Accreditation and Quality Assurance

doi:10.1515/ci-2023-0413

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Accreditation and Quality Assurance

Published/Copyright: October 20, 2023

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From the journal Chemistry International Volume 45 Issue 4

A Special Issue in Memory of Paul De Bièvre (1933–2016) in ACQUAL Journal. June 2023, Guest Editor: Franco Pavese

Reviewed by F. Pavese

In 2021 I proposed to the Journal ACQUAL, the one founded by Paul De Bièvre, a Special Issue in memory on the 5^th anniversary of his death, and it was readily accepted. Then, its preparation was quite slow, also due to a change of the Chief Editor of the Journal, and now it is published also in its paper form, with 8 contributions, including such authors as: M. Filomena Camões, A.G. Chunovkina, Steven Emmerson, Alistair Forbes, Jeremy Frey, Richard Hartshorn, Pascal Heu, Manfred Gröning, Juris Mejia, Franco Pavese, Antonio Possolo, Gary Price, Martin Quack, A.V. Stepanov, and Timothy J. Wallington.

I will not repeat here the excellent Obituary written by Hendrik Emons in 2016 (ACQUAL; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00769-016-1213-0), but will quote from it:

“For me Paul was one of the most prominent ambassadors for metrology in chemistry. He devoted his professional life, which definitely did not stop after his official retirement from the European Commission (did he retire at all?) to promote the comparability of measurement results and the common understanding of metrology among scientists. For that purpose, he was a global traveler, missing only very few countries of the world, and an invited speaker at many conferences and seminars. Paul was always keen to stipulate what he called “clear thinking.” This gained him in my eyes the label “Mister Terminology,” in the combination of creating and promoting terms as well as underlying concepts. His contributions to the development of the International Vocabulary of Metrology (VIM) are certainly the most visible, but not the only signs of these efforts.”

Paul De Bièvre was born in Blankenberge (Belgium) on 7 July 1933 and he passed away on 14 April 2016 in Leuven (Belgium).

ACQUAL June 2023

Content

Preface, In memory of Paul De Bièvre (1933–2016), Franco Pavese, p. 81

From VIM3 toward the next edition of the International Vocabulary of Metrology, Franco Pavese, pp. 83 - 88

Interlaboratory comparisons of chemical measurements: Quo Vadis?, Juris Meija and Antonio Possolo, pp. 89 – 93

Quality—from adequacy to fitness for purpose, M. Filomena Camões, pp. 95 – 100

Some pitfalls in the uncertainty evaluation of isotope delta reference materials, Manfred Gröning, pp. 101 – 114

The units of rate constants in chemical kinetics, Jeremy Frey, Timothy J. Wallington, Richard Hartshorn, Martin Quack, Pascal Heus, and Steven Emmerson, pp. 115 – 119

Paul De Bievre down under: practical metrology in chemistry and its principles, Gary Price, pp. 121 – 128

On testing of the homogeneity of variances for two-side power distribution family, A. V. Stepanov and A. G. Chunovkina, pp. 129 - 137

I met Paul more than 30 years ago, having the need for my research, on thermodynamic properties of condensed gases, to have directions about the possibility to get sound mass spectrometer measurements. Since then, I had many occasions to meet him also within IUPAC activities and by correspondence, and we both realized that we had a quite similar type of personal character, very resilient in respects to our respective positions (often quite similar), in several scientific respects. One example in that sense was one of the last of his papers, which we liked to share (F. Pavese, P. De Bièvre, Fostering diversity of thought in measurement, 2015, in ISBN 978-981-4678-61-2; https://doi.org/10.1142/9789814678629_0001).

We also became good friends personally. I have rarely met another people with so wide a range of interests and high level of competence, demonstrated by the wide range of his activities, and of formal positions that he performed, namely in IUPAC, with excellence until his very last days. In particular, he was an excellent metrologist (I am a full metrologist), in the frame of his own research and of the research in metrology worldwide, and an important and competent contributor to one of the basic metrological documents, the International Vocabulary of Metrology, 3^rd Edition.

In Memoriam, members of the IUPAC Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights recalled

“Paul had a penchant for philosophy of science and he believed that great measurements start with great thinking. His writings on metrology in chemistry appeared frequently in Accreditation and Quality Assurance (Springer) of which he was the Founding Editor-in-Chief (1995). He was a straightforward, cheerful person and his colleagues fondly remember his passion for science.” (https://www.ciaaw.org/debievre.htm)

We will remember for a long time the contributions of Paul De Bièvre to science and to metrology, not only in Chemistry, and as a very special person and scientist.

Franco Pavese, former Research Director in Metrology (Thermodynamics), National Research Council of Italy, member of the IUPAC Commission on Physicochemical Symbols, Terminology, and Units (Commission I-1).

https://link.springer.com/journal/769/volumes-and-issues/28-3

Online erschienen: 2023-10-20

Erschienen im Druck: 2023-10-01

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/ci-2023-0413