Government Research Laboratories Research Articles

Using human-centered design to develop a national research landscape for marine energy in the United States

In 2021, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) awarded the Pacific Ocean Energy Trust a grant to act as the coordinator of a foundational research network, ultimately named the University Marine Energy Research Community (UMERC). The community aims to facilitate connection between U.S. university researchers, industry, and government research laboratories to close common gaps in foundational research that are prohibiting the pathway to commercialization. To achieve this goal, UMERC held a series of workshops to create a Research Landscape (Landscape), which identified current challenges, gaps, research capabilities as well as uncovering additional questions about where the sector is headed. A human-centered design (HCD) approach was used throughout the three-workshop series. 
 HCD is a problem-solving and design technique that uses human perspective and emotion to develop solutions. The stages of human centered design include inspiration, ideation, implementation and validation, or testing, in an iterative, or cyclical process that results in ongoing refinement. HCD is carried out with the acknowledgement that values vary from context to context and are subject to change as people and technologies interact over time (Zachry and Spyridakis).
 It is through this approach that we are able to identify the current gaps and challenges and through the HCD approach, we will continue to refine the Landscape as current challenges and gaps are retired and new challenges and gaps arise. This will help account for the fast pace of innovation in the marine energy sector, where human-technology interactions are changing as the technology develops, and there are new entrants into the market. With the current state of fluidity in technology design and application, what works at one location may not work at another location. Using HCD methods and sensibilities, workshop participants, including individuals from universities, private sector companies and the national laboratories, we able to bring in their individual perspectives to develop the Landscape.
 Through the HCD process, the workshops revealed a set of values, tools, research interests and gaps and challenges. These were synthesized into what is now the current Landscape that can be found on the UMERC website. The values are themes that should be considered when designing marine energy projects. These include community, innovation and new technologies or applications, education, sustainability, equity, blue economy, and collaboration. The main challenges were condensed into four categories that include creating markets and a trained workforce, management and logistics, understanding and protecting the environment, and marine energy engineering, research and development. The tools are actions that can be carried out to overcome the main challenges. Finally, a list of common research areas was identified under each main challenge area.
 Following our HCD methodology, our cycle of iteration will soon start again. While the current Landscape serves as a benchmark, the next steps include a series of industry-academic brainstorming sessions, with the aim of creating collaborative projects to address challenges, as well as come up with a list of common technology agnostic challenges, in hopes to push future research funding.

Linguistic Data Consortium

The Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC) creates, stores, and distributes language resources, in particular language corpora, for educational, governmental, and commercial purposes. At this time, the number of corpora available on the LDC platform exceeds 900, and new ones are added on a monthly basis. Since its founding in 1992, LDC has had thousands of members such as universities, libraries, government research laboratories, and corporations. While there is a plethora of language resources available to researchers these days, LDC continues to stand out by offering an unparalleled selection of carefully curated corpora combined with a variety of linguistic tools.

Managing the resource allocation for the COVID-19 pandemic in healthcare institutions: a pluralistic perspective

PurposeAs COVID-19 outbreak has created a global crisis, treating patients with minimum resources and traditional methods has become a hectic task. In this technological era, the rapid growth of coronavirus has affected the countries in lightspeed manner. Therefore, the present study proposes a model to analyse the resource allocation for the COVID-19 pandemic from a pluralistic perspective.Design/methodology/approachThe present study has combined data analytics with the K-mean clustering and probability queueing theory (PQT) and analysed the evolution of COVID-19 all over the world from the data obtained from public repositories. By using K-mean clustering, partitioning of patients’ records along with their status of hospitalization can be mapped and clustered. After K-mean analysis, cluster functions are trained and modelled along with eigen vectors and eigen functions.FindingsAfter successful iterative training, the model is programmed using R functions and given as input to Bayesian filter for predictive model analysis. Through the proposed model, disposal rate; PPE (personal protective equipment) utilization and recycle rate for different countries were calculated.Research limitations/implicationsUsing probabilistic queueing theory and clustering, the study was able to predict the resource allocation for patients. Also, the study has tried to model the failure quotient ratio upon unsuccessful delivery rate in crisis condition.Practical implicationsThe study has gathered epidemiological and clinical data from various government websites and research laboratories. Using these data, the study has identified the COVID-19 impact in various countries. Further, effective decision-making for resource allocation in pluralistic setting has being evaluated for the practitioner's reference.Originality/valueFurther, the proposed model is a two-stage approach for vulnerability mapping in a pandemic situation in a healthcare setting for resource allocation and utilization.

