In this episode, married co-authors Kevin Flynn & Rebecca Lavoie. Together, they have written four true crime books, most recently Dark Heart: A True Story of Sex, Manipulation, and Murder. They are also two of the eponymous crime writers behind the podcast Crime Writers On... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Source: REX/Shutterstock Alexander Rutskoy, Russian Air Force General, was the man who brought Boris Yeltsin to power. Rutskoy has unveiled a few interesting facts from the history of Russia. The general said that Boris Yeltsin was drinking a lot during the coup in 1991 and tried to escape to the US Embassy. Rutskoy also said that after the collapse o the Soviet Union, Yeltsin called George H. Bush to report the news to the USA. When serving as vice president, Rutskoy defended independence and Constitution of the Russian Federation, especially in the days of the State Emergency Committee. Later, however, he changed his opinions. In an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, Alexander Rutskoy spoke about the days, when the Soviet Union stopped its existence. He said that there was an urgent need to remove Mikhail Gorbachev from power, appoint Nikolai Ryzhkov as acting president of the USSR, prepare a new candidate and then hold popular elections for the President of the USSR and the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR.Rutskoy said that he did not have even a shadow of doubt about whom to support in the situation of those days. "I swore as an 18-year-old boy to serve the Motherland and the people, and I have never showed disloyalty to the oath," he said.Today, Rutskoy does not conceal the fact that he had believed Yeltsin's promises about the defense of Russian interests. The vice president of the RSFSR, unlike those, who signed the Belavezha Accords, virtually had no access to the governance of the country. During the interview, Rutskoy said that Boris Yeltsin had tried to escape to the US Embassy. He also said that Gorbachev was not isolated from the world during the days of the State Emergency Committee. Gorbachev could be contacted via secret communication channels, and he was perfectly aware of what was going on. Rutskoy said that Gorbachev simply escaped prior to the signing of the new Unified Treaty. Gorbachev, Rutskoy stated, was executing the mission to destroy the country. It was Rutskoy, who escorted Yeltsin to Minsk,  only to find out later that the USSR would be dissolved. Rutskoy wrote a notice to terminate his powers of the vice president, but his initiative did not move forward. During the ratification of Belavezha Accords, he voted against it. Rutskoy and Yeltsin went separate ways when the latter appointed Gaidar, Chubais and Nechayev for key economic positions in the country. The three officials eventually made Russia experience an economic collapse. According to Rutskoy, the putsch in 1991 took place because Gorbachev betrayed his homeland and the people who were close to him in his team. The State Emergency Committee made a humble attempt to keep the Union afloat. The putsch in 1993 was a coup, which took place with the support of the United States and Europe. "There was an intelligence report saying that the White House in Moscow would be attacked. Yeltsin suddenly decided to go to the US Embassy. I was trying to stop him, I was telling him that he should not be doing it. I was asking him whether he was aware of the things that he was doing.  When they signed the Belovezha  Accorda, the first person, whom Yeltsin informed that the Soviet Union was no more, was George H. Bush," Rutskoy admitted. "Yeltsin was maintaining a contact with the US leadership to inform the Americans about successes of the unilateral surrender in the Cold War," he added.The book of memoirs by George H.W. Bush titled "A World Transformed" also says that Boris Yeltsin was cooperating with the USA for the collapse of the Soviet Union. "On December 8, 1991, Boris Yeltsin from a hunting lodge near Brest, in Belarus. Only recently elected President of the Russian Republic, Yeltsin had been meeting with Leonid Kravchuk, President of Ukraine, and Stanislav Shushkevich, President of Belarus. "Today, a very important event took place in our country," Yeltsin said. "I wanted to inform you myself before you learned it from the press." Then he told me the news: the Presidents of Russia, Belarus and ukraine had decided to dissolve the Soviet Union," George H.W. Bush wrote. According to George H.W. Bush, Yeltsin's tone changed after he finished reading his text. The signed documents, he continued, formulated the provisions that the USA had been advocating. Bush was unwilling to express either his approval or disapproval, so he simply responded with "I understand." 

El Departamento de Seguros de Texas (TDI, por su nombre y siglas en inglés) anunció a Dan Paschal como el Comisionado Adjunto de la recién creada división de Relaciones Externas. Esta división incluirá Comunicaciones (actualmente Asuntos Públicos) y Relaciones Gubernamentales (actualmente Asuntos de la Agencia).

