Sleeping Giants

We will end this book on Solved and Unsolved Problems in Structural Chemistry with a brief description of a recent report on the exact solution of one of the central problems of bioinformatics the problem of protein aligmnent. 

The valence connectivity indices not only represent, strictly speaking, an ad hoc solution for discrimination of heteroatoms, even if plausible, but indirectly presume that there are universal valence weights characteristic for individual heteroatoms and valid for all their molecular properties. That the latter assumption is questionable follows from the already mentioned few regression equations of Kier and Hall in which the classical connectivity index x produced better correlations than the corresponding valence connectivity index. Recognition that different molecular properties may require different heteroatom weights led to the idea of the variable connectivity index. 

Coming to the end, an attentive and informed reader may have observed that the solved problems that we have selected belong to a special group of research papers that have received limited acknowledgment, at least as reflected in their limited citations. This does not mean necessarily that a limited number of researchers have seen them and have been aware of some of them, which could be the case had they been published in some obscure scientihc journals. Because they have been published in outstanding journals, such as the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Tetrahedron, Journal of Physical Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Science, International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, Chemical Physics Letters, Journal of Computational Chemistry, New Journal of Chemistry, Journal of Mathematical Chemistry, SAP and QSAR in Environmental Research, Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling, and such, it is fair to assume that these papers may have been seen but, in view of their limited citations, tend to be avoided. 

In science, eventually truth prevails, but this may take a long time in some cases even at the present time. Consider the case of the exact solution of the X-ray diffraction pattern for crystals by Hauptman and Karle in the mid-1950s. Even after being solved, this problem has been considered by many as not possible to solve. Once a problem has been reported solved, this should have been sufQcient to convince everyone of this fact, whether one understands the problan or solution or does not— because there are some, even if only a few, who can verify the results. Surprisingly, in the case of inverse X-ray diffraction analysis, many people continued to believe that the problem cannot have an exact solution. 

This book could be characterized as offering a provocative review on some solved and unsolved problems in structural chemistry and particularly in structure-property-activity studies. Due to space limitation, we selected a few problems with which we have been better acquainted, but we are sure that there are additional interesting problems, some of which may deserve even greater attention and may broaden our horizons, arouse our curiosity, and may challenge our intellect. 

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Statistics indicate that in late 1978, the American Red Cross reported a demand for thawed, deglycerolized human red cells of nearly 100,000 units per year, By May 1983, the demand was only approximately 42,000 units. Thus, it now appears that the need for frozen red cells was mainly found in filling rare donor blood types. Chaplin summarizes—future developments may yetprove previously frozen red cells to be the sleeping giant ofred-cell replacement therapy for the present, we must be content with the minor but crucial role in which they have proved their worth beyond doubt. 

Different approaches have been proposed during recent years to improve the solutions obtained by curve-resolution methods, and some of them are summarized in the next sections. The field is already mature and, as it has been recently pointed out [26], multivariate curve resolution can be considered as a sleeping giant of chemometrics, with a slow but persistent growth. 

Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Society. Multivariate Curve Resolution The Sleeping Giant of Chemometrics, Proceedings of 30th FACSS 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, October 19-23, 2003. 

The September 2008 article Waking a Sleeping Giant The Tobacco Industry s Response to the Polonium-210 Issue, which appeared in... 

The story of Pan Gu, from China, even includes a physical explanation for the place of matter in the world. In the beginning, the universe was contained in an egg-shaped cloud. All matter was mixed and in chaos. At the center of the egg lay Pan Gu, a sleeping giant. When he awoke after thousands of years of sleep, he broke the egg apart, releasing the matter of the universe. The light, pure elements flew up and became the sky and the heavens, and the heavy, impure elements descended and became the earth. Fearing that the elements would remix and chaos return, Pan Gu held the earth and the sky apart. When the world was stable and did not need to be held apart, Pan Gu died, and his body was transformed into the mountains, rivers, and winds of the world. 

Farnsworth NR, Morris RW. Higher plants—the sleeping giant of drug development. Am J Pharm Educ 1976 148 46-52. 

Bellamy, L. J. (1980) The Infrared Spectra of Complex Molecules Advances in Infrared Group Frequencies, Vol. 2, 2nd edn., Chapman and Hall, London. CoLTHUP, N. B., Daly, L. H., WiBEELEY, S. E. (1990) Introduction to Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy, 3rd edn., Academic Press, San Diego. Carey, P. R. (1999) Raman spectroscopy, the sleeping giant in structural biology, awakes, J. Biol. Chem. 274, 26625-26628. 

Emme, J. J. Stancil, R. W. 2002. Anadarko s Bossier gas play—a sleeping giant in a mature basin, Abstract, American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, 86(13), Supplement. 

I see us as a sleeping giant — with the emphasis on "sleeping". I also see us as a society with an Industrial complex that has repeatedly demonstrated tjoirlvaled 2d>lllty to change direction when the need to do so becomes Imperative and when to do so entails great risk with the promise of commensurate rewards. 

Let us hear of additional sleeping beauties and sleeping giants, solved and unsolved, because one overlooked significant paper in science is one too many. It is very encouraging that we have not been alone in the search for solved and unsolved problems in chemistry. In one of the latest issues of SAR and QSAR in Environmental Research (April-June 2014) there is an article by J. Gasteiger titled Some Solved... 

Exact solution to protein alignment Sleeping giant... 

While near-infrared spectroscopy was for many years a sleeping giant, the diversity of instrumentation available today attests to its new-found and widespread acceptance as an analytical method. The aim of this article is to outline the measurement principles for each of the various types of instruments that are commercially available as of this writing, and to outline the strengths of each. Because analysis is by far the most common application, we also include accounts of specialized measurement techniques that have emerged for on-line, in-situ, and remote spectral measurements, as well as briefly outlining dedicated analysers founded upon near-infrared technology. 

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