Biosafety and Biosecurity Challenges Facing Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratories in Lower-Middle Income Countries in Southeast Asia: A Case Study of Thailand.

Introduction:Global concerns over emerging and transboundary infectious zoonotic diseases have increased disease diagnostic demands, especially in the veterinary sector. In developing or newly developed countries where the sector often works under limited capacity, biosafety and biosecurity are unlikely to be high-priority issues. A recent development program supported by the Biological Threat Reduction Program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency funded by the US government aimed to increase biosafety and biosecurity measures of government veterinary diagnostic and research laboratories in Thailand.Objective:The purpose of this article is to identify biosafety and biosecurity challenges, opportunities, and recommendations.Methods:Eleven government laboratory centers were assessed against the Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories (BMBL) biosafety level 2 (BSL-2) requirements checklist. The BMBL assessment outcomes were then combined with the outcomes of discussion sessions, and the results of pre- and post-test questionnaires conducted during biosafety assessment workshops and self-evaluation reports using the Food and Agriculture Organization Biosafety Laboratory Mapping Tool of each laboratory center were reviewed and summarized.Results:Despite established national policies on laboratory biosafety and biosecurity, major challenges included (1) harmonization and enforcement of these policies, especially at the regional level, and (2) engagement of personnel in implementations of biosafety and biosecurity measures.Conclusion:Consistent biosafety policy and allocated resources together with regular training are required to develop sustainable biosafety and biosecurity at the national level. Collaboration between regional countries, international organizations, and donors is essential for improving biosafety and biosecurity on a global scale through setting regional priorities, enacting regulatory standards, and providing technical and financial support.

The role of government in fostering collaborative R&D projects: Empirical evidence from South Korea

In latecomer countries, governments and their research laboratories play an important role in guiding the direction of technology development at the national level. However, the exact mechanism of how these institutional forces influence national collaborative R&D projects remains unclear and understudied. From the selection-variation process perspective of technology evolution, we argue that governments provide a strong signaling effect to attract other entities into collaborative R&D projects. Also through government research laboratories, governments promote a fair distribution of results generated from collaborative R&D projects. In addition, the involvement of diverse entities from industry and academia supplements the fair distribution of results. We provide empirical support for these arguments by analyzing 5,427 collaborative R&D projects carried out in South Korea among government research laboratories, private firms and universities. A conceptual model is developed and explained in detail to provide the theoretical basis for our arguments, while policy and practical implications are closely examined with a focus on steps that governments can take to guide national collaborative R&D projects.

Identity and publication in non-university settings: academic co-authorship and collaboration

Increased collaboration between researchers working in university, industry, and governmental settings is changing the landscape of academic science. Traditional models of the interaction between these sectors, such as the triple helix concept, draw clear distinctions between academic and non-academic settings and actors. This study surveyed scientists (n = 469) working outside of university settings who published articles indexed in the Web of Science about their modes of collaboration, perceptions about publishing, workplace characteristics, and information sources. We study the association between these variables, and use text analysis to examine the roles, duties, sites, topics, and workplace missions among non-university based authors. Our analysis shows that 72% of authors working in non-university settings who collaborate and publish with other scientists self-identify as academics. Furthermore, their work life resembles that of those working in university settings in that the majority report doing fundamental research in government research organizations and laboratories. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, this research suggests that peer-reviewed publications are much more dominated by non-university academics than we previously thought and that collaboration as co-authors on academic publications is not likely to be a primary conduit for the transfer of scientific knowledge between academe and industry.

Interlaboratory Evaluation of Ultraviolet Radiation Emissions from Compact Fluorescent Lamps.

