The roots of the silver tree: Boyle,alchemy, and teleology

Though Robert Boyle called final causes one of the most important subjects for a natural philosopher to study, his own treatise on the subject, the Disquisition about Final Causes, has received comparatively little scholarly attention. In this paper, I explicate Boyle's complex argument against the use of teleological explanations for inanimate bodies, such as metals. The central object of this argument is a mysterious allusion to a silver plant. I claim that the silver plant is best understood as a reference to alchemical product: the Arbor Dianae, an offshoot of George Starkey's recipe for the Philosophers' Stone. Then, I show how the context of alchemy not only clarifies Boyle's argument but also places it within a wider dialectic about matter and teleology. I then contrast the parallel arguments of Boyle and John Ray on the question of whether metals have divine purposes and show that the difference is explained by Boyle's belief in the transmutation of metals.     

Observation of conformation-specific pathways in the photodissociation of 1-iodopropane ions.

Many molecules can rotate freely around single bonds and thereby interconvert between different conformations, such as gauche and anti 1,2-disubstituted ethane, a classic example of conformational isomerism. Even though rotation occurs rapidly at room temperature, the product selectivity seen in some reactions has been explained by conformation-dependent reaction mechanisms: if reactant molecules differing only in their conformation are located at different positions on the reaction path, they may undergo different reactions. But a direct verification of this effect is difficult, because the energy barrier separating conformational isomers is so low that under ambient conditions reactants with more than one conformation will be present. But by using temperatures low enough to suppress the interconversion between different conformations, gauche-1-iodopropane ions and anti-1-iodopropane ions have been selectively generated. Here we show that the kinetic energy released during the photodissociation of 1-iodopropane ions depends strongly on the conformation of the ions. Thermodynamic arguments and ab initio calculations indicate that this difference in kinetic energy release results from differences in the reaction mechanism, with gauche-1-iodopropane ions forming 2-propyl ions and anti-1-iodopropane ions forming protonated cyclopropane ions. These findings suggest that the well-known concept of conformation selection forms the basis of a simple scheme for reaction control, thus providing in some cases an attractive alternative for more involved schemes that utilize the phase and pulse shape of laser beams to control chemical reactions.     

在线WOM内容和效果的关系:产品知识和相关的影响

以证明在线口传内容对口传效果的影响及收信者的特性的作用为目的。通过已有的研究,把口传内容划分为商品信息和个人经验,把口传效果划分为口传受用和口传行为。以大学生为对象,对MP3购买活动和相关在线口传活动进行了268个问卷调查,并用SPSS 10.0统计法进行了分析。研究结果表明:第一,口传信息的受用度使商品资讯更高,口传行为使个人体验资讯更为受用。第二,商品资讯和个人体验对口传内容的效果(口传受用,口传行为)决定于收信者的产品知识,即对在线的口传内容和口传信息受用的关系有调节作用,而且,对口传行为的影响也有调节效果。最后,关联度变数如先前所设的口传内容和口传效果的关系,对它们的关系有调节作用。     

Efficient and power-awareness query over sensor networks

Sensor networks consisted of low-cost, low-power, multifunctional miniature sensor devices have played an important role in our daily life. Light and humidity monitoring, seismic and animal activity detection, environment and habitat monitoring are the most common applications. However, due to the limited power supply, ordinary query methods and algorithms can not be applied on sensor networks. Queries over sensor networks should be power-aware to guarantee the maximum power savings. The minimal power consumption by avoiding the expensive communication of the redundant sensor nodes is concentrated on. A lot of work have been done to reduce the participated nodes, but none of them have considered the overlapping minimum bounded rectangle (MBR) of sensors which make them impossible to reach the optimization solution. The proposed OMSI-tree and OMR algorithm can efficiently solve this problem by executing a given query only on the sensors involved. Experiments show that there is an obvious improvement compared with TinyDB and other spatial index, adopting the proposed schema and algorithm.     

Applying Petri-Net-Based Reduction Approach for Verifying the Correctness of Workflow Models

0 IntroductionTobadaseyd’s o nintfhoer mflaotiwonof s ywsotrekmss t hhraovueg hbe tehne doervgealnoipzead-tion rather than based ontasks .Duetothistrend,work-flowand business process technology has been applied tovarious applications such as ERP, groupwares , E-mar-ketplaces , E-business etc . When business processes areapplied to these applications ,business processes are de-fined by process designers and business process instancesare executed by workflowengines or workflow manage-ment sys…     

The metabolism of the male antifertility agent 1-amino-3-chloropropan-2-ol in the rat

Summary The male antifertility agent 1-amino-3-chloropropan-2-ol (ACP,I) has been shown to be metabolized to-chlorohydrin (III) and metabolites of-chlorohydrin. This accounts for the similar antifertility and renal toxicity effects of both compounds.     

线性搜索方法的改进

线性搜索是最优化计算中最普遍应用的方法，文中对Ｆｌｅｔｃｈｅｒ线性搜索方法作了改进，它具有减少梯度值计算次数的特点，并用数值结果表明了方法的有效性。     

尾叶香茶菜中对映—贝壳杉烯型二萜

尾叶香茶菜中对映－贝壳杉烯型二萜王艳红１）陈耀祖２）孙汉董３）金东史４）（１）中山大学化学与化学工程学院，广州５１０２７５；２）浙江大学化学系；３）中国科学院昆明植物研究所植化室；４）朝鲜国家科学院植物研究所）关键词唇形科，香茶菜属，尾叶香茶菜，对...