El Departamento de Seguros de Texas (Texas Department of Insurance - TDI, por su nombre y siglas en inglés) anuncia el nuevo comisionado jefe adjunto y nuevos líderes para las divisiones de Operaciones Administrativas, Seguros de Vida y de Salud, y las Divisiones del Concejo General.

Un ajustador de seguros público de Texas acusado de robar más de $268,000 en reclamaciones de seguros a múltiples víctimas ha sido acusado por un gran jurado del condado Kimble.

Septiembre se considera la etapa cumbre de la actividad ciclónica, pero es importante recordar que la temporada de huracanes se extiende hasta noviembre.

Five people were hurt when an unmanned aerial vehicle crashed into a multi-story apartment building in Belgorod. The drone crashed into a building on Kashtanovaya Street. A large fire started in the building as a result of the explosion. According to Mash Telegram channel, there was a family staying in the apartment at the moment when the drone struck. Relatives are unable to contact anyone from the family.

US pilots told a story about Soviet pilots of MiG aircraft that took off to intercept enemy aircraft at the height of the Cold War. Soviet pilots were making jokes during the operations, Theaviationgeekclub website wrote with reference to a collection of stories dedicated to the Douglas F3D Skyknight air missions. "The first time we were intercepted, they reported that we were taking pictures of them, as we were carrying 35 mm hand-held cameras. Normally, it would be on the pilot's side where the interceptors were, and the ECMO would lean across and snap some pictures of them. And the Russians would report, "They're taking pictures of us. What should we do?” One of the Russian controllers had a sense of humour and said "Smile”. Who would have thought the Russians had any sense of humour at all?" Skyknight pilot Chuck Houseman said. The book also said that US pilots, who were collecting reconnaissance data near the Soviet borders in the Far East, thought of Soviet pilots as friendly individuals compared to pilots from other communist countries. According to the author of the book and aviation expert Joe Copalman, the midair encounters had always been quiet as the United States had not violated state borders and performed its tasks within international space.

The head of the All-Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation, Irina Viner, announced that her athletes would no longer compete at international tournaments in a neutral status, TASS reports. According to Viner, until recently Russian athletes could only count on one place in victory at the Games. "What's the point of that? There's no flag, no anthem, no communication, no fans, but there's special uniforms and special music. It would be a shame if we go there. This would be very humiliating for Russia. Russian rhythmic gymnasts will not go there for certain. We will never again perform without the Russian flag and anthem," said Viner.

The statement from former US President Donald Trump about the "destruction" of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline should be considered an element of the election campaign, Kremlin's official spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. After the explosion of the gas pipeline, one thread survived, and Gazprom is ready to immediately start deliveries if Germany agrees to buy natural gas from Russia, Peskov said. "There is a surviving thread of Nord Stream 2, and it is ready to be launched, as President Putin said. Therefore, it is very difficult to guess what Mr. Trump had in mind here," Peskov concluded.

The Russian Ministry of Defense reported damages of 130 million rubles due to the supplies of defective aircraft parts for the Ilyushin Il-76 military transport aircraft, the Izvestia newspaper wrote about it with reference to a source. It was revealed that the aircraft in operation had counterfeit bearings installed on them. The Investigative Committee for the Moscow Region sad that no further details of the case could be exposed for the interests of the investigation. It was reported that the case was initiated against unidentified persons from among the management of the Balashikha Foundry and Mechanical Plant (BLMZ). According to sources, the plant was recognized as the injured party in the case. Possible violations in the execution of documents for the bearings were committed by the Saratov Bearing Plant from which they were purchased.

Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in the ceremony to launch the Chukotka nuclear icebreaker built at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg. Putin participated from Moscow via video link. The footage shows the head of state giving the command "Launch cleared!" A bottle of champagne was traditionally smashed against the side of the vessel before launch. Three best workers of the Baltic Shipyard cut the detent that secured the ship to the land. The multi-ton vessel then slowly slid along the rails into the water.

TalkTalk and CityFibre have agreed a strategic partnership to accelerate their B2B Ethernet offering to the wholesale community.

