Prehospital portable ultrasound for safe and accurate prehospital needle thoracostomy: a pilot educational study.

Background: Simulated needle thoracostomy (NT) using ultrasound may reduce potential injury, increase accuracy, and be as rapid to perform as the traditional landmark technique following a brief educational session. Our objective was to determine if the use of an educational session demonstrating the use of handheld ultrasound to Emergency Medical Services (EMS) staff to facilitate NT was both feasible, and an effective way of increasing the safety and efficacy of this procedure for rural EMS providers.

Methods: A pre/post-educational intervention on a convenience sample of rural North American EMS paramedics and nurses.

Chemo- and Stereoselective Intermolecular [2+2] Photocycloaddition of Conjugated Dienes using Colloidal Nanocrystal Photocatalysts.

The use of visible-light photosensitizers to power [2+2] photocycloadditions that produce complex tetrasubstituted cyclobutanes is a true success of photochemistry, but the scope of this reaction has been limited to activated , -unsaturated carbonyls. This paper describes selective intermolecular homo- and hetero-[2+2] photocycloadditions of terminal and internal aryl conjugated dienes - substrates historically unsuited for this reaction because of their multiple possible reaction pathways and product configurations - through triplet-triplet energy transfer from CdSe nanocrystal photocatalysts, to generate valuable and elusive aryl vinylcyclobutanes. The negligible singlet-triplet splitting of nanocrystals' excited states allows them to drive the [2+2] pathway over the competing [4+2] photoredox pathway, a chemoselectivity not achievable with any known molecular photosensitizer.

Quantum Dot-Catalyzed Photoreductive Removal of Sulfonyl-Based Protecting Groups.

This Communication describes the use of CuInS /ZnS quantum dots (QDs) as photocatalysts for the reductive deprotection of aryl sulfonyl-protected phenols. For a series of aryl sulfonates with electron-withdrawing substituents, the rate of deprotection for the corresponding phenyl aryl sulfonates increases with decreasing electrochemical potential for the two electron transfers within the catalytic cycle. The rate of deprotection for a substrate that contains a carboxylic acid, a known QD-binding group, is accelerated by more than a factor of ten from that expected from the electrochemical potential for the transformation, a result that suggests that formation of metastable electron donor-acceptor complexes provides a significant kinetic advantage.

Energy Transfer from CdS QDs to a Photogenerated Pd Complex Enhances the Rate and Selectivity of a Pd-Photocatalyzed Heck Reaction.

This Article describes the design of a colloidal quantum dot (QD) photosensitizer for the Pd-photocatalyzed Heck coupling of styrene and iodocyclohexane to form 2-cyclohexylstyrene. In the presence of 0.05 mol % CdS QDs, which have an emission spectrum that overlaps the absorption spectrum of a key Pd(II)alkyl iodide intermediate, the reaction proceeds with 82% yield for the Heck product at 0.

Regio- and diastereoselective intermolecular [2+2] cycloadditions photocatalysed by quantum dots.

Light-driven [2+2] cycloaddition is the most direct strategy to build tetrasubstituted cyclobutanes, core components of many lead compounds for drug development. Significant advances in the chemoselectivity and enantioselectivity of [2+2] photocycloadditions have been made, but exceptional and tunable diastereoselectivity and regioselectivity (head-to-head versus head-to-tail adducts) is required for the synthesis of bioactive molecules. Here we show that colloidal quantum dots serve as visible-light chromophores, photocatalysts and reusable scaffolds for homo- and hetero-intermolecular [2+2] photocycloadditions of 4-vinylbenzoic acid derivatives, including aryl-conjugated alkenes, with up to 98% switchable regioselectivity and 98% diastereoselectivity for the previously minor syn-cyclobutane products.

Synergistic Enhancement of Electrocatalytic CO Reduction with Gold Nanoparticles Embedded in Functional Graphene Nanoribbon Composite Electrodes.

Regulating the complex environment accounting for the stability, selectivity, and activity of catalytic metal nanoparticle interfaces represents a challenge to heterogeneous catalyst design. Here we demonstrate the intrinsic performance enhancement of a composite material composed of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) embedded in a bottom-up synthesized graphene nanoribbon (GNR) matrix for the electrocatalytic reduction of CO. Electrochemical studies reveal that the structural and electronic properties of the GNR composite matrix increase the AuNP electrochemically active surface area (ECSA), lower the requisite CO reduction overpotential by hundreds of millivolts (catalytic onset > -0.

Closing the Nanographene Gap: Surface-Assisted Synthesis of Peripentacene from 6,6'-Bipentacene Precursors.

The thermally induced cyclodehydrogenation reaction of 6,6'-bipentacene precursors on Au(111) yields peripentacene stabilized by surface interactions with the underlying metallic substrate. STM and atomic-resolution non-contact AFM imaging reveal rectangular flakes of nanographene featuring parallel pairs of zig-zag and armchair edges resulting from the lateral fusion of two pentacene subunits. The synthesis of a novel molecular precursor 6,6'-bipentacene, itself a synthetic target of interest for optical and electronic applications, is also reported.