There have been many recent reports regarding the potential risks of UV emissions from compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). In some of these reports, the robustness of the measurements was difficult to discern. We conducted round-robin measurements, involving three lamp manufacturers and two government research laboratories to gather reliable data on the UV emissions from commercially available CFLs. The initial sample of lamps consisted of 71 spiral-shaped CFLs purchased from local retailers. From the initial sample, 14 "high UV emitting" CFLs were chosen for further evaluation. We compared the UV emissions at a distance of 20cm with the UV exposure limits (ELs) published by the International Commission on Non-ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). We found that the allowable exposure time for measured lamps ranged from 21 to 415h. This indicates that the emissions would not exceed the short-term ELs that have been established by the ICNIRP for healthy individuals. We also evaluated the potential long-term risk and found it to be insignificant. There was a large variation in the UV emissions found, even for lamps from a single package, indicating that it is impossible to predict the UV output of a CFL based on its physical appearance and model designation.

Globalization of R&D and open innovation: linkages of foreign R&D centers in India

In the new form of Globalization of R&D, Multinational (MNEs) firms have established their R&D units in emerging Asian countries, particularly in India and China. In the 1980s MNEs located their R&D units in their country of origin and were very reluctant to go offshore beyond triad (USA, Western Europe and Japan). However, in the last decade there is a growing trend of MNEs going emerging markets such as India and China. Beside this, sourcing knowledge from globally dispersed knowledge hubs is also one of the major motives of this emerging trend. These foreign R&D centers have developed linkages with the other actors of the host economy to build their assets. This study has investigated the linkage patterns of foreign firms in India from an in-house developed database. The ICT sector is considered as a test case to investigate the linkages of foreign firms with the Indian entities. The study observed that most of the foreign firms are collaborating with the other foreign firms located in India. Next to the foreign firms, Indian firms are preferable compared to university or government research institutes. It shows that industry-academia linkages are quite weak in India. Foreign firms’ embededness with the local innovation system is only by linking with the local firms. Although, India has very strong government research laboratories, these are not playing important role in collaborating with the foreign firms. From the policy perspective, industry - academia linkages needs to be strengthened. MNEs enter markets such as India not only for potential markets and ‘cheap’ skilled human resources but also for knowledge and technology base emerging in the knowledge hubs of these countries. Also, most of the collaboration happens in peripheral (joint development) rather than core domain (joint R&D). Many of the firms are going for ‘Open Innovation’ mode to build up their assets in India.

Special Issue on Perspectives on Thermal Plasma Research for Industrial Applications: Introduction

Thermal plasmas have very useful properties that are not easily achievable using other means, in particular high power densities, high temperatures, high-velocity flows, high fluxes of active species and intense radiative emission. Moreover they are available in a wide range of configurations (direct-current transferred arcs, direct-current non-transferred arcs or plasma torches, alternating-current arcs, radio-frequency inductively-coupled plasmas, microwave plasmas and laser-produced plasmas) and powers (from hundreds of watts to a hundred megawatts). It is therefore not surprising that they find application in many industrial processes, including those for joining, melting, cutting, coating and deposition, refining, waste treatment, chemical analysis, lighting, propulsion and circuit interruption. It is these many applications that underlie all thermal plasma research; even when arcane questions such as the extent of deviations from local thermodynamic equilibrium in an arc are being investigated, the ultimate goal is to develop better thermal plasma processes for industry. This special issue brings together eight articles written by leading researchers from universities, industry and government research laboratories, presenting their perspectives on particular aspects of thermal plasma research. Each author was asked to present their views on important topics for research and development, outstanding scientific questions, and barriers to future success. The aim is not to present a comprehensive overview of the subject. Rather, the intention is that the special issue will guide researchers towards the important topics that warrant their close attention, and that are critical for future progress in the field. Three of the articles take a wider view, looking at thermal plasma sources, diagnostics and modelling respectively, across a range of applications. The first article considers plasma torches and inductively-coupled plasmas in particular, the second looks mainly at diagnostics of transferred arcs, while the third examines modelling issues that relate to

ReactorHealth Physics operations at the NIST center for neutron research.

Performing health physics and radiation safety functions under a special nuclear material license and a research and test reactor license at a major government research and development laboratory encompasses many elements not encountered by industrial, general, or broad scope licenses. This article reviews elements of the health physics and radiation safety program at the NIST Center for Neutron Research, including the early history and discovery of the neutron, applications of neutron research, reactor overview, safety and security of radiation sources and radioactive material, and general health physics procedures. These comprise precautions and control of tritium, training program, neutron beam sample processing, laboratory audits, inventory and leak tests, meter calibration, repair and evaluation, radioactive waste management, and emergency response. In addition, the radiation monitoring systems will be reviewed including confinement building monitoring, ventilation filter radiation monitors, secondary coolant monitors, gaseous fission product monitors, gas monitors, ventilation tritium monitor, and the plant effluent monitor systems.

