Oxidative coupling of benzenes with alpha,beta-unsaturated aldehydes by the Pd(OAc)2/molybdovanadophosphoric acid/O2 system

[reaction: see text] The oxidative coupling reaction of benzene with an alpha,beta-unsaturated aldehyde was examined by the combined catalytic system of Pd(OAc)2 with molybdovanadophosphoric acid (HPMoV) under atmospheric dioxygen. Thus, the reaction of benzene with acrolein under dioxygen (1 atm) by the use of catalytic amounts of Pd(OAc)2 and H4PMo11VO40 x 26H2O in the presence of dibenzoylmethane as a ligand in propionic acid at 90 degrees C for 1.5 h afforded cinnamaldehyde in 59% yield and beta-phenylcinnamaldehyde in 5% yield. This catalytic system was extended to the direct oxidative coupling through the C-H bond activation of various arenes with acrolein and methacrolein.     

Self-Boosting Catalytic Nanoreactors Integrated with Triggerable Crosslinking Membrane Networks for Initiation of Immunogenic Cell Death by Pyroptosis

Synthetic polymer vesicles spur novel strategies for producing intelligent nanodevices with precise and specific functions. Engineering vesicular nanodevices with tunable permeability by a general platform without involving trade-offs between structural integrity, flexibility, and functionality remains challenging. Herein, we present a general strategy to construct responsive nanoreactors based on polyion complex vesicles by integrating stimuli-responsive linkers into a crosslinking membrane network. The formulated ROS-responsive nanoreactor with self-boosting catalytic glucose oxidation could protect glucose oxidase (GOD) to achieve cytocidal function by oxidative stress induction and glucose starvation, which is ascribed to stimuli-responsive vesicle expansion without fracture and size-selective cargo release behavior. The GOD-loaded therapeutic nanoreactor induced an immunostimulatory form of cell death by pyroptosis, which has the great potential to prime anti-tumor immune responses.     

Chemo- and stereoselectivity in titanium-mediated regioselective ring-opening reaction of epoxides at the more substituted carbon

Chemo- and stereoselectivity in the ring-opening reaction of epoxides with a reagent prepared from allylmagnesium halide and chlorotitanium triphenoxide is described. It has been proven that the allylating reagent can also be used for the reaction of epoxides bearing a tert-butyl ester, amide, or acetal moiety, and that the epoxide cleavage regioselectively takes place at the more substituted carbon in all cases. Interestingly, while the reaction of acyclic 2,2,3-trialkyl epoxides or 3,3-disubstituted 2,3-epoxy alcohol derivatives with the allyltitanium reagent yielded the allylated products as an almost 1:1 diastereomixture, the ring-opening reaction of 2-substituted 2,3-epoxy alcohol derivatives stereospecifically proceeded through the anti pathway. The latter reaction is extremely useful for asymmetric construction of quaternary carbon centers.     

Quantum Master Equation Approach to Singlet Fission Dynamics in Pentacene Linear Aggregate Models: Size Dependences of Excitonic Coupling Effects

The singlet fission (SF) dynamics of pentacene linear aggregate models are investigated using the quantum master equation method by focusing on the Frenkel excitonic (FE) coupling effects on the SF rate and double triplet (TT) yield as well as on their aggregate size dependences. It is found that for the dimer model, unrealistically large FE couplings are needed to provide significant effects on the SF dynamics, while for the larger aggregate models a realistic FE coupling causes significant variations in the SF dynamics: as increasing the aggregate size, the SF rate rapidly increases, attains the maximum at 8-mer (~3 times enhancement as compared to the non-FE-coupling case) and then decreases, approaching a stationary value after 12-mer, although the stationary TT yield at 20-mer remains slightly smaller than that in the non-FE-coupling case. These features are explained based on the relative relaxation factors between the adiabatic exciton states. The present results contribute to constructing the design guidelines for highly efficient SF aggregates. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Efficient catalytic effects of Lewis acids in the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions of carbonyl ylides with imines

