Google quickly enlightened me—the contentiousness has apparently been resolved and the remains of this early ‘American’ will remain accessible in a museum. Less glamorous but just as interesting is a leaf from the late Cretaceous Rock River Formation, the taphonomy of which is studied by W. Wahl of the Wyoming Dinosaur Centre in Thermopolis (WY). ‘Frontiers of Electron Microscopy in Materials Science’ is a biennial meeting that has yet to find a permanent home for its proceedings. Those of the 2005 (tenth) meeting, held in Kasteel Vaalsbroek in the Netherlands but organized by the Ernst Ruska Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons in Ju¨lich are shared between the Journal of Materials Science [11] and Microscopy and Microanalysis [12]: contributions on materials science in the Journal, those on new techniques and theory in M&M. In the Journal, I found the article by K. Tillmann et 3 al. on ‘Spherical-aberration correction in tandem with the restoration of the exit-plane wavefunction: synergetic tools

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for the imaging of lattice imperfections in crystalline solids at atomic resolution’ particularly clear. Among the many applications is an account of ‘material-specific contrast in the ESM and its application in dentistry’ by N. Franz et 3 al., who tell us that ‘‘the achievement of a constant and reliable gap-free bond between dentin/enamel and adhesive/composite interfaces is sought after in dentistry but is difficult to realize. One reason is that the adhesives responsible for the mechanical contact between composites and the hydrated dentin/enamel surfaces, are often insufficiently polymerized. This is mostly due to the presence of spittle (an enzyme–water mixture), oxygen and dentin liquid at the tooth surfaces, where the bonding of the adhesive/primer combinations shall take place’’. The choice of the homely word ‘spittle’ brings their work close to the bathroom! The papers gathered in M&M are largely concerned with instrumentation and techniques and hence of immediate interest here. From CEOS, H. Mu¨ller et 3 al. describe their recent thinking on the ‘hexapole Cs-corrector for the scanning transmission electron microscope’. K. Mitsuishi et 9 al. present a Cs-corrector for UHV STEM. A.I. Kirkland et al. reconsider ways of measuring aberrations for HRTEM and two of the same authors (L.-y. Chang and A.I. Kirkland) compare linear and nonlinear restoration. T. Niermann et al. use pattern recognition to help interpret high-resolution images. D.A. Blom et 3 al. and T. Walther and H. Stegmann present early results from the aberration-corrected JEOL (S)TEM at Oak Ridge and from ‘the first monochromated and aberration-corrected 200-kV field-emission transmission electron microscope’, respectively. C.T. Koch et 6 al. tell us how SESAM is progressing and M. Watanabe et 8 al. discuss ‘Improvements in the X-ray analytical capabilities of a scanning transmission electron microscope by spherical aberration correction’. In a related area, D.E. Newbury considers ‘Electron-excited energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry at high speed and high resolution’. P.G. Kotula and M.R. Keenan apply multivariate statistical analysis to STEM X-ray spectral images. The two last articles are on TEM sample preparation (K. Mitsuishi et 5 al.) and Monte Carlo simulation (Z.-q. Liu et al.). Another meeting regularly covered in these group reviews is Micro and Nanoengineering. The 2005 meeting (Vienna 19–22 September 2005) fills more than 1200 pages of Microelectronic Engineering [13]. This begins with a history of the building in which the congress was held, in which we meet the early Habsburgs, Maria-Theresia, Napoleon, Franz Josef and ‘Sissi’. In a fascinating account of ‘Analysis of works of art down to the nanometric scale’, M. Menu tells us how the 17th century Dutch painter O.M. van Schriek used real butterfly wings in his pictures; he explains how silverpoint drawings can be analysed nondestructively and then shows how the provenance of ancient rubies can be established by PIXE and PIGE. The rubies in question are in the eye-sockets and navel of a Parthian alabaster statuette of Ishtar dating from the 3rd century BC. A study of the trace elements present showed

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that the stones are almost certainly Burmese, which is ‘‘in good accordance with some Sanskrit texts of the 1st millennium BC and the knowledge we have of the silk trade road’’. His article is well illustrated though an unfortunate background effect in the photograph of Ishtar in profile casts doubt on her sex—her front view is unambiguous. The main text follows the usual divisions, with variants of course: Photon lithography, EUV lithography, Electron beam lithography, Ion beam lithography and technology, Maskless lithography, Lithography modelling, Process diagnostics and control, Resist materials, metrology and processing, Pattern transfer, Fabrication of micron and nano-systems, Nanoscale engineering and fabrication, Micro- and nano-biotechnology and Nanodevices. You might easily overlook a paper by E. Munro et 4 al. which has been placed in ‘Lithography modelling’, on ‘Simulation software for designing electron and ion beam equipment’, which gives a good idea of the power and versatility of modern program suites for charged-particle optics although only the MEBS programs are mentioned; ‘rival’ suites, such as the Czech EOD, are not described. The Workshops of the European Microbeam Analysis Society regularly appear in Microchimica Acta and the ninth such workshop, held together with the Third Meeting of the International Union of Microbeam Analysis Societies is recorded in [14]. There are many papers of immediate interest to ultramicroscopists, beginning with P.M. Voyles on ‘Imaging single atoms with Z-contrast STEM in two and three dimensions’; it is thanks to aberration correction that the step to 3-D has become possible: ‘‘It now appears that we will not have to wait another 30 years for the solution to the two-dimensional projection problemythe high probe convergence angles made possible by C3-corrected lenses reduce the depth of focus so it is much less than the sample thickness. 3D images may therefore be built up by stacking a defocus series of 2D images. This method has been common in light microscopy for decades, but until the advent C3 [sic] correction, the numerical apertures of electron lenses were too small for optical sectioning to be used’’. Some other noteworthy papers deal with focus-modulation electron microscopy (Y. Takai et 3 al.), orientation imaging microscopy for the TEM (D.J. Dingley), backscatter diffraction and interfaces (V. Randle), ESEM applications from cultural heritage conservation to nano-behaviour (E. Doehne), low-voltage contrast with an SEM transmission electron detector (F. Grillon) and direct visualization of electromagnetic microfields by superposition of two kinds of electron holograms (A. Ohshita et 4 al.). There is also a paper on off-line metrology on SEM images using grey-scale morphology by E.N. Zois et al. R. Haswell et al. investigate van Gogh’s painting grounds and most extraordinary of all, I. Joosten et 3 al. use the SEM to study the textile fragments found in the pre-historic salt-mine at Hallstadt, in Austria. These date from between 1400 and 400 BC and are not only in reasonably good condition but ‘‘most of the fragments still have colours, i.e. yellow, green,

