Mild and Efficient Synthesis of Benzo-Fused Seven- and Eight-membered Ring Lactams: A Convenient Approach to Biologically Interesting Chemotypes

A general and efficient method for the synthesis of benzo-fused 7- and 8-membered ring lactams via the Beckmann rearrangement of cyclic oximes is presented.

Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Synthetic Communications® to view the free supplemental file.     

Biomimetic Synthesis of Materials for Technology

In a world with ever decreasing natural reserves, researchers are striving to find sustainable methods of producing components for technology. Bioinspired, biokleptic and biomimetic materials can be used to form a wide range of technologically relevant materials under environmentally friendly conditions. Here we investigate a range of biotemplated and bioinspired materials that can be used to develop components for devices, such as optics, photonics, photovoltaics, circuits and data storage.     

Comparison of luminescence lifetimes in quartz following alpha and beta irradiation

The change in optically stimulated luminescence sensitivity of quartz associated with annealing is accompanied by a change in luminescence lifetime, whereas, in contrast, the change in sensitivity associated with irradiation by alpha particles rather than by beta particles is not accompanied by any change in luminescence lifetime. This is compatible with the usual ‘saturation’ explanation for the significantly lower luminescence sensitivity of quartz to alpha irradiation compared to the luminescence sensitivity to beta irradiation.     

Evolutionary hybrid approaches for generation scheduling in power systems

Generation scheduling (GS) in power systems is a tough optimisation problem which continues to present a challenge for efficient solution techniques. The solution is to define on/off decisions and generation levels for each electricity generator of a power system for each scheduling interval. The solution procedure requires simultaneous consideration of binary decision and continuous variables. In recent years researchers have focused much attention on developing new hybrid approaches using evolutionary and traditional exact methods for this type of mixed-integer problems. This paper investigates how the optimum or near optimum solution for the GS problem may be quickly identified. A design is proposed which uses a variety of metaheuristic, heuristics and mathematical programming techniques within a hybrid framework. The results obtained for two case studies are promising and show that the hybrid approach offers an effective alternative for solving the GS problems within a realistic timeframe.     

PNA to DNA to microarray decoding facilitates ligand discovery

The development of a method for the amplification of PNA tags (Svensen et al., in this issue of Chemistry & Biology) should expand the range of biological targets amenable to screening using PNA-encoded combinatorial libraries and thus facilitate the discovery of new biologically useful agents.     

Approximate methods for the fast computation of EPR and ST-EPR spectra. III. Extension of the perturbation approximation to conditions of overmodulatio

The electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and saturation transfer electron paramagnetic resonance (ST-EPR) spectra typical of nitroxide spin labels obeying an isotropic, brownian diffusion model are theoretically investigated. The derivative approximation discussed in the first paper of this series (I) is examined and generalized to consider large modulation amplitudes. The approximation considers both molecular and applied modulation effects with the Zeeman modulation frequency acting as a perturbation parameter. The application of the approximation to first and second harmonic simulations is discussed. The observations of I are preserved for first harmonic spectra. The approximation is able to accurately reproduce the in-phase absorption and in-phase-quadrature dispersion signals. In-phase dispersion signals are reproducible at low microwave powers while in-phase-quadrature signals may be reproduced at higher powers. The approximation is of limited utility for second harmonic simulations and is particularly unable to reproduce the in-phase-quadrature absorption signal at this harmonic. The approximation enables a marked reduction in both the core and CPU time required for simulations. Factors of 3 and 4.2 respectively were realized in the simulations of slow isotropic brownian diffusion.