Abstracts of Papers Presented at the 2005 Pittsburgh Conference

To attend or not to attend, that is the question. The Pittsburgh Conference continues to pose this conundrum to conferees and exhibitors alike. This year's conference was the first to be presented without a set of paper abstracts—a good thing some would say but this old codger always used the paper abstracts to select papers of interest to our readership and to seek a full publication. The exhibit took its usual format but it seemed that there were less manufacturers present. The information presented to the attendees was also lacking and many companies' details were missing from the final program book, an omission no doubt on their behalf—my company was one of these—however I feel sure that past Pittcon organizers would have been more persistent in getting the required details for the audience. As is now the norm, many of the presentations take the form of posters displayed within the exhibition area. Without a driver to get the audience there, the traffic was slow, to say the least. Lecture presentations were also attended in a mixed fashion. So the Pittsburgh Conference show moves on, and again next year it will be held in Orlando from 12 March to 17 March 2006. No doubt I will be there making it a straight 31 in a row; in Pittsburgh Conference terms I am just a beginner with many of the attendees making more shows in a run than that. Selected abstracts dealing with topics of interest to the readers of this journal follow—hopefully many of these groups will be willing to publish their work either within this journal or elsewhere.