Rh-catalyzed cyclization of diynes and enynes initiated by carbonyl-directed activation of aromatic and vinylic C-H bonds

The Rh-catalyzed hydroarylative and hydrovinylative cyclization of diynes with aryl ketones or enones gave monocyclic 1,3-dienes. Enynes also underwent the same reaction and chiral products were obtained with high ee using a chiral Rh catalyst. Carbonyl-directed activation of aromatic and vinylic C-H bonds is likely the initial step in the present transformation.     

Performance comparison of bilinear interpolation, bicubic interpolation, and B-spline interpolation in parallel phase-shifting digital holography

To improve the quality of reconstructed images, we apply bicubic interpolation and B-spline interpolation to parallel phase-shifting digital holography for the first time. The effectiveness of bilinear interpolation, bicubic interpolation, and B-spline interpolation in parallel phase-shifting digital holography is shown by a numerical simulation. In the simulation result, the application of bicubic interpolation and B-spline interpolation succeeded in decreasing the rootmean- square error of the reconstructed image by 12.6 and 11.9%, respectively.     

Electrophilic transannular cyclization of octadehydrodibenzo[12]annulene reexamined: indication of the formation of both anti- and syn-indenofluorenes

The reaction of tetrabutoxyoctadehydrodibenzo[12]annulene 2f with iodine under aerobic conditions was reexamined. Contrary to previous reports, the present results revealed the formation of both anti-diiodoindenofluorenedione and its syn isomer through the oxidation of the respective tetraiodoindenofluorenes, indicating the occurrence of two modes of iodine-induced transannular cyclization. This was supported by the reaction of 2f with bromine, which gave anti- and syn-hexabromodihydroindenofluorenes through interception of indenofluorene intermediates by bromine. The hexabromides were transformed into the corresponding dibromodiones by hydrolysis.     

Three distinct water structures at a zwitterionic lipid/water interface revealed by heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation

Lipid/water interfaces and associated interfacial water are vital for various biochemical reactions, but the molecular-level understanding of their property is very limited. We investigated the water structure at a zwitterionic lipid, phosphatidylcholine, monolayer/water interface using heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy. Isotopically diluted water was utilized in the experiments to minimize the effect of intra/intermolecular couplings. It was found that the OH stretch band in the Imχ((2)) spectrum of the phosphatidylcholine/water interface exhibits a characteristic double-peaked feature. To interpret this peculiar spectrum of the zwitterionic lipid/water interface, Imχ((2)) spectra of a zwitterionic surfactant/water interface and mixed lipid/water interfaces were measured. The Imχ((2)) spectrum of the zwitterionic surfactant/water interface clearly shows both positive and negative bands in the OH stretch region, revealing that multiple water structures exist at the interface. At the mixed lipid/water interfaces, while gradually varying the fraction of the anionic and cationic lipids, we observed a drastic change in the Imχ((2)) spectra in which spectral features similar to those of the anionic, zwitterionic, and cationic lipid/water interfaces appeared successively. These observations demonstrate that, when the positive and negative charges coexist at the interface, the H-down-oriented water structure and H-up-oriented water structure appear in the vicinity of the respective charged sites. In addition, it was found that a positive Imχ((2)) appears around 3600 cm(-1) for all the monolayer interfaces examined, indicating weakly interacting water species existing in the hydrophobic region of the monolayer at the interface. On the basis of these results, we concluded that the characteristic Imχ((2)) spectrum of the zwitterionic lipid/water interface arises from three different types of water existing at the interface: (1) the water associated with the negatively charged phosphate, which is strongly H-bonded and has a net H-up orientation, (2) the water around the positively charged choline, which forms weaker H-bonds and has a net H-down orientation, and (3) the water weakly interacting with the hydrophobic region of the lipid, which has a net H-up orientation.     