Attraction & Engagement: Dual Mechanism in National Collaborative R&D Projects

In developing countries, government and its research laboratory play an important in guiding the direction of technology development at national level. However, the exact mechanism of how these institutional forces take effects in national collaborative R&D projects is understudied due to the lack of theoretical guidance. Taking the perspective of selection-variation process of technical progress, we argue that while government provide a strong signaling effect to attract other entities into the collaborative R&D projects, government research laboratory play the role of engaging other entities to put more distributed efforts. However, for better project outcome, government and its institutional influence is not the sufficient condition - industry funding and distributed efforts of other entities should supplement the governmental mechanism at the later stage of the project. We provide the empirical support of these arguments by analyzing 5,428 national collaborative R&D projects carried out in Korea. Conc...

Dispatches

Dispatches

Data science: An action plan for expanding the technical areas of the field of statistics

An action plan to expand the technical areas of statistics focuses on the data analyst. The plan sets out six technical areas of work for a university department and advocates a specific allocation of resources devoted to research in each area and to courses in each area. The value of technical work is judged by the extent to which it benefits the data analyst, either directly or indirectly. The plan is also applicable to government research labs and corporate research organizations.

HealthGIS 2013 workshop report: the Second ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on the Use of GIS in Public Health

The Second ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on the Use of GIS in Public Health was held on November 5, 2014 in Orlando Florida, in conjuncture with the 21st ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems. It has brought together researchers whose research is in the intersection of geospatial data management and public health. This workshop provided a forum for researchers and practitioners to share new ideas and techniques for Health-related GIS applications. Original research related to all aspects of GIS usages and applications in medical and in healthcare systems was invited; especially papers based on real-world experience were encouraged. The program committee consisted of a diverse set of members from academia, industry, and government research laboratories, each with expertise in different areas of HealthGIS: development, applications, and public health research. The workshop has provided a platform for an interdisciplinary dialog that is reflected in the program of the workshop.

Progress in Surface Treatment and Processing of Coatings

The surface treatments of materials and processing of coatings are becoming increasingly important for imparting functional properties, repairing the surfaces, and protecting the surfaces from conditions of stress, temperature, and corrosive media. The processing approaches involving surface cleaning and finishing, plating and electroplating, dip and conversion coatings, vacuum and controlled atmosphere coatings, surface modification using high-energy and particle beams (laser surface processing and ion implantation), and heat treatments (flame, induction, and high-energy beams) have all been successfully implemented to improve the surface properties and functionalities of materials. The advancements in the surface treatments and coatings processing have kept pace with the advances in the materials development. Novel processes have been regularly introduced and the existing processes have been continuously adapted for surface engineering of materials that are becoming increasingly important in new design considerations. The surface engineering of light alloys, ceramics, and amorphous/nanostructured materials is gaining unprecedented momentum. Metallurgical (interfacial bonding, elemental redistribution, and defects/porosity/cracking), manufacturing (noncontact, rapid, and flexible processing), environmental (eco-friendly and benign processing), and health (nontoxic materials and processing) considerations are becoming increasingly important in the surface treatments and processing of coatings. The TMS Surface Engineering Committee regularly organizes symposia in TMS/Materials Science & Technology (MST 16–20 March 2014), the committee organized a symposium titled Advances in Surface Engineering: Alloyed and Composite Coatings III. The symposium featured 49 presentations including nine invited talks in the areas of processing (thermal spray, laser, and friction stir, and electrochemical processing) and properties (wear, oxidation/corrosion, mechanical, and high-temperature properties) of alloy and composite coatings. The Surface Engineering Committee also organized two joint sessions titled ‘‘Recent Developments in Biological, Electronic, and Functional Thin Films and Coatings’’ with the TMS Thin Films and Interfaces Committee. The joint sessions featured an additional 23 presentations including four invited talks on the topics coatings for biomedical applications, multilayer coatings, anticorrosive coatings, and thin films. The committee encourages the participation of industry in its programming. In addition to the presentations by university researchers and students, the symposium also featured several talks by researchers working in industry and government research laboratories. The committee recognizes the importance of partnership between the universities and industries in advancing the state-of-the-art in the areas of surface engineering. The committee is committed to organizing regular symposia and publishing feature issues to provide a platform for useful discussions on evolving topics in surface engineering. This issue of JOM presents five articles, including four articles based on presentations made at the TMS 2014 Annual Meeting on the topics of surface treatment and processing of coatings. In the article titled ‘‘Aqueous Corrosion Behavior of Micro Arc Oxidation (MAO)-Coated Magnesium Alloys: A Critical Review,’’ L. Rama Krishna and G. Sundararajan examine the prospects of the relatively novel and eco-friendly micro-arc oxidation (MAO) process in aqueous corrosion protection of Mg and its alloys. The authors present a critical review of the influence of MAO processing parameters such as electrolytic composition, presence of insoluble additives in the electrolytes, electrical parameters, and substrate composition on the corrosion resistance of Mg alloys. The authors conclude that the MAO process offers distinct advantages such as complete crystalline structure, good coating-substrate bonding, and the ability to tailor Sandip P. Harimkar is the guest editor for the Surface Engineering Committee of the TMS Materials Processing & Manufacturing Division, and coordinator of the topic Surface Engineering of Materials in this issue. JOM, Vol. 66, No. 6, 2014

