Cycloelimination of Imidazolidin‐2‐ylidene N‐Heterocyclic Carbenes: Mechanism and Insights into the Synthesis of Stable “NHC‐CDI” Amidinates

We report the discovery that 1,3‐bis(aryl)imidazolidin‐2‐ylidenes, one of the most widely studied classes of N‐heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs), undergo quantitative conversion to zwitterionic “NHC‐CDI” amidinates upon heating to ≈100 °C in solution. The mechanism of this novel NHC decomposition process is studied in detail. These studies enabled the rational synthesis of a new class of bench stable amidinates from a panel of NHCs and carbodiimides. We expect these constructs to find utility in a variety of applications.     

Embedding Banach spaces into the space of bounded functions with countable support

We prove that a WLD subspace of the space consisting of all bounded, countably supported functions on a set Γ embeds isomorphically into if and only if it does not contain isometric copies of . Moreover, a subspace of is constructed that has an unconditional basis, does not embed into , and whose every weakly compact subset is separable (in particular, it cannot contain any isomorphic copies of ).     

Aircraft selection modeling: a multi-step heuristic to enumerate airlift alternatives

Annals of Operations Research - We consider the use of the new C-130J-30 aircraft for long distance (strategic) cargo movement. Currently, only large aircraft, the C-5 and the C-17, are identified...     

Facile Synthesis and Properties of 2‐λ5‐Phosphaquinolines and 2‐λ5‐Phosphaquinolin‐2‐ones

Treatment of 2‐ethynylanilines with P(OPh)₃ gives either 2,2‐diphenoxy‐2‐λ⁵‐phosphaquinolines or 2‐phenoxy‐2‐λ⁵‐phosphaquinolin‐2‐ones under transition‐metal‐free conditions. This reaction offers access to an underexplored heterocycle, which opens up the study of the fundamental nature of the N?P^V double bond and its potential for delocalization within a cyclic π‐electron system. This heterocycle can serve as a carbostyril mimic, with application as a bioisostere for pharmaceuticals based on the 2‐quinolinone scaffold. It also holds promise as a new fluorophore, since initial screening reveals quantum yields upwards of 40 %, Stokes shifts of 50–150 nm, and emission wavelengths of 380–540 nm. The phosphaquinolin‐2‐ones possess one of the strongest solution‐state dimerization constants for a D–A system (130 M ^?1) owing to the close proximity of a strong acceptor (P?O) and a strong donor (phosphonamidate N? H), which suggests that they might hold promise as new hydrogen‐bonding hosts for optoelectronic sensing.