Infinigate Group, the technology platform and trusted advisor in cybersecurity, cloud and network infrastructure, has expanded its partnership with CYREBRO, an AI-native Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution, bringing state-level SOC services to MSPs and MSSPs across Europe, through the Infinigate Cloud marketplace.

Linnworks, provider of inventory, order and warehouse management solutions for ecommerce retailers, has announced its new integration with Loop, a post-purchase platform designed to optimise returns, exchanges and reverse logistics.

Russia's refusal to pay $50 billion to former Yukos shareholders will lead to new investigations.On March 31, the Moscow City Court will consider an appeal, which was filed against the ruling to pay $35 million to former Yukos shareholder Alexey Golubovich by his ex-wife Olga Mirimskaya. Allegedly, she received the money for the sale of Yukos shares 15 years ago, and her ex-husband asked for his share as part of the divorce proceedings that have been ongoing for the last ten years. These are unusual demands as Mirimskaya has never owned shares in the oil company. In addition, Golubovich was not only its shareholder, but also served as the director for strategic planning and corporate finance at OAO NK Yukos and was aware of all information related to the financial dealings of the oil giant. A journalistic investigation conducted by Pravda.Ru showed that Alexey Golubovich likely still works in close collaboration with other ex-owners of Yukos. Alexey Golubovich, a former shareholder of Yukos oil company, and Olga Mirimskaya, the chairwoman of the Board of Directors of BKF Bank, divorced in 2012, but the litigation over the division of their marital property continues to this day. Olga Mirimskaya is the founder of the Russian Product Company. She is also President of BKF Bank. Mirimskaya is charged with giving a bribe — two vehicles worth a total of 3.25 million rubles — to Yury Nosov, an investigator at the Moscow Region Department of the Investigative Committee in 2017. He handled the case, in which she appeared as a victim in connection with the kidnapping of her daughter. Nosov and Mirimskaya were arrested in the bribery case. They plead not guilty, claiming that the case has been initiated under false pretences with malicious intent. "According to the defendant, the case was initiated by Alexey Golubovich, as well as by her former common-law partner Nikolai Smirnov, a co-owner of the Golden Crown payment system, as an act of revenge for the return of her daughter, in order to seize her property," Mirimskaya's lawyer Alexander Chernov said.

Continued. Read Part I of the article here. Alexey Golubovich, Yukos's former director for strategic planning and corporate finance was one of the main witnesses in the case against Yukos. How can one determine the basis of his testimony? Was it a wish to help the Russian justice system or the subtle game of a "double agent"? In order to understand this, one may need to recall a few facts from his business biography. In the first part of our investigation, we talked about Alexey Golubovich's business projects and lawsuits in 2010–2022, in which one could see both the shadows of his former Yukos colleagues (for example, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Yuri Beilin) ​and the non-systemic opposition.

Omni-ID, the developer of passive industrial radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, used by major global organisations for monitoring the location and identity of assets, has appointed Amir Mobayen as Chief Revenue Officer.

PayPoint and Teya have entered into a partnership that has led to the launch of a new service for Teya Business Account holders at PayPoint stores nationwide.

Cash handling solutions provider, Volumatic, has joined forces with EPoS solution providers MHouse Business Solutions to offer more efficient, accurate and streamlined cash processing to convenience retailers in Scotland and beyond.

Security and Safety Things GmbH has entered into a partnership with the Johan Cruijff ArenA in Amsterdam to deploy its IoT platform for smart surveillance cameras to enhance overall fan experience, optimize ArenA operations and increase visitor security and privacy.

BIXOLON Europe GmbH, a subsidiary of BIXOLON, the manufacturer of advanced receipt, label and mobile printers, has entered into a partnership with ACS Postal Services (ACS), the Greek courier service provider.

This Earth Day, Brother International Europe is celebrating 15 years since first joining forces with the rainforest conservation charity, becoming their longest-serving commercial partner.

BIXOLON Europe GmbH, a subsidiary of BIXOLON, a global leader in advanced receipt, label and mobile printers, has partnered with G Rigging & Lighting Ltd, an independent event specialist based in the UK.

Ivalua, a global leader in spend management solutions provider, has been named a Market Leader in the Ardent Partners "2024 Strategic Sourcing Technology Advisor." The report evaluated the 8 vendors Ardent identified as solution and market leaders in the strategic sourcing space, placing Ivalua in the Market Leaders Quadrant based on its solution and provider strength.

