A New Way of the Skeletal Metals Synthesis

1 Results Strongly disordered metals with the high chemical and catalytic activity are often called as skeletal metals.Usually for their preparation the metallides of d-metal (which afterwards will be left in the “skeleton“) and chemically active component(s) are firstly synthesized.Then the last one(s) is (are) removed by the leaching with aqueous solutions of alkalis or carbonates.However,this method sometime fails,first of all,for the reactions,which should be realized in non-aqueous conditions.In th...     

Superhydrophobicity on Micro-and Nanostructured Polyolefin Surfaces:an Experimental and Theoretical Study

1 Results Simultaneous micro-and nanostructuring was prepared on polyolefin surfaces by injection molding.The molds were made of electropolished aluminum foil where the micropatterns were structured with a custom made robot.Nanopatterns were subsequently created on the molds by oxidizing the aluminum surface electrochemically in polyprotic acid.The preparation technique allowed simultaneous control of the dimensions of the micro-and nanostructures.Structuring has a remarkable effect on the contact angle...     

Philosophy of chemistry and the image of science

The philosophical analysis of chemistry has advanced at such a pace during the last dozen years that the existence of philosophy of chemistry as an autonomous discipline cannot be doubted any more. The present paper will attempt to analyse the experience of philosophy of chemistry at the, so to say, meta-level. Philosophers of chemistry have especially stressed that all sciences need not be similar to physics. They have tried to argue for chemistry as its own type of science and for a pluralistic understanding of science in general. However, when stressing the specific character of chemistry, philosophers do not always analyse the question ‘What is science?’ theoretically. It is obvious that a ‘monistic’ understanding of science should not be based simply on physics as the epitome of science, regarding it as a historical accident that physics has obtained this status. The author’s point is that the philosophical and methodological image of science should not be chosen arbitrarily; instead, it should be theoretically elaborated as an idealization (theoretical model) substantiated on the historical practice of science. It is argued that although physics has, in a sense, justifiably obtained the status of a paradigm of science, chemistry, which is not simply a physical science, but a discipline with a dual character, is also relevant for elaborating a theoretical model of science. The theoretical model of science is a good tool for examining various issues in philosophy of chemistry as well as in philosophy of science or science studies generally.     

Global Optimization in Any Minkowski Metric: A Permutation-Translation Simulated Annealing Algorithm for Multidimensional Scaling

It is well known that considering a non-Euclidean Minkowski metric in Multidimensional Scaling, either for the distance model or for the loss function, increases the computational problem of local minima considerably. In this paper, we propose an algorithm in which both the loss function and the composition rule can be considered in any Minkowski metric, using a multivariate randomly alternating Simulated Annealing procedure with permutation and translation phases. The algorithm has been implemented in Fortran and tested over classical and simulated data matrices with sizes up to 200 objects. A study has been carried out with some of the common loss functions to determine the most suitable values for the main parameters. The experimental results confirm the theoretical expectation that Simulated Annealing is a suitable strategy to deal by itself with the optimization problems in Multidimensional Scaling, in particular for City-Block, Euclidean and Infinity metrics.