This Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) project is in the general area of analytical and surface chemistry and in the subfield of computer assisted chemical analysis. In this activity, Professor Frank Settle of Virginia Military Institute and Professor Michael Pleva of Washington and Lee University and their undergraduate research students in chemistry are collaboratively developing software systems that can be readily implemented on popular microcomputers for the purpose of optimally selecting either the appropriate surface analysis techniques for a particular sample to be characterized or the appropriate sample preparation protocol to be followed for the elemental analysis of a sample. The first of these "expert systems" enables a person who is unfamiliar with the capabilities and limitations of surface analysis techniques to select those surface analytical methods which are most likely to yield meaningful data that are relevant to the problem under investigation. The second expert system will enable a person who wishes to perform an elemental analysis on a sample to select a sample preparation protocol that will lead to analytical results which are optimally informative. Upon completion, these two expert systems will be made available to the scientific community at a modest cost through the National Bureau of Standards (for commercial customers) and through Project SERAPHIM of the American Chemical Society (for educational institution customers). This RUI activity continues research in applications of computational methodologies to problems in chemical analysis that were initiated under NSF grant CHE-8517147. This development of expert systems drawn undergraduate research students in chemistry into contact with sophisticated, commercially available data base management software and leads them to the capability to customize and modify such software as necessary for the successful development of optimized chemical methods selection systems. These pursuits also serve to acquaint undergraduate research students with a broad array of tools for sample preparation and characterization. The anticipated primary benefit of this research is the continued development of the manpower and human resource base in area of analytical and surface chemistry.