PPDS is participating at EquipHotel 2024 (3-7 November), with the latest innovations in its portfolio of hospitality display solutions, plus the launch of a brand new ‘all inclusive’ streaming partnership for Philips MediaSuite TVs.

Added September 18, 2006:

AI-Media - the global provider of audiovisual encoding technology and AI-driven transcription and translation solutions, and Speechmatics - the provider of speech recognition technology, have announced a strategic expansion of their multi-year partnership to deliver new and better AI-driven products to market.

The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) announced that they have developed an advanced disease diagnosis and treatment system based on nanomaterials.

The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE) has been awarded $3.5 million, part of a larger $8 million grant from Education Initiatives, to partner with the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) to launch The Academy at Penn, an innovative five-year, cohort-based college- and career-readiness model for high school students. Foundations, Inc. and the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) were also awarded through the grant as part of the larger partnership. The close collaboration involves working together to design, implement, and evaluate the project.

So-called "XYZ states" defy the standard picture of particle behavior and have given rise to several attempts to understand their nature. But researchers with the Center for Theoretical and Computational Physics (Theory Center) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility say there is a simpler way to explain the abundance of exotic charmonium particles using lattice quantum chromodynamics.

The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) announced that they have developed an advanced disease diagnosis and treatment system based on nanomaterials.

[Politics] :
The ruling People Power Party has launched a consultative body with the government and some doctors’ groups, but without the participation of the main opposition party, a trainee doctors’ group or the country’s largest group of doctors.  The body held its inaugural meeting at the National Assembly on ...

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[Politics] :
If the opposition unilaterally passes a bill mandating a special counsel investigation targeting first lady Kim Keon-hee, ruling People Power Party floor leader Choo Kyung-ho has said he will strongly recommend a presidential veto.  At a party Supreme Council meeting Monday, Choo said the ruling party ...

[more...]

[Inter-Korea] :
North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, has reportedly left Pyongyang to visit Russia amid international criticism over the North’s participation in the war between Russia and Ukraine.  According to the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) on Tuesday, a delegation led by Choe ...

[more...]

[Inter-Korea] :
North Korea has reportedly ratified a treaty to establish a strategic partnership with Russia that includes a defense provision. The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) said Tuesday that the treaty was ratified as a decree of the president of the state affairs of North Korea, which refers ...

[more...]

[Science] :
A heavy rain warning has been issued for the five border islands in the Yellow Sea and a heavy rain watch for the Seoul metro area, Gangwon Province and parts of the Jeolla and Gyeongsang provinces.  With heavy rain set to pound most parts of the nation through Sunday, the interior and safety ministry on ...

[more...]

[Politics] :
The main opposition Democratic Party(DP) will stage a rally this weekend to denounce alleged influence peddling by President Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon-hee and call for a special counsel probe. DP spokesperson Hwang Jung-a said Wednesday that the party will hold the rally in Seoul’s ...

[more...]

[International] :
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO), along with its Indo-Pacific partners, including South Korea, strongly denounced North Korea's troop deployment to Russia in support of its military offensive against Ukraine. In a statement on Friday, NATO's top decision-making North Atlantic Council(NAC) ...

[more...]

[International] :
Ukraine's top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, reportedly said that his country has numerous reports of North Korean soldiers preparing to participate in combat operations alongside Russian forces. Reuters said on Sunday that Syrskyi made the remarks in a Facebook post on Saturday. In the ...

[more...]

A carburetor regulates the flow of air and gasoline into the engine cylinders. Learn about carburetors and find out how a carburetor works.

[Culture] :
To strengthen the global competitiveness of K-contents, eleven organizations will pool their resources to create a strategic fund worth approximately 600 billion won, or over 454 million U.S. dollars. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Ministry of Science and ICT announced Wednesday that ...

[more...]

A detailed structural characterization of the δ1-MnZn9.7 phase is presented.

