Vinyl nosylates as partner in copper and silver co-catalyzed Sonogashira cross-coupling reactions

Vinyl nosylates, readily obtained from β-dicarbonyl derivatives, could be efficiently engaged in Sonogashira cross-coupling reactions, either cocatalyzed by copper or silver salts. The para-nitrobenzenesulfonate (nosylate) group allows this coupling to be performed under very mild conditions (room temperature). These new leaving group and mild conditions could be applied to the synthesis of acetylenic coumarinyl derivatives and to the total synthesis of an acetylenic monoterpene natural product, named cleviolide.     

Holonomy and contact geometry

On a Riemannian manifold, any parallel form is preserved by the flow of any Killing vector field with constant magnitude. As a consequence, on a 2n+1-dimensional K-contact manifold, there are no nontrivial parallel forms except of degrees 0 and 2n+1. Flat contact metrics on 3-manifolds are characterized by reducible holonomy.     

A Convenient Procedure for N-Amination of 4-OXO-1,4-Dihydroquinolines

A high yielding N-amination of quinolones at low temperature via the use of O-mesitylenesulfonylhydroxylamine is reported.     

Screening methods and recent developments in the detection of anticoccidials

This article presents a review of the current trends in the analysis of coccidiostats in various matrices, focusing principally on screening and rapid methods. Coccidiosis is an infectious disease having a high negative impact on the animal industry. Drugs are therefore necessary to prevent and/or to combat this disease. However, it is also of crucial importance that these veterinary drugs do not enter the human food chain. European legislation has therefore established the boundaries for the use of coccidiosats and has also addressed the unavoidable problem of cross-contamination of the feed, mainly caused by the use of the same production lines. Consequently there is a need for analytical methods and/or analytical strategies for the monitoring and control of the residues of anticoccidials, both in feed and in the resulting matrices for human consumption. In the frame of the European collaborative project CONffIDENCE, such attempts to establish the required analytical tools were made, which required beforehand a review of the state of the art in this domain. Aiming at this objective, in this review we consider the most interesting publications since 2000. In essence, both a rapid approach with mainly immunoassays and chromatographic methods were developed. To date, the obstacle to routine use of the first approach has been its inability to detect more than two compounds simultaneously, but recent developments in flow cytometry have made it possible to detect six coccidiostats at once. On the other hand, an increasingly popular approach for detecting multiple coccidiostats simultaneously is liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. There remains a need to adapt these analytical methods to legislative requirements.     

Two Years of Pesticides Monitoring in a Belgian Watershed

A monitoring study was carried out in 1998-1999 on a medium-sized (c. 4580 km²) watershed of the Dyle (or Dijle) river in central Belgium, composed of both rural and urbanized areas. This watershed may be considered as representative of a large part of the country. Samples were taken each month from seven sites along the course of the river, plus one from its major affluent the Demer. The eight molecules monitored were the main herbicides used on the major crops in the area, plus some used in nonagricultural sectors. The concentrations found were mostly in the 0-3 μg/L range, with some peaks between 3 and 14 μg/L. The averages over all spring and summer samples analyzed ranged from 0.14 (bentazone) to 1.54 μg/L (diuron). Time and space specific patterns could be observed.     

A Series of Iron(II)-NHC Sensitizers with Remarkable Power Conversion Efficiency in Photoelectrochemical Cells**

A series of six new Fe(II)NHC-carboxylic sensitizers with their ancillary ligand decorated with functions of varied electronic properties have been designed with the aim to increase the metal-to- surface charge separation and light harvesting in iron-based dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). ARM130 scored the highest efficiency ever reported for an iron-sensitized solar cell (1.83 %) using Mg²⁺ and NBu₄I-based electrolyte and a thick 20 μm TiO₂ anode. Computational modelling, transient absorption spectroscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) revealed that the electronic properties induced by the dimethoxyphenyl-substituted NHC ligand of ARM130 led to the best combination of electron injection yield and spectral sensitivity breadth.     

Branching in Polyethylenes. Study by High Resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

The values of the CH₃/CH₂ ratios measured from accumulated NMR spectra of polyethylenes samples are in good agreement with those obtained from conventional IR techniques. Because NMR does not require calibration, systematic errors could be less important. Owing to the estimated values of the CH/CH₃ ratios, tetrasubstituted carbon atoms are present in all the high-pressure polyethylene specimens.