olive-green, brown, blue and black. The fragments were found embedded in the ‘heathen’s rock’ (Heidengebirge), a layer containing salt, clay, gypsum, broken shafts, countless spills of spruce and fir used as torches, food remains and parts of broken bronze tools’’. What did they use as dyestuffs? Woad, an insect dye (blue), tannin, orchil (made from a lichen, typically Roccelli tinctoria) and weld (Reseda luteola, the old dyers’ weed) seem to have been the preferred sources. Hallstadt Man was prepared to go to some trouble to avoid looking drab: ‘‘The textiles were coloured using complicated dying techniques such as vat dying with woad and mordant dying with yellow and red dyes’’. 2. Books I am so pleased with my book y —typography, binding and, must I say it, literary matter—that I am any day to be seen huggling it up, and am become a spectacle to Gods and men because of it. From a letter by William Morris, probably to Georgie Burne-Jones. 2.1. Electrons New editions of both of the books on electron tomography written or edited by J. Frank have appeared. Three-dimensional Microscopy of Macromolecular Assemblies has been revised and updated throughout, with more information about specimen preparation and the tools for interpreting density maps and of course description of progress in the algorithms used for reconstruction [15]. The first edition was the indispensable textbook on the subject from the day it was published and everyone involved in 3D reconstruction will have to buy this new edition. The price of the paperback is not as different from that of the hardback as one would like (£58 while the hardback is £71). The other Frank book is a revised edition of Electron Tomography [16], with several new contributors and new topics, though the number of chapters remains the same (15). After an introduction by J. Frank, P.K. Luther describes sample shrinkage, M. Marko et 2 al. cover tomography of frozen-hydrated sections of cells and tissues, I analyse the electron microscope as a structure projector and also discuss EELS, A.J. Koster and M. Ba´rcena survey cryo tomography and D.N. Mastronarde and S.S. Brandt explain how images are aligned, with and without markers, respectively. Three chapters on methods of reconstruction come next: J.-M. Carazo et 3 al. on algorithms, M. Radermacher on weighted back-projection and E. Zeitler on the use of orthogonal functions in general. P.A. Penczek and J. Frank analyse the notion of resolution. The last five chapters are concerned with various aspects of image processing and pattern recognition: R. Hegerl and A.S. Frangakis on denoising and on segmentation; M. Jiang et 3 al. also on segmentation;

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A.S. Frangakis and B.K. Rath on motif search; and K.A. Taylor et al. on localization and classification of repetitive structures. For anyone working on 3-D reconstruction in cell biology, both these books are indispensable—and given the rapidly growing interest in 3-D reconstruction of materials, they will probably be found useful in physics and materials sciences laboratories too. The first of the above books is a monograph and the chapters in the second are long enough to present each topic in considerable detail. In Electron Crystallography edited by T.E. Weirich, J.L. La´ba´r and X. Zou, which records the papers delivered at a NATO ASI in June 2004, many of the contributions are too short for the newcomer but are full of information about recent developments [17]. I cannot list all the 35 chapters, which are grouped into five sections: the Introduction (Zou, Kisielowski, Spence and M. and I. Hargittai); Experimental Techniques; Crystal Structure Determination from Electron Microscopy Data; and Applications (functional materials, polymorphs, mineralogy and materials, zeolites and mesoporous crystals, nanocrystals, beam-sensitive materials and catalysts). The concluding section contains extended abstracts of some of the posters. Last in this section, a book on Scanning Auger Electron Microscopy edited by M. Prutton and M. El Gomati [18]. Although the latter are officially ‘editors’, they are also authors of seven of the ten chapters, the other three being contributed by J.A.D. Matthew on the Auger process, R.K. Wild on applications in materials science and C.F.H. Gondran on applications in semiconductor manufacturing. As a result, the book is essentially a monograph on the subject by the editors and as such, extremely useful. 2.2. Electrons and others The critic notices what needs to be watered, pruned and fertilized y At the end of his time, the garden should reflect the values he embodied. Joseph McLellan, music critic of the Washington Post The first volume of the four-volume set of books on Applied Scanning Probe Methods edited by B. Bhushan and H. Fuchs has now been joined by its three successors and if this is your subject you really need all four [19]. Volume II, which covers SPM techniques, has a foreword by c.f. quate [sic], ‘‘co-inventor of AFM in 1985’’ (and perhaps a friend of e.e. cummings) and eleven chapters on a variety of techniques: Higher harmonics in dynamic AFM (R.W. and M. Stark), Atomic force acoustic microscopy (U. Rabe), Scanning ion conductance microscopy (T.E. Scha¨ffer et 2 al.), Spin-polarized STM (W. Wulfhekel et 2 al.), Dynamic force microscopy and spectroscopy (F. Kienberger et 2 al.), Sensor technology for SPM (E. Oesterschulze et 6 al.), Quantitative nanomechanical measurements in biology (M. Lekka and A.J. Kulik), Scanning microdeformation and microscopy (P. Vairac and B. Cretin), Electrostatic force and force-gradient microscopy (P. Girard and A.N. Titkov), Polarization-modulation techniques in NFOM

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(P.G. Gucciardi et 3 al.) and finally, FIB as a scanning probe (V. Raffa et 3 al.). Volume III, Characterization, contains eleven chapters, on nanomedicine (D. Nikova et 5 al.), living cells (I.C. Gebeshuber et 4 al.), leaves (Z. Burton and B. Bhushan), macromolecular dynamics (S. Sills and R.M. Overney), organic supramolecules (L. Nony et 2 al.), 1-D and 2-D systems (L. Gavioli and M. Sancrotti), ferroelectrics (O. Tikhomirov et 2 al.), rough surfaces (R. Buzio and U. Valbusa), wear (N.K. Myshkin et 2 al.), fullerene-like nanoparticles (L. Rapoport and A. Verdyan) and magnetic tapes (J.K. Knudsen). The concluding volume IV is subtitled Industrial Applications and covers scanning probe lithography (J.M. Kinsella and A. Ivanisevic), human hair and skin (B. Bhushan and C. LaTorre), nanofabrication (J.C. Garno and J.D. Batleas), local oxidation nanolithography (M. Tello et 2 al.), molecular assemblies (C. Wang and C. Bai), cantilever array sensors (H.P. Lang et 2 al.), nano-thermomechanics (B. Gotsmann and U. Du¨rig) and heated AFM cantilevers (B.A. Nelson and W.P. King). The chapter on hair and skin is exactly what is needed to justify to the general public the money spent on scientific research. At the beginning of the chapter we are told what tribological attributes are needed for conditioners to give a ‘‘smooth feel in wet and dry environments’’, ensure ‘‘shaking and bouncing during daily activities’’ and ‘‘easy combing and styling’’ and a figure (Fig. 1a) shows desirable features on the macroscale and micro- or nanoscale; another figure (Fig. 1b), shows how friction is studied. With 100,000 hairs per head and growth at about a centimetre per month, there is clearly room for development. This long contribution tells us all about Caucasian, Asian and African hair and the effects of the various treatments to which it is subjected in the attempt to ‘‘alter the health, feel, shine, colour, softness and overall aesthetics of the hair’’. Next, a rather different approach to SPM; in Scanning Probe Microscopies Beyond Imaging, subtitled ‘Manipulation of molecules and nanostructures’ [20]. P. Samori has assembled 16 essays on nanoscale structural, mechanical and electrical properties (four chapters), SFM-based approaches to patterning (two chapters), mechanical properties (three chapters), bond strength and tracking chemical reactions (two chapters), and electrical properties of nanoscale objects (two chapters). Next is an essay on scanning electrochemical microscopy beyond imaging and the book ends with two chapters on theoretical approaches. This is a most useful and original collection, containing numerous pointers for the future. I cannot do much more than mention Exploring Scanning Probe Microscopy with MATHEMATICA by D. Sarid [21] as I have not got MATHEMATICA on my computer. The book itself consists of 20 chapters on such SPM topics as cantilevers, tip-sample adhesion, noncontact and tapping modes, Fowler-Nordheim tunnelling, nearfield optics, scanning thermal conductivity and Kelvin probe force microscopy and Raman scattering in nanocrystals. In each chapter, the equations used to analyse the

