Tuning the Guest‐Binding Ability of a Helically Folded Capsule by In Situ Modification of the Aromatic Oligoamide Backbone

Starting from a previously described aromatic oligoamide helically folded capsule that binds tartaric acid with high affinity and diastereoselectivity, we demonstrate the feasibility of the direct in situ modification of the helix backbone, which results in a conformational change that reduces its affinity for guests by two orders of magnitude. Specifically, ring contraction of the central pyridazine unit into a pyrrole in the full helical sequence was investigated by using electrochemical and chemical processes. The sequence containing the pyrrole was synthesized independently in a convergent manner to ascertain its structure. The conformation of the pyrrolic folded capsule was elucidated in the solid state by X‐ray crystallography and in solution by using ¹H and ¹³C NMR spectroscopy. Solution studies revealed an unanticipated solvent‐dependent equilibrium between the anti–anti and syn–syn conformations of the pyrrole ring with respect to its two adjacent pyridine units. Titrations of the pyrrole‐containing sequence monitored by ¹H NMR spectroscopy confirmed the expected drop in affinity for tartaric acid and malic acid that arises from the conformation change in the backbone that follows the replacement of the pyridazine by a pyrrole. The reduction of the pyridazine to a pyrrole was characterized by cyclic voltammetry both on the entire sequence and on a shorter precursor. The lower cathodic potential of the precursor made its preparative‐scale electroreduction possible. Direct in situ modification of the pyridazine within the entire capsule sequence was achieved chemically by using zinc in acetic acid.     

Remote substituent effects and regioselective enhancement of electrophilic substitutions in helical aromatic oligoamides

The bromination of helically folded oligoamides of 8-amino-4-isobutoxy-2-quinolinecarboxylic acid by N-bromosuccinimide has been investigated. Bromination occurs preferentially if not exclusively at one position in the sequence despite the presence of multiple, up to seven, a priori comparable, reaction sites. Reactions are up to 2 orders of magnitude faster in a folded octamer than in a short nonhelical dimer, despite the steric hindrance that is expected in a compact folded conformation. The presence of substituents remote from the reaction site have considerable influence, resulting in the loss of regioselectivity, or in the slowing down of the reaction by several orders of magnitude.     

Expanding the registry of aromatic amide foldamers: folding, photochemistry and assembly using diaza-anthracene units

The synthesis of various 1,8-diaza-4,5-dialkoxy-2,7-anthracene dicarboxylic acid derivatives and their incorporation into cyclic and helically folded aromatic oligoamides are reported. The ability of the diaza-anthracene monomers to undergo photoaddition or head-to-tail photodimerization was investigated in the solid state and in solution. Quantitative conversion of a monomer diester to the corresponding head-to-tail photodimer could be achieved in the solid state without protection from oxygen. The formation of an emissive excimer between two diaza-anthracene units appended at the end of a helically folded oligomer was demonstrated. Intramolecular photodimerization was not observed in this compound, possibly due to the low thermal stability of the head-to-head photoadduct. A cyclic oligoamide composed of two diaza-anthracene and two pyridine units was shown to adopt a flat conformation and to form columnar stacks in the solid state. Longer, noncyclic oligoamides composed of one or two diaza-anthracene units were shown to adopt helical conformations that exist preferentially as double helical dimers.     

Evaluating on-line solid-phase extraction coupled to liquid chromatography-ion trap mass spectrometry for reliable quantification and confirmation of several classes of antibiotics in urban wastewaters

This study provides an evaluation of on-line solid-phase extraction (SPE) and liquid chromatography (LC) in combination with ion trap (IT) mass spectrometry for the simultaneous routine analysis of 12 antibiotics belonging to multiple classes together with carbamazepine and propranolol in sewage treatment effluents. The on-line SPE step warranted high sensitivity and high sample throughput while IT mass detection provided high selectivity for confirmation of positive samples. A single extraction procedure resulted in recoveries ranging from 40% to 120%. Limits of detection were in the 1-46 ng/L range, which constitutes an improvement of a factor of 10 with respect to the off-line SPE procedure.     

Exploiting the use of hydrogen bonding and metal-coordination in the self-assembly of photoreactive multicomponent networks

An unprecedented example of concomitant harmonisation of hydrogen bonding and metal-templating to direct a topochemical [2+2] cycloaddition with quantitative yield is reported.     

Daubechies wavelets for high performance electronic structure calculations: The BigDFT project

In this contribution we will describe in detail a Density Functional Theory method based on a Daubechies wavelets basis set, named BigDFT. We will see that, thanks to wavelet properties, this code shows high systematic convergence properties, very good performances and an excellent efficiency for parallel calculations. BigDFT code operation are also well-suited for GPU acceleration. We will discuss how the problematic of fruitfully benefit of this new technology can be match with the needs of robustness and flexibility of a complex code like BigDFT. This work may be of interest not only for expert in electronic structure calculations, but may also provide feedback to the wider community of high performance scientific computing.     

A characterization of the 2-additive Choquet integral through cardinal information

In the context of multiple criteria decision analysis, we present the necessary and sufficient conditions to represent a cardinal preferential information by the Choquet integral w.r.t. a 2-additive capacity. These conditions are based on some complex cycles called cyclones.     

Synthesis and characterization of rhodium complexes with phosphine-stabilized germylenes

The reaction of phosphine-stabilized germylenes (1a,b) with dimer complex [Rh(2)(μ-Cl)(2)(COD)(2)] leads to the corresponding phosphine-germylene-Rh(I) complexes (2a,b). Interestingly, the stability of these complexes depends strongly on the nature of the substituent of the germylene fragment. Indeed, the complex (2a) with the chloro-germylene ligand isomerizes into a metallacycle rhodium complex (3a) via germylene insertion into the Rh-Cl bond, while the complex with the phenyl-substituted germylene (2b) was isolated and represents the first stable Rh(I)-germylene complex with a Rh-Cl bond.     

Large deviation principle for reflected Poisson driven stochastic differential equations in epidemic models

Abstract

We establish a large deviation principle for a reflected Poisson driven stochastic differential equation. Our motivation is to study in a forthcoming paper the problem of exit of such a process from the basin of attraction of a locally stable equilibrium associated with its law of large numbers. Two examples are described in which we verify the assumptions that we make to establish the large deviation principle.