The 21st century chemistry journal

Internet publication will radically alter how chemists will publish their research in the next century. In this article, we describe two fundamental changes: enhanced chemical publication which allows chemists to publish materials that cannot be published on paper and end-user customization which allows readers to read articles prepared to meet their specifications. These concepts have been implemented within the Internet Journal of Chemistry, a new journal designed to employ the latest technologies for chemical publications.

The contributions of Henri Victor Regnault in the context of organic chemistry of the first half of the nineteenth century

A very little known aspect of the scientific career of Regnault is his contribution to the emerging organic chemistry in the first half of the nineteenth century. The purpose of this article is not only to describe two of his most important researches in this field, as were the discovery of two series of halogenated derivates of certain organic compounds and the precise identification of some of the then recently discovered alkaloids, but also the main features that identified his research method. With the involvement in these subjects, Regnault unintentionally positioned himself in the midst of some of the polemics about the classification of organic compounds that characterized this age of science.

The dawn of paraconsistency: Russia's logical thought in the turn of XX century

The paper deals with the factors which enabled N. A. Vasiliev to put forward in 1910 - 12 the idea of logics free of the laws of contradiction and excluded middle, the idea of metalogic and to construct his imaginary logic as novel non-classical system. It is shown that background of Vasiliev's ideas lies deeply in Russia's culture and particular approach to logical discourse. Several Russian scholars expressed ideas similar to Vasiliev's though not in such explicit form. This period might be called the prehistory of paraconsistency. Real history of paraconsistency starts with N.C.A. da Costa's works.

Connections: can the 20th century coronary heart disease epidemic reveal something about the 1918 influenza lethality?

This essay proposes that the ecologic association shown between the 20th century coronary heart disease epidemic and the 1918 influenza pandemic could shed light on the mechanism associated with the high lethality of the latter. It suggests that an autoimmune interference at the apoB-LDL interface could explain both hypercholesterolemia and inflammation (through interference with the cellular metabolism of arachidonic acid). Autoimmune inflammation, then, would explain the 1950s-60s acute coronary events (coronary thrombosis upon influenza re-infection) and the respiratory failure seen among young adults in 1918. This hypothesis also argues that the lethality of the 1918 pandemic may have not depended so much on the 1918 virus as on an immune vulnerability to it, possibly resulting from an earlier priming of cohorts born around 1890 by the 1890 influenza pandemic virus.

Still the century of government savings banks? The Caixa Econômica Federal

This article explores general concerns about government banking, social inclusion, and democracy through case study of the Brazilian federal government savings bank (Caixa Econômica Federal). Review of government savings banks in Brazilian history suggests that these institutions have been at the center of domestic political economy, expanding and contracting under a variety of political regimes and economic conditions. Since capitalization to meet central bank and Basel Accord guidelines in 2001, the Caixa has attempted to modernize, continue to serve as agent for government policies, and expand both popular credit and savings and investment banking activities.