Chemistry at the Beginning of the Third Millennium : Molecular Design, Supramolecules, Nanotechnology and Beyond Proceedings of the German-Italian Meeting of Coimbra Group Universities Pavia, 7-10 October, 1999

This Volume is based on the Lectures presented at the Meeting "Chemistry at the Beginning of the Third Millennium", wh ich was held in Pavia, Italy, during the period 7-10 October, 1999. The Meeting involved the participation of scientists from German and ltalian Universities of the 'Coimbra Group'. The 'Coimbra Group', wh ich was founded in 1987, gathers the most ancient and prestigious European Universities, with the aim to promote initiatives in both research and teaching and to provide guidelines for the progress and development of the University system. German and Italian Universities within the Coimbra Group propose every year a theme for scientific discussion, which originates a Meeting to be held in a German or Italian University. The Meeting in Pavia was the fifth of the series and followed those of Bologna (1995), Jena (1996), Siena (1997), Heidelberg (1998). Each Meeting is centred on a topic from either humanistic or natural sciences and consists in aseries of lectures presented by distinguished scientists from the six participanting Universities. For the Pavia Meeting, the Steering Committee chose Chemistry as the topic and gathered researchers with experience in almost all fields of chemistry. In particular, during the Meeting, lectures were presented on many up-to-date subjects of chemistry, including: materials science, superconductors, supramolecular chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry, fullerenes, liquid crystals, photoinduced electron transfer, etc. The different topics were covered by distinguished and renown researchers of the various fields. Front Matter....Pages I-VIII Bottom-up Approach to Nanotechnology: Molecular-Level Devices....Pages 1-21 From Theory and Organometallic Model Chemistry to Catalysis: A New Class of Extremely Efficient, Single Site Homogeneous Ruthenium ROMP Catalysts....Pages 23-47 Enforced Coordination Geometries — Preorganization, Catalysis and Beyond....Pages 49-65 Supramolecular Functions of Designed Transition Metal Ion Complexes....Pages 67-82 Photoinduced Electron Transfer: Perspectives in Organic Synthesis....Pages 83-101 “Bioinspired” Metal Complexes of Macrocyclic [N 4 2- ] and Open Chain [N 2 O 2 2- ] Schiff Base Ligands — a Link between Porphyrins and Salicylaldimines....Pages 103-138 Temperature and Solvent effects on Facial Diastereoselectivity....Pages 139-160 Biological Performance of Materials....Pages 161-183 Oxide superconductors: a Chemist’s View....Pages 185-205 Molecular Switches Based on the [Ni II (cyclam)] 2+ Fragment....Pages 207-226 Molecular Conformations in Organic Monolayers Affect Their Ability to Resist Protein Adsorption....Pages 227-246 Electrochemical and Structural Aspects of Metallofullerenes....Pages 247-278 Polyoxometalates and Coordination Polymers....Pages 279-303 Modelling Interpretation of the Kinetics of Metabolic Processes....Pages 305-328 Computer Simulation and Molecular Design of Model Liquid Crystals....Pages 329-342 Back Matter....Pages 343-343 This book consists of 15 chapters, written by authoritative specialists, on some of the most intriguing and promising topics of modern chemistry. The authors describe the lines along which chemical research will develop in the next decade, using a plain language well understandable even by non-specialists. The book originated from the lectures presented on the occasion of a meeting held in Pavia, Italy, "Chemistry at the Beginning of the Third Millennium" by distinguished scientists from the Universities of Bologna, Heidelberg, Jena, Padua, Pavia and Siena.