Key Historical Investigations

This collection of articles aims to study theory choice in the context of some key theoretical developments in the history of chemistry. Perhaps, the most influential account of theory choice in the philosophy of science has been Thomas Kuhn s (1970) account in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [1]. Kuhn himself contributed to reframe the philosophical problem of theory choice in light of the insights we may derive from thorough historical investigation. Just over fifty years since the publication of Kuhn s seminal book, this volume proposes to engage with his philosophical agenda with a renewed historical and historiographical awareness. 

Two key pieces of historical investigation require mention, as the approach developed here stems heavily from this work. The first involves growth and breakage mechanisms, which control the evolution of the granule size distribution (14), as... 

Key technical staff become unavailable for the toll or leave the company. Attempt to interview and extract key information from the persons prior to their departure. Arrange for an overlap period for the key person and their replacement. Train the replacement. Ensure the replacement person is given access to the historical records of the toll contract, technology package, MOC packages, and incident investigations. 

Synthetic derivatives and analogs of prenyl diphosphates have historically played a key role in defining key featnres of the mechanism of enzymes that ntilize these key intermediates in the isoprenoid pathway. This has also been the case with the investigation of the protein prenyl-transferases. A brief introduction to the protein prenyltransferase enzymes is given along with outlines on the previous use of prenyl diphosphate tools and key aspects of their synthesis. The development of prenyl diphosphate-based FTase inhibitors is described. The use of prenyl diphosphate derivatives as mechanistic and structural probes is next discussed. In particular, the use of fluorinated, isotopically labeled, and photoaffinity derivatives is presented. An overview of the extensive work on the determination of FTase isoprenoid substrate specificity is then given, and the chapter concludes with a section on the development of prenyl diphosphate tools for proteomic studies. 

After World War II, researchers from Dow visited the German polystyrene plants and were surprised to learn of their scale and sophistication. One of the key people on the investigating team that went to Germany was Dr Goggin, founder of Dow s Plastics Technical Service Department. The American teams that visited I. G. Farben after the War recorded their findings in a historic report [7]. This report clearly showed the advantages of a continuous production process for polystyrene. Further, the first industrial production of SAN was in 1936 also by I. G. Farben in Ludwigshafen. 

The analysis of natural products is a well-established part of the fragrance industry. Historically, essential oil analysis has provided the creative perfumer with the information required to reconstitute the characteristic odour of an oil at a lower cost and has led to the identification of the key components responsible for the odour. An essential oil may contain 300 or more components, and many plants and fragrant natural products have yet to be investigated in detail. Some of these materials may be a source of new odours. The traditional methods of essential oil analysis coupled with the ever-increasing sensitivity of modern equipment still leads to the discovery of fragrant natural chemicals that are new to science. 

The first handicap encountered during an outage is generally the lack of an abihty to access the data that is contained within the system. Without this information, clinicians are forced to make decisions devoid of key clinical facts. This might include historical notes, investigation results, previous admissions, etc. The impact of the outage will vary depending on ... 

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