Hydrothermal synthesis and crystal structure of a new molybdenum oxide compound with manganese-o-phen subunit: [Mn(o−phen)(H2O)MoO4]·H2O (o-phen=o-phenanthroline)

A new one-dimensional molybdenum oxide compound with manganese-o-phen subunit: [Mn(o-phen)(H₂O)MoO₄]·H₂O (1) (o-phen=o-phenanthroline) was synthesized by thehydrothermal reaction of Na₂MoO₄·2H₂O, MnSO₄·H₂O, oxalic acid, o-phenanthroline (o-phen) and water. Its structure was determined by elemental analyses, ESR spectrum, TG analysis, IR spectrum and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Compound 1 crystallizes in triclinic system, space group P-1 with a=7.0401(2) Å, b=10.4498(2) Å, c=10.5720(2) Å, α=73.26(7)°, β=83.34(8)°, γ=77.33(9)°, V=725.5089(0) Å³, Z=2, and R₁=0.0322 for 2337 observed reflections. Compound 1 exhibits one-dimensional chain structure. The chains are linked up via hydrogen bonding to 2D layers, which are further assembled through π-π stacking interactions to a 3D supermolecular structure.     

A homochiral porous metal-organic framework for highly enantioselective heterogeneous asymmetric catalysis

A homochiral porous noninterpenetrating metal-organic framework (MOF), 1, was constructed by linking infinite 1D [Cd(mu-Cl)2]n zigzag chains with axially chiral bipyridine bridging ligands containing orthogonal secondary functional groups. The secondary chiral dihydroxy groups accessible via the large open channels in 1 were utilized to generate a heterogeneous asymmetric catalyst for the addition of diethyzinc to aromatic aldehydes to afford chiral secondary alcohols at up to 93% enantiomeric excess (ee). Control experiments with dendritic aromatic aldehydes of different sizes indicate that the heterogeneous asymmetric catalyst derived from 1 is both highly active and enantioselective as a result of the creation of readily accessible, uniform active catalyst sites inside the porous MOF.     

Self-assembly of homochiral porous solids based on 1D cadmium(II) coordination polymers

A family of homochiral 1D cadmium(II) coordination polymers based on the (S)-2,2'-dimethoxy-1,1'-binaphthyl-3,3'-bis(4-vinylpyridine) (L) bridging ligand were synthesized from the same building blocks under slightly different conditions, and characterized by single-crystal X-ray crystallography. While [CdL(DMF)4](ClO4)2 x EtOH x 0.5H2O (1) adopts a 1D zigzag chain structure, [CdL2(ClO4)2] x 3EtOH x H2O (2) and [CdL2(ClO4)(H2O)] (ClO4) x 1.5(o-C6H4Cl2) x 3EtOH x 6H2O (3) both exhibit 1D polymeric structures that are built from 38-membered macrocycles. These 1D coordination polymers further pack into chiral porous frameworks via pi...pi interactions with a large percentage of void spaces that are occupied by solvent molecules and counterions.     

Self-assembly of chiral molecular polygons

Treatment of 2,2'-diacetyl-1,1'-binaphthyl-6,6'-bis(ethyne), L-H2, with 1 equiv of trans-Pt(PEt3)2Cl2 led to a mixture of different sizes of chiral metallocycles [trans-(PEt3)2Pt(L)]n (n = 3-8, 1-6). Each of the chiral molecular polygons 1-6 was purified by silica gel column chromatography and characterized by 1H, 13C{1H}, and 31P{1H} NMR spectroscopy, MS, IR, UV-vis, and circular dichroism spectroscopies, and microanalysis. The presence of tunable cavities (1.4-4.3 nm) and chiral functionalities in these molecular polygons promises to make them excellent receptors for a variety of guests.     

A Janus 3D DNA nanomachine for simultaneous and sensitive fluorescence detection and imaging of dual microRNAs in cancer cells