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Fig. 1. (a) Macroscale and micro/nanoscale mechanisms of hair and skin friction during feel or touch, shaking and bouncing of the hair, combing and entanglement (Courtesy of C. LaTorre and B. Bhushan and of Elsevier; after Ultramicroscopy 105 (2005) 155). (b) Comparison of macroscale and micro/ nanoscale friction test apparatuses (Courtesy of Springer Science & Business Media, Fig. 24.10 of [19, vol. IV]).

subject are presented and the accompanying CD-ROM also contains these and the user can run the corresponding code, altering it if desired. I end this section with a paean of praise, as modestly worded as possible, for Science of Microscopy, edited by J.C.H. Spence and myself, 20 long presentations of various branches of microscopy in two volumes [22]. Part I is devoted to ‘Imaging with electrons’ and opens with an account of ‘Atomic-resolution TEM’ by A.I. Kirkland and

J.L. Hutchison. Then come P.D. Nellist on STEM, R. Reichelt on SEM (almost book-length at 141 pages), G. Botton on AEM (also long, 134 pages), W.E. King et 4 al. on High-speed electron microscopy and F.M. Ross on in situ TEM. Next is another very long contribution on cryoelectron tomography by J.M. Plitzko and W. Baumeister and chapters on LEEM and SPLEEM (E. Bauer) and PEEM (J. Feng and A. Scholl). The first volume ends with an account of aberration correction by myself.

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Volume II opens with three chapters on ‘Imaging with photons’: two-photon excitation fluorescence microscopy by A. Diaspro et 8 al., nanoscale resolution in far-field fluorescence microscopy (S.W. Hell and A. Scho¨nle) and zone-plate X-ray microscopes (M. Howells, C. Jacobson and T. Warwick). Part III, ‘Near-field scanning probes’, contains four contributions: SPM in materials science (M.P. Nikiforov and D.A. Bonnell), STM in surface science (P. Sutter), AFM in the life sciences (M. Amrein) and low-temperature STM (U. Weierstall). The final section, ‘Holographic and lensless modes’, contains a chapter by R.E. Dunin-Borkowski et 3 al. on electron holography and another on diffractive (lensless) imaging by J.C.H. Spence. Appropriately, the collection is rounded off with ‘The notion of resolution’ by S. van Aert et 3 al. 2.3. Image processing Two optic nerves, they say, she ties Like spectacles across the eyes; By which the spirits bring her word, Whene’er the balls are fix’d or stirr’d. y Without these aids, to be more serious, Her power, they hold, had been precarious. From ‘Alma’ by Matthew Prior1 Mathematics of Digital Images by S.G. Hoggar [23], which deals with ‘Creation, compression, restoration, recognition’, takes pride of place with its 854 large and beautifully printed pages. Even so, some whole branches of the subject have had to be left out: there is, for example, nothing about mathematical morphology. The first part is concerned with The Plane: isometries, braid patterns, symmetries, the 17 plane patterns and ‘More plane truth’. Part II is on matrix structures and Part III is entitled ‘Here’s to probability’, with chapters on probability, random vectors and sampling and inference. Part IV has the pleasing title ‘Information, error and belief’ and Part V discusses ‘Transforming the image’: the Fourier transform of course but also fractals and wavelets. The concluding Part, ‘See, edit, reconstruct’ has a chapter on B-spline wavelets and another on neural networks, self-organising nets, information theory and tomography. The contents are exactly what the title indicates, the formal mathematics of many of the operations of image processing, but there are plenty of worked examples throughout and the problems at the end of each chapter are, to judge from a random sampling, less difficult than the text might presage. I think that, for the topics covered, this treatise will be much appreciated. All mathematical morphologists know that the late Georges Matheron was the founder of the Centre de Morphologie Mathe´matique in the Ecole des Mines in Fontainebleau. M. Bilodeau, F. Meyer and M. Schmitt 1 Who also wrote ‘‘Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician’’.

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have produced a splendid volume in honour of his memory: Space, Structure and Randomness [24]. Before listing the main contents, I must pause to describe the three prefaces, which will delight many readers. First come ‘Personal reminiscences of Georges Matheron’ by D. Stoyan, from what used to be East Germany. He tells us how he encountered Matheron’s work in a (pirated) Russian translation and evokes many indirect contacts. After Matheron’s death, he ‘‘asked Jean Serra for Georges Matheron’s personal copy of Hadwiger’s book—expecting a book with many pencil notes. To my surprise I learned that Georges Matheron had used a library copy’’. This is followed by ‘A few words about Georges Matheron (1930–2000)’ by J. Serra, who tells us something about the man as well as the mathematician. The book is divided into three parts: Geostatistics, Random Sets and Mathematical Morphology. There is much of interest throughout but for ultramicroscopists, the last section is the most relevant. It begins with ‘Morphological operators for the segmentation of colour images’ by J. Serra, a notoriously difficult area. ‘Automatic design of morphological operators’ by J. Barrera, G.J.F. Banon and E.R. Dougherty follows after which H.J.A.M. Heijmans and J. Goutsias discuss ‘Morphological decomposition systems with perfect reconstruction’. F. Meyer revisits ‘Morphological segmentation’ and M. Schmitt considers the ‘Ubiquity of the distance function in mathematical morphology’. The collection ends with ‘Partial differential equations for morphological operators’ by F. Guichard, P. Maragos and J.-M. Morel. A book to stand next to the Proceedings of the mathematical morphology congresses. Insight into Images [25] edited by T.S. Yoo introduced me to the Insight Toolkit (ITK), which is an ‘‘open source library of software components for data segmentation and registration, provided through federal funding administered by the National Library of Medicine, NIH and available in the public domain’’. This was produced in response to researchers’ complaints that they were drowning in the data in the Visible Human Project Male and Female Datasets (5189 ladies but only 1971 gentlemen for reasons unspecified). The book is thus a guide to some of the tools employed in medical image processing. There is nothing very new in the text but the examples are a different matter. We are shown adipose tissue from wholebody MRI scans, human and chimpanzee brains, vascular trees, an anterior skull base meningioma, kidneys and much else of anatomical interest. It is addressed to the medical imaging community who will, however, complain about the index. Even ‘‘watershed’’ is not present, though a figure (5.1) is concerned with this notion. As I have commented in the past, ‘handbooks’ are in fashion and N. Paragios, Y.-m. Chen and O. Faugeras have edited a Handbook of Mathematical Models in Computer Vision [26]. The main themes are Image reconstruction, Boundary extraction, segmentation and grouping, Shape modelling and registration, Motion analysis, Optical flow and tracking, 3D from images,