A detailed structural analysis of the Zn-rich δ1-MnZn9.7 phase using single-crystal X-ray diffraction is presented. The δ1 phase has been synthesized by the high-temperature synthetic route. The structure crystallizes in space group P63/mmc (Pearson symbol hP556) with unit-cell parameters: a = b = 12.9051 (2) Å and c = 57.640 (1) Å. The 556 atoms are distributed over 52 Wyckoff positions in the hexagonal unit cell: seven ordered Mn sites, 37 ordered Zn sites and eight positionally disordered Zn sites. The structure predominantly consists of Frank–Kasper polyhedra (endohedral icosahedra Zn12 and icosioctahedron Zn16) and four distinct types of glue Zn atoms. The structure comprises a 127-atom supercluster (Mn13Zn114), a 38-atom extended Pearce cluster (Mn3Zn35), a 46-atom L-tetrahedron (Mn4Zn42), a Friauf polyhedron (Zn17), a disordered icosahedral cluster (MnZn12) and four glue Zn atoms. Positionally disordered Zn sites around an Mn site can be visualized as the superimposition of three differently oriented Zn12 icosahedra.

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is widely used to analyze the shape and size of nanoparticles in solution. A multitude of models, describing the SAXS intensity resulting from nanoparticles of various shapes, have been developed by the scientific community and are used for data analysis. Choosing the optimal model is a crucial step in data analysis, which can be difficult and time-consuming, especially for non-expert users. An algorithm is proposed, based on machine learning, representation learning and SAXS-specific preprocessing methods, which instantly selects the nanoparticle model best suited to describe SAXS data. The different algorithms compared are trained and evaluated on a simulated database. This database includes 75 000 scattering spectra from nine nanoparticle models, and realistically simulates two distinct device configurations. It will be made freely available to serve as a basis of comparison for future work. Deploying a universal solution for automatic nanoparticle model selection is a challenge made more difficult by the diversity of SAXS instruments and their flexible settings. The poor transferability of classification rules learned on one device configuration to another is highlighted. It is shown that training on several device configurations enables the algorithm to be generalized, without degrading performance compared with configuration-specific training. Finally, the classification algorithm is evaluated on a real data set obtained by performing SAXS experiments on nanoparticles for each of the instrumental configurations, which have been characterized by transmission electron microscopy. This data set, although very limited, allows estimation of the transferability of the classification rules learned on simulated data to real data.

Monoclinic ferroelectric phases are prevalent in various functional materials, most notably mixed-ion perovskite oxides. These phases can manifest as regularly ordered long-range crystallographic structures or as macroscopic averages of the self-assembled tetragonal/rhombohedral nanodomains. The structural and physical properties of monoclinic ferroelectric phases play a pivotal role when exploring the interplay between ferroelectricity, ferroelasticity, giant piezoelectricity and multiferroicity in crystals, ceramics and epitaxial thin films. However, the complex nature of this subject presents challenges, particularly in deciphering the microstructures of monoclinic domains. In Paper I [Biran & Gorfman (2024). Acta Cryst. A80, 112–128] the geometrical principles governing the connection of domain microstructures formed by pairing MAB type monoclinic domains were elucidated. Specifically, a catalog was established of `permissible domain walls', where `permissible', as originally introduced by Fousek & Janovec [J. Appl. Phys. (1969), 40, 135–142], denotes a mismatch-free connection between two monoclinic domains along the corresponding domain wall. The present article continues the prior work by elaborating on the formalisms of permissible domain walls to describe domain microstructures formed by pairing the MC type monoclinic domains. Similarly to Paper I, 84 permissible domain walls are presented for MC type domains. Each permissible domain wall is characterized by Miller indices, the transformation matrix between the crystallographic basis vectors of the domains and, crucially, the expected separation of Bragg peaks diffracted from the matched pair of domains. All these parameters are provided in an analytical form for easy and intuitive interpretation of the results. Additionally, 2D illustrations are provided for selected instances of permissible domain walls. The findings can prove valuable for various domain-related calculations, investigations involving X-ray diffraction for domain analysis and the description of domain-related physical properties.

