Ricerc@Sapienza

This work deals with the use of 2-cyano-2-arylpropanoic acids as chemical fuels for an acid-base operated molecular switch that consists of a Sauvage-type catenand composed of two identical macrocycles incorporating a phenanthroline unit. When used as a base promoter of the decarboxylation of propanoic acid derivatives, the switch undergoes large amplitude motion from the neutral catenand to a protonated catenate and back again to the neutral state.

The paper deals with the long history of the word robot and related
terms throughout the European languages. Robot, a word invented
by the Czech writer Karel Čapek, nowadays is at the very heart of
the Western imagery, both in movies and literary creations, since the
first Asimov stories published during the forties of the past century.
The modern fictional and technological scenarios describe many
types of robots, thus spreading many new nouns. This is also a history
of dreams and nightmares, of machines conceived and created by