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projective geometry and stereo reconstruction and Applications: medical analysis. Many of the topics analysed are not covered in the familiar treatises on image processing, which makes this a useful and not ruinously expensive addition to the bookshelf. The three chapters on reconstruction, for example, begin with ‘Diffusion filters and wavelets: what can they learn from each other?’ by J. Wieckert et 4 al. and continue with ‘Total variation image restoration’ by T. Chan et 3 al. and ‘PDE-based image and surface inpainting’ (M. Bertalmio et 3 al.). Boundary extraction begins with a chapter by F. Mayer on levellings. (Here too, the indexer has fallen asleep for, once again, mathematical morphology is not in the index and nor are dilation and erosion!) Y. Boykov and O. Vekster explain what graph cuts are and, several chapters further on, A. Yezzi et 4 al. describe geometric snakes. I cannot list all the contributions here but this selection gives a good idea of the coverage, which is impressive. This really is a handbook that rewards consultation. Also from Springer is a Handbook of Geometric Computing edited by E.B. Corrochano [27]. The subtitle, ‘Applications in pattern recognition, computer vision, neuralcomputing and robotics’, indicates why I include it here. The nine parts cover Neuroscience, Neural networks, Image Processing, Computer vision, Perception and action, Uncertainty in geometric computations, Computer graphics and visualization, Geometry and robotics and Reaching and motion planning. The 23 individual contributions contain much recent material, not widely available, and I concentrate here on two chapters: ‘Geometric framework for image processing’ by J.J. Koenderink and ‘A lattice algebraic approach to neural computation’ by G.X. Ritter and L. Iancu (Ritter’s work on image algebra has been mentioned here more than once in the past). J.J. Koenderink is unhappy with the way image processing is treated and indeed, most of the books on the subject are more like cookery books than science books. This how he views the situation: I have roughly sketched a framework for image processing that is coherent and almost entirely geometrical in nature. Although complicated through the importance of many different spaces (the base space, the image domain, image space, a variety of scale spaces, complicated mixtures in the case of locally disorderly representations) one arrives at a fully coherent view because the geometries of all these spaces are variously interrelated. There is no ‘adhockery’ involved. Is ‘imaging processing’ a science? Well, not right now. But there is no reason it could not be. At this moment the field is only defined by what its practitioners do and I consider it as largely a grab bag of hacks (theory is not valued highly by a community mainly interested in applications). However, most of the fundamentals for a principled framework are in place, though these threads are scattered around throughout the literature and are often only partially (or not at all) recognized for what

they are. In short, I do not think much fundamental work remains to be done for someone to write a textbook on image processing that departs from first principles, develops the field logically, and steers free of hacks, unnecessary approximations and mere showpieces of mathematical dexterity. All that is needed is ‘good taste’ (in the mathematician’s sense) and a solid intuitive feeling for what is conceptually important and what is mere fluff (no matter how well it works or how fast, or how impressively flashy the mathematics). Of course, such a textbook would only serve to establish (or define) the field as a science. Much remains to be done (I am happy to say). Unfortunately, it may be some time before someone takes on this challenge seriously, as the field appears to perceive no need for it. His chapter gives some idea of the kind of formal approach he has in mind. As his ideas are geometric, it is perhaps not surprising that he does not mention image algebra, some of the aims of which are not very different from his. The other chapter I have singled out is useful because the lattice algebraic approach has penetrated into several areas of image processing and this lucid presentation will, I am sure, be appreciated. Before leaving this unusual collection, I mention two other chapters that caught my eye: ‘Eigenproblems in pattern recognition’ by T. de Bie, N. Cristianini and R. Rosipal and ‘Geometric filters, diffusion flows and kernels in image processing’ by A. Spira, N. Sochen and R. Kimmel. C.M. Bishop has written a hefty treatise [28] on Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning, which proceeds at a leisurely pace through probability, regression, classification, neural networks, kernel methods, sparse kernel machines, graphical models, mixture models and EM (expectation–maximization, not electron microscopy), approximate inference, sampling methods, continuous latent variables, sequential data and combining models. Everything is explained with only the minimum amount of mathematics and numerous illustrations. Springer have done Bishop proud, with information in the margins in red and colour illustrations in place in the text (not grouped together in a colour insert). Biographies of the main players in the theory are printed on a mauve background with their pictures in black-and-white (photographs) or colour (portraits): Among those honoured are Shannon, Jacob Bernoulli, Gauss, Rosenblatt and Gibbs. For 738 pages and lots of colour, the price of h63.25 is remarkable. A new edition of W.K. Pratt’s Digital Image Processing [29] is something of a triumph: none of the other major texts can boast so many editions! This one follows the plan of its predecessors, the principal novelty being the inclusion of a CD-ROM containing ‘‘the PIKS Scientific API’’. The very beginning of the book, on the verso of the title page, is worrying: ‘‘About the cover’’ tells us about five images printed as a stripe across the front cover, in which peppers and a cat are subjected to various kinds of processing. But

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then, ‘‘The lower right image is a sharpened version of the original image y [by a] technique called unsharp masking’’. Where is it? There is no lower right image on the cover of my copy. I should like to think that I have a rare variant binding, which bibliophiles a century hence will envy me—but I fear that, as so often in publishing today, no-one has noticed that someone forgot to include this image (or perhaps it was thought inferior to the others and left out on purpose). The book itself is in six parts, of which the last is new: Continuous image characterization; Digital [i.e., discrete] image characterization; Discrete two-dimensional processing; Image improvement; Image analysis; and Image processing software. Pratt tells us that he was obliged to omit pattern recognition, image reconstruction from projections, image understanding, image coding, scientific visualization and computer graphics. Some of the remaining topics are covered more thoroughly than others and the updating too is uneven. In Chapter 14, Morphological image processing, for example, almost all the references date from the 1980s or earlier; only two were published in the 1990s and the most recent of the other two is from 2002. The section on gray-scale morphological operations (admittedly a difficult subject) is in consequence far from up to date and unnecessarily discouraging to the reader. Nevertheless, most of the book remains a valuable introduction to the aspects of the subject that are included, it is very nicely printed and easy to read. It ends with a collection of PIKS [Programmer’s Imaging Kernel System] exercises, for which a CD-ROM is provided, requiring Solaris Version 2.5 or Windows 2000, NT, XP or Vista as OS. Mac lovers can continue to use the third edition. 2.4. Other So have I known a hopeful youth Sit down in quest of lore and truth With tomes sufficient to confound him, Like Tohu Bohu, heaped around him,– Mamurra stuck to Theophrastus, And Galen tumbling o’er Bombastus. When lo! While all that’s learned and wise Absorbs the boy, he lifts his eyes, And through the windows of his study Beholds some damsel fair and ruddy, With eyes, as brightly turned upon him as The angel’s were on Hieronymus. Quick fly the folios, widely scattered, Old Homer’s laurelled brow is battered, And Sappho, headlong sent, flies just in The reverend eye of St. Augustin. Raptured he quits each dozing sage, Oh woman, for thy lovelier page: Sweet book!—unlike the books of art, —Whose errors are thy fairest part: In whom the dear errata column Is the best page in all the volume! The Devil among the Scholars by Thomas Moore

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A new book from O.N. Stavroudis is always an event for those of us who appreciate or occasionally fear the work of Thomas Smith and Max Herzberger. In The Mathematics of Geometrical and Physical Optics, the function and its ramifications, he resumes his explorations of rays, wavefronts and caustics and ventures into more arcane areas such as the schiefspiegler, the Cartesian oval and the ‘perfect’ lenses of Gauss and Maxwell [30]. ‘‘Geometrical optics’’, he observes, ‘‘is a peculiar science. Its fundamental artifacts are rays, which do not exist, and wavefronts, which indeed do exist but are not directly observable. y. The peculiarities of geometrical optics go even further. Rays, which do not exist, are trajectories of corpuscles, which also do not exist. These trajectories, according to the principle of Fermat, are those paths over which the time of transit of a corpuscle, passing from one point to another, is either a maximum or a minimum. Yet it works. Geometrical optics, anachronistic as it is, remains the basis for modern optical design y. There is hardly one area of modern science in which instruments are used whose design depends ultimately on Fermat’s principle on the intrinsic laziness of mother nature’’ (there seems to be a ‘not’ missing in that sentence). The text itself is an investigation of many aspects of geometrical optics in which the k-function, an ‘‘arbitrary function that arises in obtaining the general solution of the eikonal equation’’, proves to be a very powerful tool. Along the way, we meet generalized ray-tracing, Herzberger’s diapoints and the classification into half-symmetric, symmetric and sharp images which Stavroudis attributes to Herzberger but goes back at least to Gullstrand. I was surprised that Stavroudis does not cite Allvar Gullstrand or comment on his role in optics which bears a close family resemblance to his own. In conclusion, a very highly specialized text, compulsive reading for a rather limited public. Next a collection of articles on Digital Holography and Three-dimensional Display edited by T.-C. Poon [31]. The first seven chapters are on aspects of digital holography, with a contribution by C. Depeursinge on use of the technique in microscopy. The other six chapters are on 3-D display. These are fast-moving subjects and the book will have a limited useful lifetime but it gives a good snapshot of the present situation. This brings us to Variational Problems in Materials Science. This unusual title [32] proved to contain the material presented at a workshop with the same title held in Trieste in 2004. This brought together mathematicians who had noticed that materials science offered many opportunities of applying their skills and scientists interested in mechanics who were using variational techniques. Among the chapters are such titles as ‘Bi-modal cohesive energies’ (G. del Piero) and ‘Discontinuous hysteresis and P.D.E.’s (A. Visintin) with others on H-measures and fractional norms. But every reader will turn first to the chapter by A. Braides and V. Chiado` Piat entitled ‘Another brick in the wall’. Whether the sprat will indeed catch a mackerel I am not sure—here is the abstract: ‘‘We study the

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homogenization of a linearly elastic energy defined on a periodic collection of disconnected sets with a unilateral condition on the contact region between two such sets, with the model of a brick wall in mind. Using the language of G-convergence we show that the limit homogenized behaviour of such an energy can be described on the space of functions with bounded deformation using the masonrytype functionals studied by Anzellotti, Giaquinta and Giusti. In this case, the limit energy density is given by the homogenization formula related to the brick-wall type energy.’’ Two volumes from the Springer series on Particle Acceleration and Detection are closer to ultramicroscopy. L. Rossi, P. Fischer, T. Rohe and N. Wermes have written a monograph on Pixel Detectors [33]. This is mainly intended for the high-energy physics community but in Chapter 5, Pixel detector applications, and Chapter 6, Trends and new developments for pixel detectors, protein X-ray crystallography and biomedical autoradiography are mentioned, though electron microscopy is not. Inorganic Scintillators for Detector Systems [34] by P. Lecoq, A. Annenkov, A. Getkin, M. Korzhik and C. Pedrini is also intended for the accelerator world but PET imaging is briefly invoked. Both these books give very clear accounts of the physics of detection and current applications are also well covered. The 2006 volume of Annual Review of Materials Science is now available [35]. A feature of this is a special section on porous and colloidal materials as well as eight contributions of ‘Current Interest’, notably two on ferroelectric domain structure and ferroelectric thin films. I have somehow got behind with Progress in Optics, and have three volumes to report. Volume 47 [36] contains six chapters, only the last of which is of real interest here. Chapter 1, by S.M. Saltiel, A.A. Sukhorov and Y.S. Kivshar describes multistep parametric processes in nonlinear optics. Next, H.E. Tu¨reci,, H.G.L. Schwefel, P. Jacquod and A. Douglas Stone on Modes of wavechaotic dielectric resonators, C.P. Search and P. Meystre on Nonlinear and quantum optics of atomic and molecular fields, E. Hasman, G. Biener, A. Niv and V. Kleiner on Space-variant polarization manipulation and A.S. Desyatnikov, Y.S. Kivshar and L. Torner on Optical vortices and optical solitons. Finally, K. Iwata introduces Phase imaging and refractive index tomography for X-rays and visible rays. In volume 48 [37], there are 5 contributions: Laboratory post-engineering of microstructured optical fibres by B.J. Eggleton et 6 al.; Optical solitons in random media by F. Abdullaev and J. Garnier; the Design and Application of curved optical elements by N. Bokor and N. Davidson. Next, a contribution by P. Hariharan on geometric phase and to conclude, A. Uchida, F. Rogister, J. Garca´-Ojalvo and R. Roy on Synchronization and communication with chaotic laser systems. The chapter on curved elements is fascinating, and begins by reminding us that although diffractive optical elements may be in widespread use today, the use of curved elements goes

back to H.A. Rowland and his spectroscopic gratings. The special cases of spherical and cylindrical diffractive optical elements are investigated in detail, with a paragraph on aberration-free imaging. The chapter by P. Hariharan on geometric phase is a very readable account of this difficult subject. Last, Volume 49 [38] with several chapters of general interest. This begins with an account of Gaussian apodization and beam propagation by V. Mahajan. A. Joshi and M. Xiao then describe Control of nonlinear optical processes in multi-level atomic systems and H. Benisty and C. Weisbuch survey Photonic crystals. Symmetry properties and polarization descriptors for an arbitrary electromagnetic wavefield are examined by C. Brosseau and A. Dogariu. M. Dusek, N. Lutkenhaus and M. Hendrych explain how Quantum cryptography works and to end the volume, N.J. Cerf and J. Fiurasek describe Optical quantum cloning. The rebarbative title of the chapter by Brosseau and Dogariu gives no idea of the richness and readability of their material. The scientific content is repeatedly interrupted by personal remarks (or long footnotes) by the authors, such as Note 2, which begins by asking ‘‘Does one need to know anything about the history of optics (or the lives of individual scientists) in order to appreciate the subject matter?’’ and continues over about a quarter of a page. ‘‘Nothing is more helpful to the novice scientist than a deep understanding of how his or her subject has involved’, they observe, but fortunately, ‘‘Although this earlier literature is extremely interesting, the authors do not advocate that all new workers in polarization theory set out to acquaint themselves with the minute details of these papers’’. They provide a description of ‘‘the milestones, of the past three centuries, along the road towards increased understanding of polarization optics’’ and this enables them ‘‘to give the reader a taste of the conceptual issues suggesting that geometrical algebra provides a unifying conceptual framework from which to view different descriptions of the polarization states’’. Starting from the observations of Erasmus Bartolinus (a Danish-born mathematician at the University of Copenhagen) on the double refraction of light by calcite, the authors take us to the work of Arago and Stokes, which paves the way for Maxwell’s equations and the ‘‘serious scientific interest in the geometric-algebra description of light polarization [which] began with the work of Jules Henri Poincare´’’ (one of the authors’ heroes: ‘‘When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Henri Poincare´—one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time’’). The huge contributions of Emil Wolf are acknowledged ‘‘And now: geometric algebra is back’’ with the authors’ own studies among others. The fundamental role of symmetry in so much of physics is stressed and the authors then turn to the detailed presentation of their subject. I was reminded irresistibly of the writings of the late Henri Arzelie`s. There is nothing new about physicists being attracted by the life sciences and even ‘going over’ and a new temptation

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is the growing role of nanotechnology. The Wiley-VCH series on this theme has already reached volume 6, a collection on Nanomaterials for Cancer Therapy edited by C. Kumar [39]; the whole collection of books on ‘Nanotechnologies for the Life Sciences’ (10 volumes) can be bought as a set. I cannot list all the 11 chapters and 37 authors here but among them are contributions on photodynamic therapy, boron neutron capture therapy, magnetic drug targeting, controlled release and thermotherapy. There are also descriptions of ferromagnetic filled carbon nanotubes as novel and potential containers for anticancer treatment, liposomes, dendrimers and other polymeric nanoparticles for targeted delivery of anticancer agents and colloidal systems for the same purpose. If you are bored by GaAs and its fellows, there is a vast field out there awaiting your attention. 2.5. Art and science ‘‘Will the gap between art and science get smaller?’’ asked Robert Jungk (1913–1994) some years ago, while Ilya Prigogine believed that ‘‘Never have art and science been separated’’. With these thoughts, D. Schulze begins his Viaduct, Kunst und Wissenschaft, Art and Science [40], which offers us seven chapters each consisting of striking images, often in colour, centred on a theme and accompanied by short texts by scientists and artists. Each page or pair of pages shows a picture on one side and a micrograph on the other. Chapter 3, for example, ‘Needles–Twins– Grains’, opens with an emission microscope image of stainless steel recorded by G. Mo¨llenstedt and H. Du¨ker. The first pair, ‘Twinned polycrystals’, has Tranquillity and Happiness (abstract coloured geometrical figures) by E.O. Biemann on the left and Silicon-Town, Aerial photo, an ‘Atomic resolution micrograph of a multiply twinned nanocrystalline film of silicon’ obtained by C. Song on the right (no scale-bar). The chapter continues with pictures by P.U. Dreier, H. Glo¨ckner, G. Fruhtrunk (‘‘His name means drunkenness early in the morning y the career of astronauts—what a sad career if I compare it with [that of] the painter Fruhtrunk!’’, wrote J. Arp), J. Miro´, M. Duchamp and H. Matisse. Matisse’s Sheaf is placed very appositely opposite a ‘Dendritic ice-fern on the window of a CCD-camera’. In Chapter 5, ‘Points–Stripes–Stars’, an aboriginal sand-picture stands next to an electron diffraction pattern and, lest we find the texts too solemn or humourless, the citation that accompanies ‘Like curtains upon one another’ reads: ‘‘If you see a moire´ pattern in the electron microscope, be glad, but when a moire´ pattern appears on the TV screen, call the Post Office’’ (G. Mo¨llenstedt). The following page has biprism interference fringes (Mo¨llenstedt again) set next to seven white lines on a red background, for which its author was unable to think of a title. These juxtapositions are explained in D. Schulze’s Preface, in which the advance of abstract painting is linked to what Schulze sees as the hermetic character of modern physics (this does not, in my

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opinion, do justice to the scientific writers who do take the trouble to make themselves intelligible to a wide audience). The Introduction then describes the beginnings of electron optics and the electron microscope. Section 3, ‘A strange electron microscope’, is an unreliable account of the SEM—M. von Ardenne’s work at the end of the 1930s is mentioned but we are then told that ‘Thus he became one of the pioneers of modern television techniques’’. This is putting the cart before the horse, for von Ardenne’s Fernsehempfang appeared in 1935, well before he began work on his S(T)EM. And later, we read ‘‘In 1945, the first complete scanning electron microscope commercially available was developed by C.W. Oatley (*1904) and V.E. Cosslett (1908–1990) at the world-wide known Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. The above story shows: one person goes ahead with the torch at his head, the next one picks it up in furtherance of progress’’. Do I need to tell ultramicroscopists that the first commercial SEM appeared in 1965, that C.W. Oatley died in 1996, that Cosslett had very little to do with the SEM work and that Oatley’s research group was in the Cambridge University Engineering Department, not in the Cavendish? In a later section, we are told that the SEM ‘‘resolves structures of about 25 nm’’, a value that the manufacturers of modern SEMs would dispute! But readers will buy the book not for the text but for the pictures, especially the spirals (Fig. 2). All the texts, captions and quotations are given in German and English and the task of translating some of the original texts cannot have been easy and has occasionally tripped Heike Messerschmidt up—one slip is mildly amusing: n. Chr. is translated as AC, thus leaving those who have no German to guess which letter is wrong, AD or BC? 3. In brief I have looked at Lewis Morris’s Ode [in honour of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee]; and looked away from it in wonder why people write odes: as Huck Finn would say, if I had a yaller dog that took to writing odes, I would shoot him. From a letter of William Morris, probably to Georgie Burne-Jones There is a special issue of physica status solidi in honour of Johannes Heydenreich [41], who is one of the rare links with one of the lesser known pioneers of electron optics, Johannes Picht. In 1931, Picht published a book on (light) optics, Optische Abbildung, and followed this with his Einfu¨hrung in die Theorie der Elektronenoptik (1939), of which there were revised editions in 1957 and 1963. These are worthy, if idiosyncratic, texts with long sections on Picht’s slightly way-out ideas about wave optics. He also wrote Was wir u¨ber Elektronen wissen (Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1945), ‘‘Ein Streifzug durch physikalische und technische Gefilde unter Fu¨hrung von Dr. Johannes Picht’’ and, in the wartime years, directed the Ph.D. work of H. Leitner, who was the first to study cylindrical (not

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Fig. 2. (a) Schematic representation of a monkey, whose tail forms a double spiral; Relic of the Nazca culture in Peru. (b) AFM image showing growth spirals of a b-spherolite of isotactic polypropylene, M ¼ 250 000 (Courtesy of D. Schulze and Saxonia-Verlag).

rotationally symmetric) electron lenses in any detail; Leitner was killed before the thesis was submitted. In 1966, Picht and Heydenreich joined forces to write Einfu¨hrung in die Elektronenmikroskopie, again less well known than it deserved. I also noticed the Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Quasicrystals [42]; Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Ion Sources [43]; Characterization of real materials and real progress by transmission electron microscopy [44] with a Preface by H. Saka and a Foreward [sic] by C. Humphreys—if this continues, variant forms of Foreword will start appearing in dictionaries! On the greener grass principle, I also mention the Proceedings of the First European Pond Workshop [45], with papers on bofedal peatlands in the high Andes, cladoceran and copepod zooplancton in artifical sodic ponds and ‘Highway stormwater detention pond as biodiversity islands?’ We are also told what lives in turloughs, hollows that are lakes in winter and callows in summer; the OED maintains that the word comes from the Gaelic tur ( ¼ absolute, whole, entire) and loch ( ¼ lake) but Irish websites prefer to derive it from tuar+loch, in which tuar ¼ dry—neither seems very convincing. Philosophical Magazine celebrates 50 years of TEM of Dislocations [46], with editorials by P.B. Hirsch, D. Cockayne, J.C.H. Spence and M.J. Whelan and 22 articles among which are dislocation studies using aberration-corrected microscopes, Z-contrast STEM, EELS, LACBED, ‘novel TEM methods’ and channelling contrast. Three old papers by the late J.W. Menter, W. Bollmann and P.B. Hirsch, R.W. Horne and M.J.

Whelan are reprinted while J.C.H. Spence et 8 al. indicate ‘the way forward’. Knut Urban’s 65th birthday is signalled in the International Journal of Materials Research [47]; I noticed papers on ‘Atomic resolution electron tomography: a dream?’ by D. van Dyck et al. ‘Electron tomography of microelectronic device interconnects’ by Q. Yang et 4 al. ‘Aberration correction’ by H. Rose, ‘Off-axis electron holography’ by M. Linck et al. ‘Determination of phases of complex scattering amplitudes’ by A. Thesing and H. Kohl, ‘Prospects of the multislice method for CBED pattern calculation’ by U. Kaiser and A. Chuvilin and ‘EELS for metals: some thoughts beyond microanalysis’ by P. Schattschneider et al. as well as many applications. JOM has articles on Materials Characterization in [48] and a later issue records a Symposium on the History and Archaeology of Materials [49]. The latter seems very good reading, with articles on the first wire-rope suspension aqueduct in 1840s Pittsburgh (D.L. Gibbon), the copper of the Statue of Liberty (J.M. Welter), metal threads and decorations in Byzantine Greek-Orthodox ecclesiastical textiles (A. Karatzani and T. Relven), pre-Hispanic Au–Pt ‘‘sintering’’ (M. Noguez et 4 al.), crucible Damascus steel (A. Feuerbach) and ‘The sacred in Mesoamerican materials’ G. Salas et al.). To end, Nanostructure Control of Materials, edited by R.H.J. Hannink and A.J. Hill [50], which I have not seen and a new book on mathematical morphology edited by R.M. Haralick which I hope to cover next time [51]; also Representing Electrons, a biographical approach to theoretical entities by T. Arabatzis [52].

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3.1. Stop press Two books have come in too late to be covered fully. First, a volume of the CUP Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications entitled Analytic Tomography by A. Markoe [53]. Even a cursory glance shows that this is likely to attract many readers, as it describes the various methods first in easily accessible language and then in much greater depth for the mathematicians. The other book is a new edition of Electron Microscopy, Methods and Protocols, edited by J. Kuo [54]; the 28 contributions cover not only the methods in regular use in the life sciences but also X-ray microanalysis and SIMS and MIMS. The chapters on the SEM cover ESEM and variable-pressure SEM as well as cryoSEM and of course more routine uses of the instrument. Full details about both of these next time. References [1] H. Ichinose, T. Sasaki (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Microscopy Congress, Sapporo, 3–8 September 2006; 1. Biological and Medical Sciences; 2. Instrumentation; 3. Materials Science, Publications Committee of IMC-16. [2] Proceedings of Microscopy and Microanalysis 2006, Chicago, 30 July–3 August 2006, Microsc. Microanal. 12 (Suppl. 2) (2006). [3] Communications, 29th Annual Symposium of the Microscopical Society of Ireland. Supplement to Infocus Mag. 1 (2006). [4] EMAG-NANO 2005, Proceedings published in Journal of Physics Conference Series, accessible on-line free of charge at: www.iop.org/ journals/jpconf, ISSN:1742-6588 (printed version, if it exists); 1742–6596 (on-line). [5] Proceedings of the SEM-2003 Symposium, Chernogolovka, May 2003, Allerton Press, New York. Bull. Russ. Acad. Sci. Phys. 68 (9) (2004), ISSN:1062-8738. [6] Proceedings of the Twentieth Russian Conference on Electron Microscopy, Chernogolovka, June 2004, Allerton Press, New York. Bull. Russ. Acad. Sci. Phys. 69 (4) (2005), ISSN:1062-8738. [7] Microscopy Society of Southern Africa, Proceedings of the Port Elizabeth Conference, 29 November–1 December 2006, vol. 36, ISSN:0250-0418; ISBN:0-620-37294-X. [8] Proceedings of the Tenth International Seminar on Recent Trends in Charged Particle Optics and Surface Physics Instrumentation, Skalsky´ Dvu˚r, 22–26 May 2006, ISI, Brno, ISBN:80-239-6285-X. [9] Proceedings of the Seventh All-Russian Seminar on Problems in Theoretical and Applied Electron and Ion Optics, Prikl. Fiz. (3) (2006). [10] Proceedings of scanning 2006, Washington, DC, April 25–27 2006, FAMS, Mahwah, NJ, Scanning 28 (2) (2006), ISSN:0161-0457. [11] Frontiers of Electron Microscopy in Materials Science, Kasteel Vaasbroeck, 25–30 September 2005, J. Mater. Sci. 41 (14) (2006), ISSN:0022-2461. [12] FEMMS 2005 [see 11], Microsc. Microanal. 12 (6) (2006), ISSN:14319276. [13] Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Micro- and Nano-engineering (MNE 2005), Microelectron. Eng. 83 (4–9) (2006), ISSN:0167-9317. [14] Modern Developments and Applications in Microbeam Analysis, Proceedings of the Ninth Workshop of EMAS and Third Meeting of IUMAS, Florence, 22–26 May 2005, Microchim. Acta 155 (1–2) (2006). [15] J. Frank, Three-dimensional Electron Microscopy of Macromolecular Assemblies, second ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, ISBN: 0-19-515096-1, Price: £107.50 (cloth), £58 (paper).

