Aims, disciplinary

In parallel, the ad hoc group has organized a seminar open to all the disciplinary working groups of CEN/TC138. This meeting, held in September 1996 in Paris, had several aims ... 

The structure of the disciplines of chemistry and chemical engineering is discussed in more detail in the next chapter, with the aim of further probing these couplings. Although the emphasis in this report is on an integrated, seamless view of the chemical sciences, we recognize the well-developed disciplinary structures of chemistry and chemical engineering, and the effects of such disciplinary structures on future developments. 

I do not wish to challenge the idea that the American university of the turn of the century was a flexible institution. Nor do I wish to reject the claim that it served as the major site of specialization. Nevertheless, recognition of the importance of the university as a locus of this phenomenon should not cause us to neglect other kinds of institutions in which new specialties coalesced. Nor should the current emphasis upon institutional forms and markets for specialized knowledge blind us to the fact that ideas too played a role — that scientists with ideas could and did develop new specialties despite the absence of institutions or social and economic needs well suited to the realization of their disciplinary aims. 

I originally conceived this book as a study of epistemological questions about differences between chemistry and physics, namely, how chemists aims and methods in scientific explanation have been different from physicists and how these aims and methods have overlapped. This problem remains a principal focus of the book is there a way of seeing and describing the natural world that has been consistently "chemical" If so, how has it compared to a "physical" way of understanding the natural world Have chemistry and physics been commensurable or incommensurable sciences Answering these questions historically leads to sets of answers that are specific to time and place to distinct texts, individuals, schools, and traditions to disciplines and disciplinary histories. 

The concerns of this chapter fit squarely within the framework of disciplinary identity discussed previously. Here we can see some of the mechanisms by which individuals and groups have created or reinforced distinctions and identities among themselves. I largely leave the conceptual aims, language, and strategies characteristic of nineteenth-century chemistry for discussion in chapters 3 and 4. This is not to say that the epistemological aims and technical content of chemistry are completely ignored in this chapter, but they are not emphasized. 

The aim of this chapter is to analyze aspects of late-nineteenth-century chemistry that led Lespieau to organize his own school of research in theoretical chemistry, to delineate the members and characteristics of this disciplinary school, and to assess its achievements over a period of some forty years. Particularly given the so-called positivist bias in French chemistry against the introduction of physical atomism and physical mechanisms into late-nineteenth-century chemical theory, the history of Lespieau s avowedly "theoretical" school of chemistry helps delineate styles and practices among specific, nationally distinct schools within the wider field of theoretical chemistry. 

Robert Lespieau s aim to establish a disciplinary specialization of "chemical theories" in France was partially realized in the work of some of his students, especially Dupont, Prevost, and Kirrmann. For the first time, a clearly defined research school in France practiced the art of "theoretical chemistry" in their study of organic structure and reaction mechanisms. They self-consciously employed physical methods and apparatus, and they stayed in contact with a small network of physicists who were teachers, friends of Lespieau, or immediate colleagues. They had a laboratory terrain that was the home meeting place, no matter what their current affiliation. They had a common history that could be traced back generation by generation in the Ecole Normale laboratory to Berthollet, the "father" of chemical mechanics. 

In the course of the nineteenth century, then, chemistry had become a separate, distinct discipline from physics, but at the century s end, there was a reconvergence of the physical and chemical traditions, as practiced by individuals and research schools. In this chapter, we first review and illustrate elements of discipline-building in theoretical chemistry, referring to categories for disciplinary identity outlined at the beginning of this book. In the concluding section, we turn to the question of the conceptual commensurability of physics and chemistry, as illuminated by the aims of twentieth-century scientists practicing a "philosophical" or "theoretical" chemistry that some claimed to be reducible to physics. 

Applying this idea to our history, we remember that physical chemistry has employed disciplinary methods and aims taken from both physics and chemistry and that its practice has been one of striking epistemological pluralism. Laboratory investigations aimed at understanding chemical reaction mechanisms profited from the selection of mechanical and kinetic hypotheses from physics that transformed the static molecule of classical organic chemistry into the dynamic molecule of physical organic chemistry. 

A multi-disciplinary approach is needed to develop, implement and evaluate interventions aimed at promoting rational drug use. A national body... 

It is based on a multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach, aiming at involving the different levels of industry, government, academia and the financial sector. NCPCs and NCPPs build on existing structures. They are established in national institutions that are close to industry and can support the build-up of national capacity in Cleaner Production, e.g. universities, industrial chambers and associations, research centres. 

This book aims to present novel ideas that are crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries and introducing a wide spectrum of viewpoints and approaches in applied thermodynamics of the third millennium. 

Abstract. The transfer project aims at the integrative modeling, analysis, and improvement of a variety of work processes in the life cycle of a chemical product across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. A methodology is elaborated for the creation of conceptual, coarse grained models of work processes originating from empirical field studies in industry and their subsequent enrichment and formalization for computer-based interpretation and processing. 

It is Important that risk assessment aim at determining the most probable estimate of risk. Utilization of a sequential process of multi-disciplinary risk assessnent, with a focus on a comprehensive data base, will go a long way toward achieving this goal. 

The Global Perspective Program aims to instill in WPI students and faculty an appreciation of difference and an ability to interact effectively with other peoples and cultures the ability to apply their skills and knowledge across disciplinary, geographic, and political boundaries and an understanding of themselves and what roles they might play, professionally and personally, in an increasingly interconnected world (Vaz, 2008). 

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