Alloxazinium-Resins as Readily Available and Reusable Oxidation Catalysts

N5-Modified alloxazinium salts including 5-ethyl-1,3-dimethylalloxazinium and 5-ethyl-1,3-dimethyl-8-(trifluoromethyl)alloxazinium salts were readily prepared as alloxazinium-resins from the corresponding N5-unmodified ingredients via the aerobic oxidation—ion exchange protocol, previously introduced by us for the preparation of isoalloxazine analogues, and their catalysis and reusability in H2O2 oxidations were evaluated

Global Mapping of Surface Composition on an Exo-Earth Using Sparse Modeling

The time series of light reflected from exoplanets by future direct imaging can provide spatial information with respect to the planetary surface. We apply sparse modeling to the retrieval method that disentangles the spatial and spectral information from multi-band reflected light curves termed as spin-orbit unmixing. We use the $\ell_1$-norm and the Total Squared Variation norm as regularization terms for the surface distribution. Applying our technique to a toy model of cloudless Earth, we show that our method can infer sparse and continuous surface distributions and also unmixed spectra without prior knowledge of the planet surface. We also apply the technique to the real Earth data as observed by DSCOVR/EPIC. We determined the representative components that can be interpreted as cloud and ocean. Additionally, we found two components that resembled the distribution of land. One of the components captures the Sahara Desert, and the other roughly corresponds to vegetation although their spectra are still contaminated by clouds. Sparse modeling significantly improves the geographic retrieval, in particular, of cloud and leads to higher resolutions for other components when compared with spin-orbit unmixing using Tikhonov regularization.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Greener Preparation of 5-Ethyl-4a-hydroxyisoalloxazine and Its Use for Catalytic Aerobic Oxygenations

Isoalloxazine ring systems are found in flavin cofactors in nature, and the simulation of their redox catalyses is an important task for developing sustainable catalytic oxidation reactions. Although 5- ethyl-4a-hydroxyisoalloxazines are among the most promising candidates as catalyst for such purposes, the use of them for laboratorial as well as industrial synthetic chemistry has so far been quite limited presumably due to the lack of their preparation methods readily, safely, and inexpensively available. In this communication, we introduce an environmentally benign and practical preparation of 5-ethyl-4a-hydroxy-3,7,8,10-tetramethylisoalloxazine (1EtOH) from 3,7,8,10-tetramethylisoalloxazine (1), in which conventional synthetic requirements, including (i) operations under inert conditions, (ii) risky or expensive chemicals, and (iii) isolation of labile intermediates, have all been dissolved. In addition, we have presented that 1EtOH could be an effective catalyst for Baeyer-Villiger oxidation as well as sulfoxidation with molecular oxygen (O2) as a terminal oxidant under suitable conditions, which is the first report on aerobic oxygenations catalyzed by 5-alkyl-4a-hydroxyisoalloxazines

Determination of the genetic structure of remnant Morus boninensis Koidz. trees to establish a conservation program on the Bonin Islands, Japan

BACKGROUND: Morus boninensis, is an endemic plant of the Bonin (Ogasawara) Islands of Japan and is categorized as "critically endangered" in the Japanese red data book. However, little information is available about its ecological, evolutionary and genetic status, despite the urgent need for guidelines for the conservation of the species. Therefore, we adopted Moritz's MU concept, based on the species' current genetic structure, to define management units and to select mother tree candidates for seed orchards. RESULTS: Nearly all individuals of the species were genotyped on the basis of seven microsatellite markers. Genetic diversity levels in putative natural populations were higher than in putative man-made populations with the exception of those on Otouto-jima Island. This is because a limited number of maternal trees are likely to have been used for seed collection to establish the man-made populations. A model-based clustering analysis clearly distinguished individuals into nine clusters, with a large difference in genetic composition between the population on Otouto-jima Island, the putative natural populations and the putative man-made populations. The Otouto-jima population appeared to be genetically differentiated from the others; a finding that was also supported by pairwise F(ST )and R(ST )analysis. Although multiple clusters were detected in the putative man-made populations, the pattern of genetic diversity was monotonous in comparison to the natural populations. CONCLUSION: The genotyping by microsatellite markers revealed strong genetic structures. Typically, artificial propagation of this species has ignored the genetic structure, relying only on seeds from Otouto-jima for replanting on other islands, because of a problem with inter-specific hybridization on Chichi-jima and Haha-jima Islands. However, this study demonstrates that we should be taking into consideration the genetic structure of the species when designing a propagation program for the conservation of this species

Local Genetic Differentiation within Rebun Island in Cypripedium macranthos var. rebunense Revealed by Genome-wide SNP Analysis Using MIG-seq

Poster Presentation

Can Ground-based Telescopes Detect The Oxygen 1.27 Micron Absorption Feature as a Biomarker in Exoplanets ?

The oxygen absorption line imprinted in the scattered light from the Earth-like planets has been considered the most promising metabolic biomarker of the exo-life. We examine the feasibility of the detection of the 1.27 micron oxygen band from habitable exoplanets, in particular, around late- type stars observed with a future instrument on a 30 m class ground-based telescope. We analyzed the night airglow around 1.27 micron with IRCS/echelle spectrometer on Subaru and found that the strong telluric emission from atmospheric oxygen molecules declines by an order of magnitude by midnight. By compiling nearby star catalogs combined with the sky background model, we estimate the detectability of the oxygen absorption band from an Earth twin, if it exists, around nearby stars. We find that the most dominant source of photon noise for the oxygen 1.27 micron band detection comes from the night airglow if the contribution of the stellar PSF halo is suppressed enough to detect the planet. We conclude that the future detectors for which the detection contrast is limited by photon noise can detect the oxygen 1.27 micron absorption band of the Earth twins for ~50 candidates of the late type star. This paper demonstrates the importance of deploying small inner working angle efficient coronagraph and extreme adaptive optics on extremely large telescopes, and clearly shows that doing so will enable study of potentially habitable planets.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa