Maps as Knowledge Aggregators: from Renaissance Italy Fra Mauro to Web Search Engines

Abstract

For many years geological students have been graduating from universities with little knowledge of how to use the cartographic language of line, letter, symbol and tone by which the distribution and spatial arrangement of earth science data can be best expressed. The author discusses the development of the teaching of geological cartography in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Leeds. Details of this innovation are set against the background of data obtained from a recent questionnaire on the practice of cartography as a discipline in departments of geology in British universities.     

Extraction of agar from Eucheuma cottonii and Gelidium amansii seaweeds with sonication pretreatment using autoclaving method

The effect of sonication pretreatment condition on Eucheuma cottonii and Gelidium amansii seaweed towards agar extraction wae studied. Four parameters were changed during sonication to investigate the effects on agar yield and quality. These parameters include the time interval, concentration ratio, frequency, and intensity. The highest amount of agar extracted from Eucheuma cottonii species could be obtained from the time interval of 30 min, seaweed weight to solvent volume ratio of 1:20, the frequency of 35 Hz, and the sonication power intensity of 30%. For Gelidium amansii species, the best agar yield also could be obtained from the time interval of 30 min, 1:20 of seaweed weight to water volume ratio, the frequency of 35 Hz, and power intensity of 30%. From the experiment, sonication pretreatment significantly influenced the yield and properties of extracted agar. The sonication with autoclaved seaweed produced agar containing less sulfate content, which is an excellent chemical property for gel electrophoresis applications.The gel strength of sonication with autoclaving for both seaweeds, Eucheuma and Gelidium species was the highest among those by sonication with direct heating, which proved that sonication pretreatment with autoclaving could enhance the physical properties of the agar.     

Sulfur electronic environments in α-NiS and β-NiS: examination of the relationship between coordination number and core electron binding energies

X-ray photoelectron spectra have been obtained under the same experimental conditions for synthetic α-NiS and natural β-NiS in order to establish any difference in S electronic environment, and to test the proposition that S core electron binding energies increase measurably with coordination number when the same metal is in different sulfide structures or lattice sites. The Ni and S electronic environments in the two NiS structures have been further probed by near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy, and the NEXAFS spectra interpreted by reference to spectra simulated by ab initio calculations. The photoelectron and NEXAFS spectra for freshly prepared surfaces of α-NiS and β-NiS were found to be similar, with only subtle differences in electronic environment evident in the experimental and simulated NEXAFS spectra. The measured and calculated core electron binding energies did not support the previously postulated relationship between S coordination number and electron binding energies.     

Pentlandite sulfur core electron binding energies

A number of freshly abraded surfaces of pentlandite have been characterised by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to establish whether the initial intensity of the S 2p component near 161.4 eV, previously assigned to the 25% of S atoms in fourfold coordination by metal atoms in pentlandite, was always at least 25% of the total S 2p intensity. It was found that the intensity of this S 2p component could be lower than 20% for surfaces that were not significantly oxidised. To assess whether the proposed 0.75–0.8 eV 2p binding energy difference for the two sulfur environments in pentlandite was justified, ab initio calculations of the difference in core electron binding energies and of the densities of unfilled states have been carried out. The corresponding simulated S K near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectra have been compared with experimental spectra. The calculated S 2p and S 1s binding energy differences were 0.45 and 0.5 eV at most, in agreement with the experimental NEXAFS spectra. It was concluded that the S 2p component near 161.4 eV arises entirely from violarite present at the pentlandite surface rather than from 4-coordinate S in pentlandite itself. Ab initio calculations of the difference in S 2p binding energies for the 2- and 3-coordinate S in stibnite have also been carried out and found to be quite small, in agreement with previously reported experimental values. Nevertheless, for both pentlandite and stibnite, calculations have confirmed that an increase in coordination number is associated with an increase in sulfur core electron binding energies, even although that increase is barely measurable for the latter sulfide.