Parallel phase-shifting dual-illumination phase unwrapping

We propose a single-shot phase unwrapping technique using a single wavelength and parallel phase-shifting interferometry. In the proposed technique, an object is illuminated by two laser beams, which are emitted from the same laser, and have different illumination angles and polarizations. Two types of object waves generated by the two beams are separately and simultaneously recorded by a polarization-imaging camera. In the path of the reference wave, an array of phase retarders is placed to implement the parallel phase-shifting technique. A highly accurate three-dimensional shape is reconstructed from a single hologram. We numerically simulated the proposed technique and conducted a preliminary experiment to verify its effectiveness. It was confirmed that millimeter-order height, which was several thousand times the wavelength of the laser, can be reconstructed by the proposed technique without wrapping.     

Comparative analysis and quantitative evaluation of the field of view and the viewing zone of single-shot phase-shifting digital holography using space-division multiplexing

We comparatively analyzed and quantitatively evaluated the field of view and the viewing zone of single-shot phaseshifting digital holography that uses space-division multiplexing, for the first time. We formulated the sampling intervals in the techniques in which the phase of the reference wave is spatially divided into two and four steps, and numerically simulated the areas. It was clarified that each area of the spatial two-step phase-shifting technique was twice as wide as that of the spatial four-step phase-shifting technique. We also experimentally investigated the areas. The ghost appeared for the spatial four-step technique when the object was between the boundary of the field of view of the spatial two-step technique and that of the spatial four-step technique, but did not appear for the spatial two-step technique.     

NMR determination of the absolute configuration of chiral 1,2- and 1,3-diols

Each of the chiral 1,2- and 1,3-diols examined was derivatized exclusively to a single diastereomeric acetal by the use of a new axially chiral reagent, 2′-methoxy-1,1′-binaphthalene-8-carbaldehyde (MBC). The absolute configuration of the original 1,2- and 1,3-diols was determined by the NOE correlation between the proton signals of the reagent moiety and those of the diol moiety in the acetals.     

Comparative pharmacokinetics of sulpiride and N-[(1-butyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)methyl]-2-methyl-5-sulfamoyl-2,3- dihydrobenzofuran-7-carboxamide hydrochloride, a new lipophilic substituted benzamide in rats

The pharmacokinetics of a new lipophilic substituted benzamide N-[(1-butyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)methyl]-2-methyl-5-sulfamoyl-2,3- dihydrobenzofuran-7-carboxamide hydrochloride (1) and sulpiride in both plasma and brain were investigated in rats. The octanol-water partition coefficients of the base of 1(2) and sulpiride were 6.3 and 0.2, respectively. The eliminations of 2 from plasma and brain were similar to those of sulpiride. The systemic bioavailabilities of 1 and sulpiride after oral administration of 200 mg/kg were 60.9 +/- 10.9 and 18.2 +/- 6.4%, respectively. The brain concentrations of 2 were about 2-3 times higher than those of sulpiride until 4 h after oral administration of 100 mg/kg. The brain/plasma ratios of 2 were about 2 times higher than those of sulpiride. These results indicate that the penetration of 2 through the gastrointestinal membrane and/or the blood-brain barrier are higher than those of sulpiride.     

All-electron density functional calculation on insulin with quasi-canonical localized orbitals

An all-electron density functional (DF) calculation on insulin was performed by the Gaussian-based DF program, ProteinDF. Quasi-canonical localized orbitals (QCLOs) were used to improve the initial guess for the self-consistent field (SCF) calculation. All calculations were carried out by parallel computing on eight processors of an Itanium2 cluster (SGI Altix3700) with a theoretical peak performance of 41.6 GFlops. It took 35 h for the whole calculation. Insulin is a protein hormone consisting of two peptide chains linked by three disulfide bonds. The numbers of residues, atoms, electrons, orbitals, and auxiliary functions are 51, 790, 3078, 4439, and 8060, respectively. An all-electron DF calculation on insulin was successfully carried out, starting from connected QCLOs. Regardless of a large molecule with complicated topology, the differences in the total energy and the Mulliken atomic charge between initial and converged wavefunctions were very small. The calculation proceeded smoothly without any trial and error, suggesting that this is a promising method to obtain SCF convergence on large molecules such as proteins.