Reversing the Stereoselectivity of a Palladium‐Catalyzed O‐Glycosylation through an Inner‐Sphere or Outer‐Sphere Pathway

An efficient and concise method for the construction of various O‐glycosidic bonds by a palladium‐catalyzed reaction with a 3‐O‐picoloyl glucal has been developed. The stereochemistry of the anomeric center derives from either an inner‐sphere or outer‐sphere pathway. Harder nucleophiles, such as aliphatic alcohols and sodium phenoxides give β‐products, and α products result from using softer nucleophiles, such as phenol.     

C‐Selective and Diastereoselective Alkyl Addition to β,γ‐Alkynyl‐α‐imino Esters with Zinc(II)ate Complexes

Since umpolung α‐imino esters contain three electrophilic centers, regioselective alkyl addition with traditional organometallic reagents has been a serious problem in the practical synthesis of versatile chiral α‐amino acid derivatives. An unusual C‐alkyl addition to α‐imino esters using a Grignard reagent (RMgX)‐derived zinc(II)ate was developed. Zinc(II)ate complexes consist of a Lewis acidic [MgX]⁺ moiety, a nucleophilic [R₃Zn]^? moiety, and 2 [MgX₂]. Therefore, the ionically separated [R₃Zn]^? selectively attacks the imino carbon atom ,which is most strongly activated by chelation of [MgX]⁺. In particular, chiral β,γ‐alkynyl‐α‐imino esters can strongly promote highly regio‐ and diastereoselective C‐alkylation because of structural considerations, and the corresponding optically active α‐quaternary amino acid derivatives are obtained within 5 minutes in high to excellent yields.     

Adaptive Fourier decomposition‐based Dirac type time‐frequency distribution

The Dirac‐type time‐frequency distribution (TFD), regarded as ideal TFD, has long been desired. It, until the present time, cannot be implemented, due to the fact that there has been no appropriate representation of signals leading to such TFD. Instead, people have been developing other types of TFD, including the Wigner and the windowed Fourier transform types. This paper promotes a practical passage leading to a Dirac‐type TFD. Based on the proposed function decomposition method, viz., adaptive Fourier decomposition, we establish a rigorous and practical Dirac‐type TFD theory. We do follow the route of analytic signal representation of signals founded and developed by Garbo, Ville, Cohen, Boashash, Picinbono, and others. The difference, however, is that our treatment is theoretically throughout and rigorous. To well illustrate the new theory and the related TFD, we include several examples and experiments of which some are in comparison with the most commonly used TFDs. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Two Novel Characterizations of Self-Decomposability on the Half-Line

Two novel characterizations of self-decomposable Bernstein functions are provided. The first one is purely analytic, stating that a function \(\varPsi \) is the Bernstein function of a self-decomposable probability law \(\pi \) on the positive half-axis if and only if alternating sums of \(\varPsi \) satisfy certain monotonicity conditions. The second characterization is of probabilistic nature, showing that \(\varPsi \) is a self-decomposable Bernstein function if and only if a related d-variate function \(C_{\psi ,d}\), \(\psi :=\exp (-\varPsi )\), is a d-variate copula for each \(d \ge 2\). A canonical stochastic construction is presented, in which \(\pi \) (respectively \(\varPsi \)) determines the probability law of an exchangeable sequence of random variables \(\{U_k\}_{k\in {\mathbb {N}}}\) such that \((U_1,\ldots ,U_d) \sim C_{\psi ,d}\) for each \(d \ge 2\). The random variables \(\{U_k\}_{k\in {\mathbb {N}}},\) are i.i.d. conditioned on an increasing Sato process whose law is characterized by \(\varPsi \). The probability law of \(\{U_k\}_{k \in {\mathbb {N}}}\) is studied in quite some detail.     

Synergistic antibacterial brilliant blue/reduced graphene oxide/quaternary phosphonium salt composite with excellent water solubility and specific targeting capability

A water-soluble brilliant blue/reduced graphene oxide/tetradecyltriphenylphosphonium bromide composite (BB-rGO-TTP) was prepared by using noncovalent brilliant blue-functionalized reduced graphene oxide (BB-rGO) as the tetradecyltriphenylphosphonium bromide (TTP) carrier. Antibacterial performance of this novel composite was investigated for both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. The results showed that the novel BB-rGO-TTP, combing the advantages of graphene and TTP, displayed excellent synergistic antibacterial activity, specific targeting capability, water solubility, and mild cytotoxicity, suggesting the great potential application as sprayable graphene-based antibacterial solutions.     

Pressure-assisted capillary electrophoresis for cation separations using a sequential injection analysis manifold and contactless conductivity detection

Pressure assisted capillary electrophoresis in capillaries with internal diameters of 10 μm was found possible without significant penalty in terms of separation efficiency and sensitivity when using contactless conductivity detection. A sequential injection analysis manifold consisting of a syringe pump and valves was used to impose a hydrodynamic flow in the separation of some inorganic as well as organic cations. It is demonstrated that the approach may be used to optimize analysis time by superimposing a hydrodynamic flow parallel to the electrokinetic motion. It is also possible to improve the separation by using the forced flow to maintain the analytes in the capillary, and thus the separation field, for longer times. The use of the syringe pump allows flexible and precise control of the pressure, so that it is possible to impose pressure steps during the separation. The use of this was demonstrated for the speeding up of late peaks, or forcing repeated passage of the sample plug through the capillary in order to increase separation.