Collaboration, physical chemistry projects

Prof. Dr. Ludger Woste at the Free University of Berlin has continuously supported this work and contributed valuable ideas. The experiments were performed by Inez Weidinger, Benedikt Kramer, Oliver Hubner and Hermann Vortisch in the course of their Ph.D. and diploma theses. The project was initiated in a close and fruitful collaboration with Prof. Helmut Baum-gartel and Martin Schwell from the Department of Physical Chemistry of the Free University and Prof. Eckart Riihl from the University of Os-nabruck. 

Bulow M. and Rees L.V.C., Adsorption and Diffusion on Zeolites, Joint Research Project executed by The Central Institute of Physical Chemistry, Berlin, and The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, and sponsored by The Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin, and The Royal Society of Great Britain, London, under their Agreement of Scientific Collaboration-, February 17, 1986 - October 3, 1990. 

The need to establish more effective mechanisms for collaboration has become evident in our previous work under eu cost Action d9. Therefore, in parallel with further development of accurate multireference quantum chemical methods, we decided to investigate the use of web-based and internet tools for remote scientific collaboration. In the past, some of the participants have exchanged data, draft manuscripts and the like by e-mail, supplemented by occasional correspondence by post and face-to-face meetings. By exploring alternative mechanisms, in particular, real-time collaboration procedures, we aim to establish a more productive environment. This includes remote execution of computer programs, the use of web-based interfaces for remote collaboration. The intention has been to use only a publicly accessible and user-friendly software for making the expertise accumulated in this project profitable for national and international collaborations in other domains of chemistry and physics. 

We have developed a prototype collaborative virtual environment, which actively supports human-human communication in addition to human-machine conununi-cation, for molecular electronic structure theory. We submit that key elements of e-science, such as collaborative virtual environments, will evolve most rapidly and deliver a functionality required by practicing scientists if they are developed as part of a research project in the target discipline. This is the approach that we have followed in this work. We have developed a collaborative virtual environment for molecular electronic structure theory whilst undertaking research into aspects of the Brillouin-Wigner theory for many-body systems. Others working in molecular physics and quantum chemistry may find this a usefiil starting point for the development of improved environments. Such environments wiU undoubtedly evolve with time as higher bandwidths and new tools become available. 

The book reviews aspects from the up-to-date literature focused on these topics including our research. In addition the book records selected results from an international NATO project collaboration between The Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford and our Romanian laboratory at the Institute of Macro-molecular Chemistry Petru Poni , Iasi. This has made possible an unusually comprehensive study of the structure and important physical properties of polyurethane elastomers—a class of polymer of such great industrial importance. 

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