In Part I of this series, all topologically possible 1-periodic infinite graphs (chain graphs) representing chains of tetrahedra with up to 6–8 vertices (tetrahedra) per repeat unit were generated. This paper examines possible restraints on embedding these chain graphs into Euclidean space such that they are compatible with the metrics of chains of tetrahedra in observed crystal structures. Chain-silicate minerals with T = Si4+ (plus P5+, V5+, As5+, Al3+, Fe3+, B3+, Be2+, Zn2+ and Mg2+) have a grand nearest-neighbour 〈T–T〉 distance of 3.06±0.15 Å and a minimum T⋯T separation of 3.71 Å between non-nearest-neighbour tetrahedra, and in order for embedded chain graphs (called unit-distance graphs) to be possible atomic arrangements in crystals, they must conform to these metrics, a process termed equalization. It is shown that equalization of all acyclic chain graphs is possible in 2D and 3D, and that equalization of most cyclic chain graphs is possible in 3D but not necessarily in 2D. All unique ways in which non-isomorphic vertices may be moved are designated modes of geometric modification. If a mode (m) is applied to an equalized unit-distance graph such that a new geometrically distinct unit-distance graph is produced without changing the lengths of any edges, the mode is designated as valid (mv); if a new geometrically distinct unit-distance graph cannot be produced, the mode is invalid (mi). The parameters mv and mi are used to define ranges of rigidity of the unit-distance graphs, and are related to the edge-to-vertex ratio, e/n, of the parent chain graph. The program GraphT–T was developed to embed any chain graph into Euclidean space subject to the metric restraints on T–T and T⋯T. Embedding a selection of chain graphs with differing e/n ratios shows that the principal reason why many topologically possible chains cannot occur in crystal structures is due to violation of the requirement that T⋯T > 3.71 Å. Such a restraint becomes increasingly restrictive as e/n increases and indicates why chains with stoichiometry TO<2.5 do not occur in crystal structures.

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is a widely used method for nanoparticle characterization. A common approach to analysing nanoparticles in solution by SAXS involves fitting the curve using a parametric model that relates real-space parameters, such as nanoparticle size and electron density, to intensity values in reciprocal space. Selecting the optimal model is a crucial step in terms of analysis quality and can be time-consuming and complex. Several studies have proposed effective methods, based on machine learning, to automate the model selection step. Deploying these methods in software intended for both researchers and industry raises several issues. The diversity of SAXS instrumentation requires assessment of the robustness of these methods on data from various machine configurations, involving significant variations in the q-space ranges and highly variable signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) from one data set to another. In the case of laboratory instrumentation, data acquisition can be time-consuming and there is no universal criterion for defining an optimal acquisition time. This paper presents an approach that revisits the nanoparticle model selection method proposed by Monge et al. [Acta Cryst. (2024), A80, 202–212], evaluating and enhancing its robustness on data from device configurations not seen during training, by expanding the data set used for training. The influence of SNR on predictor robustness is then assessed, improved, and used to propose a stopping criterion for optimizing the trade-off between exposure time and data quality.

This work investigates the performance of the electrospray aerosol generator at the European X-ray Free Electron Laser (EuXFEL). This generator is, together with an aerodynamic lens stack that transports the particles into the X-ray interaction vacuum chamber, the method of choice to deliver particles for single-particle coherent diffractive imaging (SPI) experiments at the EuXFEL. For these experiments to be successful, it is necessary to achieve high transmission of particles from solution into the vacuum interaction region. Particle transmission is highly dependent on efficient neutralization of the charged aerosol generated by the electrospray mechanism as well as the geometry in the vicinity of the Taylor cone. We report absolute particle transmission values for different neutralizers and geometries while keeping the conditions suitable for SPI experiments. Our findings reveal that a vacuum ultraviolet ionizer demonstrates a transmission efficiency approximately seven times greater than the soft X-ray ionizer used previously. Combined with an optimized orifice size on the counter electrode, we achieve >40% particle transmission from solution into the X-ray interaction region. These findings offer valuable insights for optimizing electrospray aerosol generator configurations and data rates for SPI experiments.

In situ and operando investigation of photocatalysts plays a fundamental role in understanding the processes of active phase formation and the mechanisms of catalytic reactions, which is crucial for the rational design of more efficient materials. Using a custom-made operando photocatalytic cell, an in situ procedure to follow the formation steps of Pd/TiO2 photocatalyst by synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is proposed. The procedure resulted in the formation of ∼1 nm Pd particles with a much narrower size distribution and homogeneous spreading over TiO2 support compared with the samples generated in a conventional batch reactor. The combination of in situ XAS spectroscopy with high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy demonstrated the formation of single-atom Pd(0) sites on TiO2 as the initial step of the photodeposition process. Palladium hydride particles were observed for all investigated samples upon exposure to formic acid solutions.