[reactions: see text] 1,3-Dipolar cycloaddition reactions between imines and carbonyl ylides generated by tandem intramolecular carbenoid-carbonyl cyclizations were found to be effectively catalyzed by Lewis acids (10 mol %). The Rh2(OAc)4-catalyzed reactions of o-(methoxycarbonyl)-alpha-diazoacetophenone with imines such as N-[2-(benzyloxy)benzylidene]aniline in the absence of Lewis acid gave no 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition products, but rather the dimeric product of the corresponding carbonyl ylide. In contrast, in the presence of Lewis acids such as Yb(OTf)3, the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions of the corresponding 1-methoxy-2-benzopyrylium-4-olate proceeded smoothly with several imines, giving in most cases exo-selectivity and no formation of the dimeric product. When Yb(OTf)3 was used as a Lewis acid catalyst, a fundamental catalytic effect was also observed in the cycloaddition reactions of imines with carbonyl ylides generated from 1-diazo-5-phenyl-2,5-pentanedione, 1-diazo-2,5-hexanedione and diazomethyl 2,3,4,5-tetrachloro-6-methoxycarbonylphenly ketone. This efficient catalytic effect can be satisfactorily explained in terms of energetics of the cycloaddition in the absence and the presence of Lewis acid by calculations using the ONIOM (B3LYP/6-31G(d):PM3) method.     

Union and tangle

Shibuya proved that any union of two nontrivial knots without local knots is a prime knot. In this note, we prove it in a general setting. As an application, for any nontrivial knot, we give a knot diagram such that a single unknotting operation on the diagram cannot yield a diagram of a trivial knot.

     

Distinguishing Enantiomers by Tip-Enhanced Raman Scattering: Chemically Modified Silver Tip with an Asymmetric Atomic Arrangement

Discrimination between enantiomers is achieved by tip-enhanced Raman scattering (TERS) using a silver tip that is chemically modified by an achiral para-mercaptopyridine (pMPY) probe molecule. Differences in the relative intensities of the pMPY spectra were monitored for three pairs of enantiomers containing hydroxy (−OH) and/or amino (−NH₂) groups. The N: or N⁺−H functionality of the pMPY-modified tip participates in hydrogen-bond interactions with a particular molecular orientation of each chiral isomer. The asymmetric arrangement of silver atoms at the apex of the tip induces an asymmetric electric field, which causes the tip to become a chiral center. Differences in the charge-transfer (CT) states of the metal-achiral probe system in conjunction with the asymmetric electric field produce different enhancements in the Raman signals of the two enantiomers. The near-field effect of the asymmetric electric field, which depends on the number of analyte functional groups capable of hydrogen-bond formation, improves the degree of discrimination.     

Diazepines. III. Synthesis of 4H-Pyrrolo[1,2-a] thieno[3,2-f] [1,4] diazepines

The synthesis of 4H-pyrrolo[1,2-a]thieno[3,2-f] [1,4]diazepines ( 8 ) is described. Phthal-imidomethylfurans 1 were treated with bromine-methanol to give the dihydrofurans 2 , which were hydrolyzed and then liydrogenated over Raney nickel or with zinc-acetic acid to afford the 1,4-diketones 5 . Condensation of 2-amino-3-benzoylthiophenes 6 with 5 gave 3-benzoyl-2-pyrrolylthiopenes 7 . The removal of the phthaloyl group from 7 with hydrazine hydrate and ring closure to the diazepine ring yielded the new heterocycles 8 .     

On a Generalization from Ruin to Default in a Lévy Insurance Risk Model

In a variety of insurance risk models, ruin-related quantities in the class of expected discounted penalty function (EDPF) were known to satisfy defective renewal equations that lead to explicit solutions. Recent development in the ruin literature has shown that similar defective renewal equations exist for a more general class of quantities than that of EDPF. This paper further extends the analysis of this new class of functions in the context of a spectrally negative Lévy risk model. In particular, we present an operator-based approach as an alternative analytical tool in comparison with fluctuation theoretic methods used for similar quantities in the current literature. The paper also identifies a sufficient and necessary condition under which the classical results from defective renewal equation and those from fluctuation theory are interchangeable. As a by-product, we present a series representation of scale function as well as potential measure in terms of compound geometric distribution.