National Security Research in Plasma Physics and Pulsed Power: Past, Present, and Future

The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) was established in 1923 to fulfill Thomas Edison's vision of a government research laboratory that could develop and translate scientific knowledge into effective military systems in times of war. The NRL Plasma Physics Division was established in 1966 to create X-ray simulators for testing the effects of nuclear weapons on materials and components of military hardware, to study the physics and effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions, and to perform nuclear fusion research. This paper traces the development of pulsed power and plasma physics from 1940 to the present day through a set of graphical timeframes that depict both the major geopolitical events and the major pulsed power facilities that were noteworthy in a series of 15–20 year epochs. Pulsed power research began at the U.K. Atomic Weapons Establishment, where it was first used for radiography. Subsequently, Sandia, Los Alamos, and Livermore performed pulsed power research for an expanding set of missions. The earliest facilities consisted mostly of single-module machines that had limited ability to synchronize and pulse shape. The 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative led to the development of technologies for directed energy weapons, railguns, and X-ray lasers. The cessation of nuclear testing in 1992 created an increased need for above ground testing including advanced radiography, nuclear weapons effects simulators, hydrotest facilities, and inertial confinement fusion devices. The Stockpile Stewardship Program, which began in the mid-1990s, saw the construction of several major facilities [e.g., National Ignition Facility, Z, Omega, and DAHRT], with increased power, as well as sophisticated synchronization and pulse shaping capabilities. In 2012, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced a strategic pivot to the joint force of 2020 and a rebalance toward the Asian-Pacific region. Looking to the future, a number of DoD documents describe the need to develop and deploy transformational technologies. For example, the 2012 Naval S&T Strategic Plan emphasizes hypervelocity railguns, DE, the detection and neutralization of weapons of mass destruction, and the ability to retain access in contested environments, especially in space. Future military systems will require pulsed power that is compact, repetitive, efficient, and is thermally managed. Low-temperature plasmas and nonequilibrium plasma chemistry are emerging research areas that could impact DoD missions. Atmospheric plasmas are creating new opportunities in plasma biology and plasma medicine. The research capabilities of the rest of the world, especially China, are rapidly growing, and new ideas and capabilities will increasingly come from outside of the U.S. This paper explores some of the future challenges and opportunities for plasma physics and pulsed power research.

Introducing the 2013 JALA Ten.

Introducing the 2013 JALA Ten.

Research Risk and Public Policy in a Knowledge-Based Economy: the Relative Research Efficiency of Government Versus University Labs

This paper contributes to the burgeoning literature about the knowledge economy by addressing the question of which intellectual-based institutions in an economy contribute the greatest amount to economic growth. In particular, we posit a theoretical model that compares the research efficiency of government research labs to university research labs. We conclude that there is merit in shifting public moneys from government research labs to university research labs from an efficiency perspective. This result opens the door for empirical research on relative research efficiencies and the implications for efficiency gains on economic growth.

