Instrumental knowledge

Instrumental knowledge is information about how to steer certain processes, on how to achieve certain goals, i.e. knowledge that needs to be balanced against regulation and safety. Examples how to build Bt and other genes into crops and how to stabilize them how to avoid vertical gene flow how to avoid unwelcome soil erosion how to avoid early pest resistance. 

While science writers today extoll the virtues of computer controlled laboratory instrumentation, knowledgeable lab dentists recognize the extent to which automated equipment can "free" the scientist from his laboratory investigations. A similar appraisal occurred in the crime laboratory. Crime laboratory directors soon recognized that no amount of modern equipment could reduce the ever-growing case load if there were not enough laboratory scientists to use the equipment. Adequately prepared laboratory scientists were needed to use the equipment to produce results which could be interpreted in a meaningful manner relative to the cases at hand. In other words, we have not as yet found the way to get the "computer" to testify under oath on the stand ... 

Despite the drawbacks of chemical-fixation based procedures [21,24], most of our current knowledge on biological ultrastnicture relies on this approach. In contrast to cryopreparative procedures, chemical fixation does not require special skills and instrumentation. 

Foremost we hope - and believe - that chemoinformatics will become of increasing importance in the teaching of chemistry. The instruments and methods that are used in chemistry will continue to swamp us with data and we have to manage these data to increase our chemical knowledge. We have to understand more deeply, and exploit, the results of our experiments. Concomitantly, demands on the properties of the compounds that are produced by the chemical and pharmaceutical industries will continue to rise. We will need materials that are better we need them to be more selective, have fewer undesirable properties, able to be broken down easily in the environment without producing toxic by-products, and so on. This asks for more insight into the relationships between chemical structures and their properties. Furthermore, we have to plan and perform fewer and more efficient experiments. 

Prompt instrumentation is usually intended to measure quantities while uniaxial strain conditions still prevail, i.e., before the arrival of any lateral edge effects. The quantities of interest are nearly always the shock velocity or stress wave velocity, the material (particle) velocity behind the shock or throughout the wave, and the pressure behind the shock or throughout the wave. Knowledge of any two of these quantities allows one to calculate the pressure-volume-energy path followed by the specimen material during the experimental event, i.e., it provides basic information about the material s equation of state (EOS). Time-resolved temperature measurements can further define the equation-of-state characteristics. 

The major problems arise from accepting an instrument reading as reliable without determining its calibration and the reproducibility of its response and in not obtaining representative tests. Plant personnel must have some experience with and knowledge of the resolution of these problems. 

Usually there is no opportunity to repeat the measurements to determine the experimental variance or standard deviation. This is the most common situation encountered in field measurements. Each measurement is carried out only once due to restricted resources, and because field-measured quantities are often unstable, repetition to determine the spread is not justified. In such cases prior knowledge gained in a laboratory with the same or a similar meter and measurement approach could be used. The second alternative is to rely on the specifications given by the instrument manufacturer, although instrumenr manufacturers do not normally specify the risk level related to the confidence limits they are giving. 

In general, the final pump selection and performance details are recommended by the manufacturers to meet the conditions specified by the process design engineer. It is important that the designer of the process system be completely familiar with the action of each pump offered for a service in order that such items as control instruments and valves may be properly evaluated in the full knowledge of the system. 

Although the mechanism of corrosion is highly complex the actual control of the majority of corrosion reactions can be effected by the application of relatively simple concepts. Indeed, the Committee on Corrosion and Protection concluded that better dissemination of existing knowledge was the most important single factor that would be instrumental in decreasing the enormous cost of corrosion in the U.K. 

The great advance in the field of instrumentation, coupled with the discovery of the heterogeneity of the pyrethrolone radical, has advanced the knowledge of pyrethrum chemistry considerably beyond that known in 1945. LaForge and Barthel (24,25) have shown the structure of the active ingredients of pyrethrum, known collectively as pyrethrins, to be esters as represented by the structure shown in Table I. 

The twenty-first century demands novel materials of the scientist. New instruments have made possible the field of nanotechnology, in which chemists study particles between 1 and 100 nm in diameter, intermediate between the atomic and the bulk levels of matter. Nanotechnology has the promise to provide new materials such as biosensors that monitor and even repair bodily processes, microscopic computers, artificial bone, and lightweight, remarkably strong materials. To conceive and develop such materials, scientists need a thorough knowledge of the elements and their compounds. 

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