Determination of Air Quality

In arranging for this Symposium on the Determination of Air Quality, we attempted to present much more than analytical chemi cal information. We realized fully that much of the audience would be interested in that type of information, but we also believed strongly that these analytical chemists want and need to know the fate and significance of their products, i.e., their data. Accord ingly, the participants were drawn from numerous "disciplines" - administrators, medical researchers, engineers, systems analysts, and instrumental and chemical analysts. There was a corresponding diversity of subject matter within the formal presentations. The Symposium was conducted in three half-day sessions. The first of these addressed the general subject of what is being done now regarding the determination of air quality. This general sub ject touched upon present data storage and handling activities, surveillance networks, correlative work with health effects, and efforts to combine (or index) several measured parameters into a single understandable value. The second session dealt with recent developments in the analytical methodology of air quality. Resea~ch and review papers were presented. The final session addressed more avant garde topics, such as the determination of odors, the use of electron spectroscopy for air quality studies, and the important intersociety effort aimed at standardizing analytical procedures in the air quality area. The response to this symposium was gratifying. It strengthened our belief that topical symposia can go far to improve communication between people who are attacking a common problem, but from different directions.