The development of strategies for the design of novel materials is increasingly a knowledge-based activity and this book highlights a variety of experimental and computational methods that provide structural knowledge about individual compounds or groups of related compounds. However, scientific research and development is an evolutionary process in which the critical analysis and assessment of all existing information is an essential component. In the area of chemical structure, such analyses provide fundamental insights which can lead to the detection of trends and probabilities, and to the formulation of hypotheses and rules. These indications, in their turn, can direct the future course of structural deisign, synthesis and experiment.
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