Leslaw K. Bieniasz's
scientific interests
My scientific interests are mostly related to the widely understood subject of computer-aided automation of research activities in natural sciences. I believe that the majority of the traditional scientific laboratory activities, pertinent to natural sciences, will gradually become dominated by computer-aided tools and methodologies, and performed by machines rather than by humans. Ultimately, albeit possibly in a distant future, this will also apply to intellectual activities (so far reserved only for humans), in accordance with the prophetic prediction by Allen Newell, the late AI expert from the Carnegie Mellon University (USA). Spectacular examples, of the science automation tools present already now, are the Robot Scientists Adam and Eve, or computer programs such as Eurequa. Out of the very many automatic tools, that support scientists in their work, I am particularly interested in the development of Problem Solving Environments and Discovery Environments.
My intention is to contribute to the trend of the automation of science, because the trend is likely to bring an enormous increase of the productivity of the scientific research, which is frequently regarded a driving force for economic development and welfare. Achievement of this automation will also undoubtedly become the greatest success of the human mind, much greater than any contemporary investigations oriented towards solution of narrow problems in various branches of natural sciences.
As a consequence of the increasing role of computers and computing in science, traditional division of natural sciences into disciplines is becoming obsolete, and new emerging interdisciplinary fields: computational physics, computational chemistry, computational biology, etc., belong to the most active areas of research. These fields are all considered to be parts of computational science (or more broadly computational science and engineering) which is understood both as “computation in science”, and “science of computation”. The very broad and multifaceted subject of the automation of science in large part falls into the scope of the computational science. Similar can be said about my own accomplishments, but owing to the history of my employment (33 years of work for the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences), I have been particularly active in the emerging interdisciplinary field that should best be called computational electrochemistry. My work is also related to the rapidly developing research area called chemical informatics (also known as cheminformatics or chemoinformatics), as well as to the field known as chemical laboratory automation.
Consequently, many of my publications are devoted to the computational modelling of electrochemical kinetic phenomena, and automation of the related modelling activities. The subjects I have been busy with include (please click on the first letter in each item to see the corresponding list of my publications):
(A) General discussions of
computational electrochemistry.
(B) Development
of numerical methods and adaptive strategies for solving reaction-diffusion and
electro-diffusion partial differential equations arising in
electrochemistry, and related problems,
(C) Analysis of the
numerical stability of finite-difference methods for solving diffusion and
reaction-diffusion partial differential equations,
(D) Development of
numerical methods and adaptive strategies for solving integral equations
arising in electrochemistry,
(E) Development of
computer-aided approaches to experimental data analysis in electrochemistry,
(F) Development of
symbolic methods for electrochemical modelling
(G) Development
of an universal
Problem Solving
Environment (named ELSIM) for the modelling of
electro-analytical experiments,
Apart from the above I have also done some work referring to:
(H) Traditional theory of
electro-analytical transient methods,
(I) Studies of the
kinetics of electro-catalytic hydrogen electrode reaction in molten carbonates.
(J) Studies of
the kinetics of electro-catalytic hydrogen electrode reaction in molten
carbonates.
(K) Simulation of pattern
formation in electrochemical systems.
For other publications, not belonging to the above categories, please see:
(L) Other
I would like to continue the above lines of research, and extend them with new subjects pertinent to the automation of science, including subjects related, as well as unrelated to electrochemistry. Students interested in a cooperation and/or in writing their engineer, master, or doctoral theses on such subjects, are welcome to contact me personally or by email.
Last updated: 1 st September, 2013.
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