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[16] J. Frank (Ed.), Electron Tomography, second ed, Springer, Berlin, 2006, ISBN 0-387-31234-X, Price: h119.95, US$149, £92.50. [17] T.E. Weirich, J.L. La´ba´r, X.-d. Zou (Eds.), Electron Crystallography, Springer, Berlin, 2006, ISBN 1-4020-3918-2, Price: h179, US$239, £124. [18] M. Prutton, N. El Gomati (Eds.), Scanning Auger Microscopy, Wiley, Chichester, 2006, ISBN 0-470-86677-2, Price: £110. [19] B. Bhushan, H. Fuchs (Eds.), Applied Scanning Probe Methods, II: Scanning Probe Microscopy Techniques; III: Characterization; IV: Industrial Applications, Springer, Berlin, 2006 ISBN: 3-540-26242-3, 3-540-26909-6, 3-540-26912-6, Price: vols. II and III, h129.95, US$169, £100; vol. IV, h106.95. [20] P. Samori (Ed.), Scanning Probe Microscopies beyond Imaging, Wiley, Chichester, 2006, ISBN 3-527-31269-2, Price: £105. [21] D. Sarid, Exploring Scanning Probe Microscopy with MATHEMATICA, Wiley-VCH, UK, 2007, ISBN 978-3-527-40617-3, Price: £100. [22] P.W. Hawkes, J.C.H. Spence (Eds.), Science of Microscopy, 2 vols., Springer, Berlin, 2006, ISBN 0-387-25296-7, Price: h589, US$695, £453. [23] S.G. Hoggar, Mathematics of Digital Images, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, ISBN 0-521-78029-2, Price: £45, US$80. [24] M. Bilodeau, F. Meyer, M. Schmitt (Eds.), Space, Structure and Randomness, Springer, Berlin, 2005, ISBN 0-387-20331-1, Price: h54.95, US$64.95, £42.50. [25] .T.S. Yoo (Ed.), Insight into Images, A.K. Peters, Wellesley, MA, 2004, ISBN 1-56881-217-5, Price: US$64. [26] N. Paragios, Y.-m. Chen, O. Faugeras (Eds.), Handbook of Mathematical Models in Computer Vision, Springer, Berlin, 2006, ISBN 0-387-26371-3, Price: h69.95, US$89.95, £54. [27] E.B. Corrochano (Ed.), Handbook of Geometric Computing, Springer, Berlin, ISBN 2005, 3-540-20595-0, Price: h119.95, US$129, £92.50. [28] C.M. Bishop, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning, Springer, New York, 2006, ISBN 978-0-387-31073-2, Price: h63.25. [29] W.K. Pratt, Digital Image Processing, forth ed, Wiley, Hoboken, 2007, ISBN 0-471-76777-8, Price: £73.95, h104.20, US$125. [30] O.N. Stavroudis, The Mathematics of Geometrical and Physical Optics. The k-function and it’s Ramifications, Wiley, Chichester, 2006, ISBN 3-527-40448-1, Price: £85. [31] T.-c. Poon (Ed.), Digital Holography and Three-dimensional Display, Principles and Applications, Springer, New York, 2006, ISBN 0-387-31340-0, Price: £74.50, US$125, h96.95. [32] G. dal Maso, A. DeSimone, F. Tomarelli (Eds.), Variational Problems in Materials Science, Birkha¨user, Basel, Boston & Berlin, 2006, ISBN 3-7643-7564-7, Price: CHF138, h92.84, US$119, £67.50. [33] L. Rossi, P. Fischer, T. Rohe, N. Wermes, Pixel Detectors, Springer, Berlin, 2006, ISBN 3-540-28332-3, Price: h99.95, US$129, £77. [34] P. Lecoq, A. Annenkov, A. Getkin, M. Korzhik, K. Pedrini, Inorganic Scintillators for Detector Systems, Springer, Heidelberg, New York, 2006, ISBN 978-3-540-27766-8, Price: h105.45. [35] V. Gopalan, G. Wegner, D.R. Clarke, M. Ru¨hle, J.C. Bravman (Eds.), Annu. Rev. Mater. Res. 36 (2006) Price: See www.annualreviews.org, ISSN:1531-7331; ISBN:0-8243-1736-X. [36] E. Wolf (Ed.), Prog. Opt. 47 (2005), Price: £112.50, ISBN:0-44451598-4. [37] E. Wolf (Ed.), Prog. Opt. 48 (2005), Price: US$155, h140, £97.50, ISBN:0-444-52038-4. [38] E. Wolf (Ed.), Prog. Opt. 49 (2006), Price: US$155, h140, £97.50, ISBN:0-444-52732-X. [39] C.S.S.R. Kumar (Ed.), Nanomaterials for Cancer Therapy, Wiley, Weinheim, 2006. Price: £100, US$ 175, ISBN:3-527-31386-9, Price for the set of 10 vols: US$1490, ISBN(set):978-3-527-31301-3. [40] D. Schulze, Viaduct, Kunst und Wissenscahft, Art and Science, Saxonia, Dresden, 2006, Price: h49.95, ISBN:3-937951-38-5. [41] In honour of Johannes Heidenreich, Phys. Status Solidi (a) 202 (12) (2005). [42] Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Quasicrystals, 22–26 May 2005, Philos. Mag. 86 (3–5) (2006).

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[43] Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Ion Sources, Caen 2005, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 77 (3 Part 2) (2006). [44] Characterization of real materials and real progress by electron microscopy, J. Mater. Sci. 41 (9) (2006). [45] Proceedings of the First European Pond Workshop, Archives des Sciences, Gene`ve 57 (2–3) (2004). [46] 50 years of dislocations, Philos. Mag. 86 (29–31) (2006). [47] Int. J. Mater. Res. 97 (7) (2006). [48] Materials Characterization, Part 1, JOM 58 (3) (2006). [49] The history and archaeology of materials symposium, JOM 58 (5) (2006). [50] R.H.J. Hannink, A.J. Hill (Eds.), Nanostructure Control of Materials, Woodhead, Cambridge, 2006, ISBN 0-8493-3449-7, Price: £135, h195, US$245.

[51] R.M. Haralick (Ed.), Mathematical Morphology, Theory and Hardware, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007, ISBN 0-19-508187-0, Price: US$75. [52] T. Arabatzis, Representing Electrons a Biographical Approach to Theoretical Entities, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005 ISBN: 0-226-02420-2, 0-226-02421-0, Price: US$70 (cloth), US$28 (paper),. [53] A. Markoe, Analytic Tomography, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York, 2006, ISBN: 0-521-79347-5. [54] J. Kuo (Ed.), Electron Microscopy, Methods and Protocols, second ed., Humana, Totowa, NJ, 2007, Price: US$150, ISBN:978-1-58829573-6, ISSN:1064-3745, eISBN:1-59845-294-7.