Herein, a Janus three-dimensional (3D) DNA nanomachine was constructed for the simultaneous and sensitive fluorescence detection and imaging of dual microRNAs (miRNAs) in cancer cells, which could effectively eliminate signal interference in a homogeneous nanoparticle-based 3D DNA nanostructure caused by the proximity of the two different signal probes to achieve accurate co-location in the same position of living cancer cells. In this system, the Janus nanoparticles were synthesized as the carrier for immobilizing two different oligonucleotides on two different functionalized hemispheres of the nanoparticles to form a Janus 3D DNA nanostructure, which could convert trace amounts of miRNA-21 and miRNA-155 targets into massive FAM and Cy5-labeled duplexes to induce two remarkable fluorescence emissions by the catalytic hairpin assembly (CHA) and 3D DNA walker cascade nucleic acid amplification strategy, realizing sensitive detection and imaging of miRNA targets in cancer cells. Impressively, in comparison with current miRNA imaging methods based on nanoparticle assemblies, the proposed strategy could efficiently eliminate “false positive” results obtained in single type miRNA detection and distinctly increase the immobilization concentration of two different signal probes using Janus nanoparticles as the carrier to further enhance fluorescence intensity, resulting in accurate co-location in the same position of living cells. Meanwhile, the proposed fluorescence imaging technology makes it possible to visualize low concentrations of miRNAs with tiny change associated with some cancers, which could significantly improve the accuracy and precision compared to those of the conventional fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) approach. Therefore, it could serve as persuasive evidence for supplying accurate information to better understand biological processes and investigate mechanisms of various biomolecules and subcellular organelles, resulting in the further validation of their function in tumor proliferation and differentiation. This strategy provided an innovative approach to design new generations of nanomachines with ultimate applications in bioanalysis and clinical diagnoses.

A Janus three-dimensional DNA nanomachine was constructed for the simultaneous and sensitive fluorescent detection and imaging of dual microRNAs in the cancer cells.     

Analysis of supply contracts from a supplier's perspective

Hexin Wang and Khairy A. H. Kobbacy Centre for Operational Research and Applied Statistics, University of Salford, Salford, M5 4WT, UK Email: w.wang{at}salford.ac.uk Received on 9 May 2006. Accepted on 22 December 2006. Incentive structure and demand uncertainty may cause supplychains to operate at a low efficiency. Therefore, many supplycontracts are employed in practice to improve the performanceof supply chains, i.e. to benefit all members involved in thechain. Supply chain contracts provide mechanisms to change theincentive structures of the supply chain members so that theirdecisions can improve the supply chain efficiency, while alsoprotect their own interests. It is important to understand theimpacts of supply contracts and their differences from a supplier'sperspective, since it is often the supplier who initiates asupply contract. This paper reports on a comprehensive analysisof supply contracts from a supplier's perspective. Six commonlyused supply contracts are analysed and the contract parametersare optimized to maximize the supplier's expected profit withconsideration to improve the retailer's profit. This case hasnot been thoroughly investigated in literature to date. Therisk-sharing mechanism and the division of the increased profitbetween the retailer and supplier for some of the contractsare also investigated in detail.     

Structural elucidation of two novel degradants of lurasidone and their formation mechanisms under free radical-mediated oxidative and photolytic conditions via liquid chromatography-photodiode array/ultraviolet-tandem mass spectrometry and one-dimensional/two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Lurasidone is an antipsychotic drug clinically used for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. During a mechanism-based forced degradation study of lurasidone, two novel degradation products were observed under free radical-mediated oxidative (via AIBN) and solution photolytic conditions. The structures of the two novel degradants were identified through an approach combining HPLC, LC-MSⁿ (n = 1, 2), preparative HPLC purification and NMR spectroscopy. The degradant formed under the free radical-mediated condition is an oxidative degradant with half of the piperazine ring cleaved to form two formamides; a mechanism is proposed for the formation of the novel N,N′-diformyl degradant, which should be readily applicable to other drugs that contain a piperazine moiety that is widely present in drug molecules. The degradant observed under the solution photolytic condition is identified as the photo-induced isomer of lurasidone with the benzisothiazole ring altered into a benzothiazole ring.     

Purification of secoisolariciresinol diglucoside with column chromatography on a sephadex LH-20

A simplified and efficient method is developed for the large-scale purification of the secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG) from defatted flaxseed after aqueous ethanol extraction. Extractant from defatted flaxseed with aqueous ethanol is hydrolyzed with basic solution, concentrated under vacuum, subjected to Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography, and eluted with aqueous ethanol of different concentrations. Elution is monitored by a UV detector at 280 nm, and fractions containing SDG are pooled, concentrated, and applied to a second column chromatography under the same conditions. Elution with water results in a better resolution of SDG [94.5% by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)] than that with pure ethanol or 50% (v/v) aqueous ethanol. HPLC-photodiode array detection-mass spectrometry and NMR are applied to identify SDG and to determine the purity of the eluted fraction. This simplified purification scheme avoids toxic organic solvent used in the common silica gel separation process and, thus, increases the safety of the process.     

The influence of <Emphasis Type="Italic">s</Emphasis>-semipermutable subgroups on the structure of finite groups

A subgroup H of a group G is called s-semipermutable in G if H is permutable with every Sylow p-subgroup of G with (p, |H|) = 1. In this paper, we use s-semipermutable subgroups to determine the structure of finite groups. Some of the previous results are generalized.