Engineering a Small HOMO–LUMO Gap and Intramolecular C−H Borylation by Diborene/Anthracene Orbital Intercalation

The diborene 1 was synthesized by reduction of a mixture of 1,2-di-9-anthryl-1,2-dibromodiborane(4) ( 6 ) and trimethylphosphine with potassium graphite. The X-ray structure of 1 shows the two anthryl rings to be parallel and their π(C₁₄) systems perpendicular to the diborene π(B=B) system. This twisted conformation allows for intercalation of the relatively high-lying π(B=B) orbital and the low-lying π* orbital of the anthryl moiety with no significant conjugation, resulting in a small HOMO–LUMO gap (HLG) and ultimately a C−H borylation of the anthryl unit. The HLG of 1 was estimated to be 1.57 eV from the onset of the long wavelength band in its UV/Vis absorption spectrum (THF, λ_onset=788 nm). The oxidation of 1 with elemental selenium afforded diboraselenirane 8 in quantitative yield. By oxidative abstraction of one phosphine ligand by another equivalent of elemental selenium, the B−B and C¹−H bonds of 8 were cleaved to give the cyclic 1,9-diborylanthracene 9 .     

Toxicological screening of human plasma by on‐line SPE‐HPLC‐DAD: identification and quantification of acidic and neutral drugs

A multi‐analyte screening method for the quantification of 50 acidic/neutral drugs in human plasma based on on‐line solid‐phase extraction (SPE)–HPLC with photodiode array detection (DAD) was developed, validated and applied for clinical investigation. Acetone and methanol for protein precipitation, three different SPE materials (two electro‐neutral, one strong anion‐exchange, one weak cation‐exchange) for on‐line extraction, five HPLC‐columns [one C₁₈ (GeminiNX), two phenyl‐hexyl (Gemini C₆‐Phenyl, Kinetex Phenyl‐Hexyl) and two pentafluorophenyl (LunaPFP(2), KinetexPFP)] for analytical separation were tested. For sample pre‐treatment, acetone in the ratio 1:2 (plasma:acetone) showed a better baseline and fewer matrix peaks in the chromatogram than methanol. Only the strong anion‐exchanger SPE cartridge (StrataX‐A, pH 6) allowed the extraction of salicylic acid. Analytical separation was carried out on a Gemini C₆‐Phenyl column (150 × 4.6 mm, 3 µm) using gradient elution with acetonitrile–water 90:10 (v/v) and phosphate buffer (pH 2.3). Linear calibration curves with correlation coefficients r ≥ 0.9950/0.9910 were obtained for 46/four analytes. Additionally, this method allows the quantification of 23 analytes for therapeutic drug monitoring. Limits of quantitation ranged from 0.1 (amobarbital) to 23 mg/L (salicylic acid). Inter‐/intra‐day precisions of quality control samples (low/high) were better than 13% and accuracy (bias) ranged from ?14 to 10%. A computer‐assisted database was created for automated detection of 223 analytes of toxicological interests. Four cases of multi‐drug intoxications are presented. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

NIFTy 3 – Numerical Information Field Theory: A Python Framework for Multicomponent Signal Inference on HPC Clusters

NIFTy , “Numerical Information Field Theory,” is a software framework designed to ease the development and implementation of field inference algorithms. Field equations are formulated independently of the underlying spatial geometry allowing the user to focus on the algorithmic design. Under the hood, NIFTy ensures that the discretization of the implemented equations is consistent. This enables the user to prototype an algorithm rapidly in 1D and then apply it to high‐dimensional real‐world problems. This paper introduces NIFTy  3, a major upgrade to the original NIFTy  framework. NIFTy  3 allows the user to run inference algorithms on massively parallel high performance computing clusters without changing the implementation of the field equations. It supports n‐dimensional Cartesian spaces, spherical spaces, power spaces, and product spaces as well as transforms to their harmonic counterparts. Furthermore, NIFTy  3 is able to handle non‐scalar fields, such as vector or tensor fields. The functionality and performance of the software package is demonstrated with example code, which implements a mock inference inspired by a real‐world algorithm from the realm of information field theory. NIFTy  3 is open‐source software available under the GNU General Public License v3 (GPL‐3) at https://gitlab.mpcdf.mpg.de/ift/NIFTy/tree/NIFTy_3 .     

Design,Synthesis, and Biochemical Evaluation of Alpha-Amanitin Derivatives Containing Analogs of the trans-Hydroxyproline Residue for Potential Use in Antibody-Drug Conjugates

Alpha-amanitin, an extremely toxic bicyclic octapeptide extracted from the death-cap mushroom, Amanita phalloides, is a highly selective allosteric inhibitor of RNA polymerase II. Following on growing interest in using this toxin as a payload in antibody-drug conjugates, herein we report the synthesis and biochemical evaluation of several new derivatives of this toxin to probe the role of the trans-hydroxyproline (Hyp), which is known to be critical for toxicity. This structure activity relationship (SAR) study represents the first of its kind to use various Hyp-analogs to alter the conformational and H-bonding properties of Hyp in amanitin.     

A HF Loaded Lewis-Acidic Aluminium Chlorofluoride for Hydrofluorination Reactions

The very strong Lewis acid aluminium chlorofluoride (ACF) was loaded with anhydrous HF. The interaction between the surface of the catalyst and HF was investigated using a variety of characterization methods, which revealed the formation of polyfluorides. Moreover, the reactivity of the HF-loaded ACF towards the hydrofluorination of alkynes was studied.     

Electronic Finetuning of 8-Methoxy Psoralens by Palladium-Catalyzed Coupling: Acidochromicity and Solvatochromicity

Differently 5-substituted 8-methoxypsoralens can be synthesized by an efficient synthetic route with various cross-coupling methodologies, such as Suzuki, Sonogashira and Heck reaction. Compared to previously synthesized psoralens, thereby promising daylight absorbing compounds as potentially active agents against certain skin diseases can be readily accessed. Extensive investigations of all synthesized psoralen derivatives reveal fluorescence in the solid state as well as several distinctly emissive derivatives in solution. Donor-substituted psoralens exhibit remarkable photophysical properties, such as high fluorescence quantum yields and pronounced emission solvatochromicity and acidochromicity, which were scrutinized by Lippert–Mataga and Stern–Volmer plots. The results indicate that the compounds exceed the limit of visible light, a significant factor for potential applications as an active agent. In addition, (TD)DFT calculations were performed to elucidate the underlying electronic structure and to assign experimentally obtained data.     

Pomeron Fans for Finite Nuclei

Theoretical and Mathematical Physics - In perturbative QCD, we study a set of pomeron fan diagrams propagating from a projectile to A nucleons in the nucleus target for finite A and investigate its...     

New lower bounds on the size of (n,r)‐arcs in PG(2,q)

An $\left(n,r\right)$‐arc in $\text{PG}\left(2,q\right)$ is a set of $n$ points such that each line contains at most $r$ of the selected points. It is well known that $\left(n,r\right)$‐arcs in $\text{PG}\left(2,q\right)$ correspond to projective linear codes. Let $m_r\left(2,q\right)$ denote the maximal number $n$ of points for which an $\left(n,r\right)$‐arc in $\text{PG}\left(2,q\right)$ exists. In this paper we obtain improved lower bounds on $m_r\left(2,q\right)$ by explicitly constructing $\left(n,r\right)$‐arcs. Some of the constructed $\left(n,r\right)$‐arcs correspond to linear codes meeting the Griesmer bound. All results are obtained by integer linear programming.