New disciplines

Bioinformatics is a relatively new discipline that is concerned with the collection, organisatic and analysis of biological data. It is beyond our scope to provide a comprehensive overvie of this discipline a few textbooks and reviews that serve this purpose are now available (s the suggestions for further reading). However, we will discuss some of the main rnethoc that are particularly useful when trying to predict the three-dimensional structure and fum tion of a protein. To help with this. Appendix 10.1 contains a limited selection of some of tf common abbreviations and acronyms used in bioinformatics and Appendix 10.2 lists sorr of the most widely used databases and other resources. 

Evidence of the appHcation of computers and expert systems to instmmental data interpretation is found in the new discipline of chemometrics (qv) where the relationship between data and information sought is explored as a problem of mathematics and statistics (7—10). One of the most useful insights provided by chemometrics is the realization that a cluster of measurements of quantities only remotely related to the actual information sought can be used in combination to determine the information desired by inference. Thus, for example, a combination of viscosity, boiling point, and specific gravity data can be used to a characterize the chemical composition of a mixture of solvents (11). The complexity of such a procedure is accommodated by performing a multivariate data analysis. 

Throughout the 1970s, appHcations of pattern recognition were found in the chemical sciences. Other methods of multivariate mathematics and statistics were borrowed or invented, and a new discipline called chemometrics arose. In 1974, the Chemometrics Society was formed, and the first Chemometrics newsletter came out in 1976 (12). 

This book is primarily directed at professional materials scientists and engineers, and they have no urgent need to see themselves defined. Indeed, it would be perfectly reasonable to say about materials science what Aaron Katchalsky used to say about his new discipline, biophysics Biophysics is like my wife. I know her, but I cannot define her (Markl 1998). Nevertheless, in this preliminary canter through the early history of MSE, it is instructive to examine briefly how various eminent practitioners have perceived their changing domain. 

This entire book is about the emergence, nature and cultivation of a new discipline, materials science and engineering. To draw together the strings of this story, it helps to be clear about what a scientific discipline actually is that, in turn, becomes clearer if one looks at the emergence of some earlier disciplines which have had more time to reach a condition of maturity. Comparisons can help in definition we can narrow a vague concept by examining what apparently diverse examples have in common. 

Two marks of the acceptance of the new discipline, physical chemistry, in the early 20th century were the Nobel prizes for its three founders and enthusiastic... 

There is yet another test of the acceptance of a would-be new discipline, and that is the publication of textbooks devoted to the subject. By this test, physical chemistry took a long time to arrive . One distinguished physical chemist has written an autobiography (Johnson 1996) in which he says of his final year s study for a... 

Chemical engineering, like every other new discipline, also encountered discord as to its name terms like industrial chemistry or chemical technology were widely used and this in turn led to serious objections from existing bodies when the need... 

At this stage of my enquiry 1 can draw only a few tentative conclusions from the case-histories presented above. I shall return at the end of the book to the issue of how disciplines evolve and when, to adopt biological parlance, a new discipline becomes self-fertile. 

Rapid advances in understanding the nature and behaviour of materials required both kinds of skill, in measurement and in theory, acting in synergy among metallurgists, this only came to be recognised fully around the middle of the twentieth century, at about the same time as materials science became established as a new discipline. 

One of the defining features of a new discipline is the publication of textbooks setting out its essentials. In Section 2.1.1, devoted to the emergence of physical chemistry, I pointed out that the first textbook of physical chemistry was not published until 1940, more than half a century after the foundation of the field. Materials science has been better served. In what follows, I propose to omit entirely all textbooks devoted to straight physical metallurgy, of which there have been dozens, say little about straight physics texts, and focus on genuine MSE texts. 

The hydrogen atom, containing a single electron, has played a major role in the development of models of electronic structure. In 1913 Niels Bohr (1885-1962), a Danish physicist, offered a theoretical explanation of the atomic spectrum of hydrogen. His model was based largely on classical mechanics. In 1922 this model earned him the Nobel Prize in physics. By that time, Bohr had become director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Copenhagen. There he helped develop the new discipline of quantum mechanics, used by other scientists to construct a more sophisticated model for the hydrogen atom. 

Scientists in the 1920s, speculating on this problem, became convinced that an entirely new approach was required to treat electrons in atoms and molecules. In 1924 a young French scientist, Louis de Broglie (1892-1987), in his doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne made a revolutionary suggestion. He reasoned that if light could show the behavior of particles (photons) as well as waves, then perhaps an electron, which Bohr had treated as a particle, could behave like a wave. In a few years, de Broglie s postulate was confirmed experimentally. This led to the development of a whole new discipline, first called wave mechanics, more commonly known today as quantum mechanics. 

E. R. Scerri, Normative and Descriptive Philosophy of Science and the Role of Chemistry, in Philosophy of Chemistry, the Synthesis of a New Discipline, D. Baird, E. R. Scerri, L. McIntyre (eds.), Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 242, pp. 119-128, 2005 E. R. Scerri, Philosophy of Chemistry — A New Interdisciplinary Field Journal of Chemical Education 77 522-526, 2000. 

The prerequisite of the relatively new disciplines pharmacogenetics/pharmacogenomics is that individuals... 

The nanometer level of characterization is necessary for nanochemistry. We have learned from the history of once-new disciplines such as polymer science that progress in synthesis (production method) and in physical and chemical characterization methods are essential to establish a new chemistry. They should be made simultaneously by exchanging developments in the two areas. Surface forces measurement is certainly unique and powerful and will make a great contribution to nanochemistry, especially as a technique for the characterization of solid-liquid interfaces, though its potential has not yet been fully exploited. Another important application of measurement in nanochemistry should be the characterization of liquids confined in a nanometer-level gap between two solid surfaces, for which this review cites only Refs. 42-43. 

In the last few years, detection, characterization, and handling of pollution sites have grown into a new discipline with its specific technology, initially drawn from other disciplines such as statistics, then customized to meet the specificity of pollution control. 

Skills and tools derived from the new discipline of informatics offer some solutions to the challenges of information volume, access, and management... 

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