Copper(I)-N-heterocyclic carbene complexes as efficient catalysts for the synthesis of 1,4-disubstituted 1,2,3-sulfonyltriazoles in air

Bis-NHC and mixed NHC/PR3 copper(I) complexes (NHC = N-heterocyclic carbene) were found to be efficient catalysts enabling the azide-alkyne cycloaddition reaction leading to the formation of 1,2,3-sulfonyltriazoles under Click conditions. The mechanism of this transformation was probed and decoordination of the NHC ligand (even in the NHC/PR3 mixed ligand systems) during the catalytic transformation was observed

A cooperative Pd-Cu system for direct C-H bond arylation

The authors are grateful to the Royal Society (University Research Fellowship to CSJC) for financial support.A novel and efficient method for C-H arylation using well-defined Pd- and Cu-NHC systems has been developed. This process promotes the challenging construction of C-C bonds from arenes or heteroarenes using aryl bromides and chlorides. Mechanistic studies show that [Cu(OH)(NHC)] plays a key role in the C-H activation and is involved in the transmetallation with the Pd-NHC co-catalyst.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

A straightforward metal-free synthesis of 2-substituted thiazolines in air

The authors are grateful to the Royal Society (University Research Fellowship to CSJC) for financial support.A base-catalysed procedure for the synthesis of 2-substituted thiazolines from nitriles and cysteamine hydrochloride under solvent-free conditions is presented. This straightforward approach allows high conversion for a broad range of nitriles and an easy isolation of the desired products.PostprintPeer reviewe

Perception of Nuclear Energy and Coal in France and the Netherlands

This study focuses on the perception of large scale application of nuclear energy and coal in the Netherlands and France. The application of these energy-sources and the risks and benefits are judged differently by various group in society. In Europe, France has the highest density of nuclear power plants and the Netherlands has one of the lowest. In both countries scientists and social scientists completed a questionnaire assessing the perception of the large scale application of both energy sources. Furthermore, a number of variables relating to the socio cultural and political circumstances were measured. The results indicate that the French had a higher risk perception and a more negative attitude toward nuclear power than the Dutch. But they also assess the benefits of the use of nuclear power to be higher. Explanations for these differences are discussed

Neutral dinuclear copper(I)-NHC complexes : synthesis and application in the hydrosilylation of ketones

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Royal Society (University Research Fellowship to C.S.J.C.) for funding.The synthesis of a class of highly stable neutral dinuclear Cu(I)-NHC complexes using 1,2,4-triazole as a bridging ligand is described. Various NHCs were used to generate a library of [Cu(μ-trz)(NHC)]2, complexes. Interestingly, [Cu(μ-trz)(IPr)]2 was found to be highly active in the hydrosilylation of ketones, without the need for an external base or any other additive. A wide range of aryl and alkyl ketones, as well as sterically hindered ketones, was successfully reduced to alcohols using the lowest catalyst loading reported to date.PostprintPeer reviewe

Light-stable silver N-Heterocyclic carbene catalysts for the alkynylation of ketones in air

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Royal Society (University Research Fellowship to C.S.J.C) for funding.N-Heterocyclic carbene (NHC) silver(I) complexes were efficiently employed in the alkynylation of ketones. These cationic complexes were found highly active and efficient under mild conditions without the need of additive, and in air. The mechanism of this transformation was investigated. Experiments suggest the formation of a silver-acetylide key intermediate and the release of one ligand from the silver centre enabling the transformation.PostprintPeer reviewe

Using Information Extraction and Text Classification in an Effort to Support Systematic Literature Reviews

Systematic literature reviews are an important tool in Evidence-basedSoftware Engineering, but require a large amount of effort and time from theresearchers. Data extraction is an important step in these reviews, but currentpractice requires the researchers to manually extract large amounts ofdata. This thesis investigates the possibility of developing a prototype forautomatic extraction, so to reduce the time spent on manually extracting thisdata. By reviewing related research, and experimenting with different features and machine learning models, two different models were implemented in the prototype: Conditional Random Fields for information extraction and Maximum Entropy for text classification. The models achieved average F1 performance score of 67.02% and 73.82%, respectively. These results can be characterized as good results, and show that it is possible to automate the data extraction process, by annotating a small part of the dataset and training machine learning models to perform the extraction

\u3cem\u3eIn Jerusalem\u3c/em\u3e by Tamim Al-Barghouti

Translated from Arabic by Houssem Ben Lazre