Scientific Context

The first echoes from a near-Earth asteroid (1566 Icarus) were detected in 1968 it would be nearly another decade before the first radar detection of a main-belt asteroid (1 Ceres in 1977), to be followed in 1980 by the first detection of echoes from a comet (Encke). During 1972 and 1973, detection of 13-cm-wavelength radar echoes 

Perhaps the most far-reaching recent development is the upgrading of the Arecibo telescope s sensitivity by over an order of magnitude. At this writing, Arecibo has just returned to operation, and radar astronomy is beginning a new era of major contributions to planetary science. 

Examples are generally easier to apprehend than theoretical explanations so this section will present a concrete example of method validation. The described procedure is not universal or exhaustive, but it follows the recommendation of the Societe Fran aise des Sciences et Techniques Pharmaceutiques (SFSTP, French Society of Science and Pharmaceutical Techniques) and has proven its efficiency. The number of analyses conducted per day and the number of days during which experiments are conducted are indicative and determined by the person in charge of validation. 

The method was developed according to a procedure analogous to the one described in Section 7.3.4. Sample preparation consisted of acidic hydrolysis of collected hair, followed by an extraction in solid phase extraction. The analysis of cocaine and its metabolites was carried out in GC-MS with an ion trap in a protocol that associated positive chemical ionization and MS/MS detection for each of the four analytes. No chemical derivation was carried out prior to analysis. 

FIGURE 7.12 Chemical structures of cocaine (COC) and its three main metabolites ecgo-nine methylester (EME), anhydroecgonine methylester (AEME), and cocaethylene (COET). 

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ECETOC s main objective is to identify, evaluate, and through such knowledge help industry minimize any potentially adverse effects on health and the environment that may arise from the manufacture and use of chemicals. To achieve this mission, ECETOC facditates the networking of suitably qualified scientists from its member companies and cooperates in a scientific context with intergovernmental agencies, health authorities, and professional institutions. 

Instead, he uses his encounter with the Emerald Table as an occasion to buttress the ideas that he had been developing on matter in a modern scientific context. 

G.E.P. Box, S. Bisgaard, The scientific context of quality improvement. Quality Progress, June 1987, pp 54-61. 

Platonic solids have been studied since antiquity and in a multiplicity of artistic and scientific contexts. More generally, polyhedral maps are ubiquitous in chemistry and crystallography. Their properties have been studied since Kepler. In the present book we are going to study classes of maps on the sphere or the torus and make a catalog of properties that would be helpful and useful to mathematicians and researchers in natural sciences. 

In everyday life and in many scientific contexts the terms air and atmosphere are essentially synonymous. But in some geochemical contexts there are significant distinctions. Air is the more restricted term, referring to the gas phase at the surface of... 

The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon Interim Report (2006)... 

It is important to realise that some words commonly used in analytical chemistry may convey a different meaning to non-specialists or specialists from other disciplines or when used outside the context of analysis. Indeed, it may surprise some non-chemists to learn just how imprecisely defined some terms are that we use in an apparently scientific context. We will look at some examples in more detail. 

The theoretical models discussed above are frequently employed in the description of the kinetics of gas-phase reactions, especially reactions of atoms and free radicals. This class of reactions is of interest in a broader scientific context, and a better understanding of their mechanism is of primary importance for the development of chemical modeling. Free atoms and radicals are very reactive species, which occur in and take part in many different reaction systems. Therefore, a radical reaction usually proceeds in competition with a few parallel or subsequent processes. The kinetic behavior of the reaction system may be very complicated and difficult for quantitative description. Theoretical investigations of the reaction kinetics provide information useful for a better understanding and correct interpretation of experimental findings. Results of ab initio calculations are employed to evaluate the rate constant in terms of the computational methods of the reaction rate theory. 

Not all molecular properties are, however, of local nature, which lend themselves to efficient computational schemes. Molecular vibrations are typically non-local and delocalized. Nevertheless, it is possible even in such cases to design a tailored quantum chemical method, the Mode-Tracking protocol [164], for the selective calculation of only those vibrations relevant for a certain scientific context. For the selective calculation of various types of vibrational spectra we refer the interested reader to the reviews in Refs. [165, 166]. It should be mentioned that molecular dynamics simulations offer different routes to spectra through autocorrelation functions. 

Aj models of natural phenomena. In some scientific contexts it is natural to regard time as discrete. This is the case in digital electronics, in parts of economics and finance theory, in impulsively driven mechanical systems, and in the study of certain animal populations where successive generations do not overlap. 

This experience took place in a "scientific" context utilizing pure synthetic DMT, a drug famous for the extremely brief duration of extremely bizarre, yet amazingly consistent effects. Compare the following DMT encounters with the general content of my own experience ... 

In the scientific context, the attempt is made to reduce the importance of diagnostic criteria to an absolute minimum. Fortunately, this is comparatively easy to do when dealing with chemical entities such as structural formulas, for their emotive impact is dearly very small. Moreover, similarity measures can be adopted that are algorithmic in nature, i.e. measures that involve no actual similarity calls. Tversky [20] has also investigated an asymmetry in similarity calls that can arise when the sequence of the presentation of objects is altered. This problem is typically encountei when one of the objects being compared is regarded as a prototype. In comparison of circles and ellipses, for instance, experimental observers consistently reported that ellipses were more similar to circles than drcles to ellipses. The rule here appears to be that a variant will... 

Table 2. A listing of Several of the varieties of similarity that can be exploited in the scientific context...

Avoid cliches and colloquialisms - they are usually inappropriate in a scientific context. 

Particularists are pluralists, holding that there is more than one kind-relevant property. Thus properties have variable relevance. A property that makes an entity belong to one kind in a certain scientific context can be irrelevant in another. See my What is a Chemical Property (forthcoming) for a development of this proposal regarding particularism. 

Historical perspectives are very important in a course of natural science. One becomes aware of facts rarely presented in a general history course. How was a discovery made What was the purpose of a specific experiment What was the researcher trying to achieve in the general scientific context of his time Trends can be uncovered, which lead from one discovery to the next. We will see then that science is not a gathering of two-dimensional information but, rather, a dynamic human drama in a four-dimensional space. 

Several readers of this section would be disappointed that not more mechanistic results that can certainly be found in the literature are discussed here. There is no doubt that there are investigations of good quality, but in most cases it is my feeling that they are useful and interesting only within the limits of the specific reaction or structure involved, but not for a broader scientific context. This is the reason for the brief character of this section. It demonstrates a very significant difference in the mechanisms of diazotization of aromatic and aliphatic primary amines ... 

Students wrong interpretation of language, viz. misuse of every day language in a scientific context, and the use of unqualified generalised statements. For example, words such as particle, molecule, ion, atom and substance are often misused and misinterpreted. This issue implies that when using different terms for the same concept, the relationship in terminology should be discussed. Similarly, terms such as donated, shared and accepted, which were initially used metaphorically, now have developed new literal meanings in their chemical use (Taber, 1998). 

Skill 5.3 Apply fundamental mathematical language, knowledge, and skills at the level of algebra and statistics in scientific contexts. 

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