Factors Influencing Choice of Business Strategies by Government Research Laboratories under Pressure to Increase External Earnings: An Exploratory Study

Concerned by the seeming lack of accountability of government research laboratories, governments the world over have adopted fiscal control measures to make them more business-like and responsive to user needs. These have typically consisted of expecting them to generate a portion of their revenues from actual users of their services. In this study we examined the strategies adopted by five government research laboratories in India in response to a policy directive that they should generate at least one third of their budget from external sources, particularly industry. The performance of these laboratories, functioning under the aegis of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, was studied over an eight-year period after the policy was proposed. All the laboratories studied worked in areas where they could develop product or process technologies for use by industry.The major finding of this study was that the strategies adopted by the laboratories were influenced substantially by the founding conditions, early leadership and the resultant organizational culture of the laboratory and these appeared to play a bigger role than the structure of the industry served by the laboratory or the nature of the technology involved. The main implication of this is that control measures like external earnings targets are unlikely to achieve policy objectives if they are applied across-the-board without attention to the history, culture and competencies of individual laboratories.

Comment on “Changes in sulfides and platinum-group minerals with the degree of alteration in the Roby, Twilight, and High Grade Zones of the Lac des Iles Complex, Ontario, Canada” by MLN Djon and SJ Barnes

I wish to raise three main issues arising out of a carefulreading of the paper by Djon and Barnes (2012):1. It employs a fundamentally flawed technique by usingthin sections/polished blocks to measure the absoluteand relative abundances of base metal sulfide (BMS)minerals and trace platinum group minerals (PGMs) insilicate whole rocks, resulting in errors in calculationsfor mass balance and PGE deportment;2. It describes poor analytical methods for electron probemicro-analysis (EPMA) of PGM and laser ablationinductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analyses of the BMS, resulting in errors inthe reported concentrations for some elements;3. It shows poor preparation of the manuscript, omittingimportant details on which values for PGE concentra-tions were used in calculations for mass balance andPGE deportment, and why. This makes for the inabilityof the results to be checked and evaluated critically byreaders.It is also unfortunate that the authors do not acknowledgeany referees for their efforts, which make it impossible forthe reader to judge whether (a) the referees were knowl-edgeable in applied/process mineralogy and EPMA/LA-ICP-MS, and (b) the authors implemented the obvious rec-ommendations that would have been made by such experts.Because this journal is mainly devoted to the study ofmineral deposits, some background is relevant to put theabove criticisms in context. Studies of PGE mass balancesand their deportment in rocks is a well-developed techniquein the discipline of applied/process mineralogy. Similarly,well-established procedures have been developed in theanalytical geochemistry community for in situ analyses ofPGEs in sulfide minerals by LA-ICP-MS. Nonetheless, bothapplied/process mineralogy and LA-ICP-MS analyses ofminerals are relatively new areas of scientific endeavor formany mineral deposit geologists and academics, perhapsexplaining some of the mistakes made.Applied/process mineralogy only evolved internationallywith the first International Council for Applied Mineralogy(ICAM) conference in 1981, having been developed in someof the major mining companies and some governmentresearch laboratories [e.g., Canmet (Canada), CSIRO (Aus-tralia), and Mintek (South Africa)]. Unfortunately, there areveryfew universitieswherestudentscanbecomeproficientinappliedandprocessmineralogy;mostexpertshavinglearntonthe job (Schouwstra and Smit 2011). There are also very fewbooks devoted to the subject, a rare one being by Petruk(2000); most case studies being found in conference proceed-ings [e.g., Canadian Mineral Processors, ICAM, and TheMinerals, Metals, and Material Society (TMS-AIME)], ormore recently in the Conference of Metallurgists (e.g., Fordet al. 2009, 2011) and Minerals Engineering (e.g., Lotter2011). Thus, proper procedures for PGE mass balances anddeportment are not well known outside the applied/processmineralogy community. Secondly, LA-ICP-MS of mineralswasdevelopedonly20yearsago,fromthepioneeringworkofJackson et al. (1992), and proper procedures for analyses ofBMS has been only widely possible more recently.