NEW CASTLE, DE—TA Instruments announced the acquisition of Expert System Solutions, ESS (Modena, Italy). ESS is a privately held company that designs and manufactures innovative non-contact optical thermal analysis instrumentation. Key products from ESS include optical dilatometers in horizontal and vertical orientation with simultaneous DTA measurements, heating microscopes, and an optical fleximeter. ESS systems operate over a wide temperature range, and are a powerful new tool for characterizing metals, ceramics, glasses and other organic and inorganic materials.