Insight into metastatic oral cancer tissue from novel analyses using FTIR spectroscopy and aperture IR-SNOM.

A novel machine learning algorithm is shown to accurately discriminate between oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) nodal metastases and surrounding lymphoid tissue on the basis of a single metric, the ratio of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) absorption intensities at 1252 cm-1 and 1285 cm-1. The metric yields discriminating sensitivities, specificities and precision of 98.8 ± 0.

N-heterocyclic carbene-functionalized magic-number gold nanoclusters.

Magic-number gold nanoclusters are atomically precise nanomaterials that have enabled unprecedented insight into structure-property relationships in nanoscience. Thiolates are the most common ligand, binding to the cluster via a staple motif in which only central gold atoms are in the metallic state. The lack of other strongly bound ligands for nanoclusters with different bonding modes has been a significant limitation in the field.

Iterative protecting group-free cross-coupling leading to chiral multiply arylated structures.

The Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling is one of the most often utilized reactions in the synthesis of pharmaceutical compounds and conjugated materials. In its most common form, the reaction joins two sp(2)-functionalized carbon atoms to make a biaryl or diene/polyene unit. These substructures are widely found in natural products and small molecules and thus the Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling has been proposed as the key reaction for the automated assembly of such molecules, using protecting group chemistry to affect iterative coupling.

Stereocontrolled synthesis of 1,5-stereogenic centers through three-carbon homologation of boronic esters.

Allylic pinacol boronic esters are stable toward 1,3-borotropic rearrangement. We developed a Pd(II)-mediated isomerization process that gives di- or trisubstituted allylic boronic esters with high E selectivity. The combination of this method with lithiation-borylation enables the synthesis of carbon chains that bear 1,5-stereogenic centers.

Insight into the local density of states at Si sites at the submonolayer Si/Ge(001)-2 × 1 interface from Si KLV Auger spectroscopy.

An analysis of the differences observed between the Si KLV Auger spectra of the Si/Ge(001)-2 × 1 interface and pure Si indicates that the electronic structure of the interface is characterized by a reduction in the local p DOS at the Si sites and a transfer of p valence charge from Si to Ge. As a result, the screening of core-ionized Si sites at the interface is significantly shifted towards s screening compared with the situation for pure Si. It is possible that there is an increase in the on-site electron correlation energy, UP, for Si sites at the interface as compared with pure Si.