An expeditious total synthetic route to naturally occurring tricarbocycIic ring ring-C-aromatic diter penoids: mechanisms of cyclialkylations

The critical role of the nature of aromatic ring substituents in the open chain substrates in the acid-catalyzed cyclialkylation reaction through 2-2(arylethyl)-l,3,3-trimethylcyclohexyl cation is exemplified with a large number of easily accessible mono- and disubstituted 2-(2-arylethyl)-l,3,3-trimethylcyclohexanols and a few 2-(2- arylethyl) -3,3-dimethyl-l-methylenecyclohexanes i n the distributions of the respective trans- and cis-podocarpatrienes. The cyclohexanol or the cyclohexylidene precursors having unactivated aromatic ring proceeds with high stereoselectivity leading to the respective trans- products, while the substrates with an electron donating substituent with respect to the site of electrophilic attack result in the corresponding cis- and the trans-product mixtures. Consistent mechanisms for these stereochemical results have been advanced. Based on these results simple syntheses of a few diterpenes have been realized

Electrochemical Treatment of Hazardous Organic Pollutants – A Status Review

The rapid industrial development, while giving a significant boost to the quality of human life, has also taken a heavy toll on our environment.  One of the manifest effects is the proliferation of hazardous organic pollutants in the environment. These pollutants have many environmental and health implications like persistence and biomagnification, mutagenic and carcinogenic nature, endocrine disruption, and ecotoxicity to name a few. Being mostly non-biodegradable or biorecalcitrant, they cannot be effectively treated with biological wastewater treatment methods. Physical separation methods only shift the pollutants from one stream to the other pending a final disposal. Advanced treatment techniques are, therefore, needed to deal with such pollutants. Against this backdrop, the electrochemical treatment methods are significant and relevant. Electrocoagulation utilizes a sacrificial anode, often iron or aluminium, for the in-situ generation of Fe(III) or Al(III) ions as the coagulationg agent. This method has been found to be partially successful in the remediation of wastewater containing hazardous organic pollutants. But the most important of the electrochemical treatment methods is fast emerging technique of Electrochemical Advanced Oxidation, also known as Electrochemical Incineration. This aims at mineralization of the target pollutant by generating highly reactive hydroxyl radicals at the anode through dissociation of the water molecule. Certain pollutants also undergo direct oxidation at the anode through electrochemical charge transfer. The anode material, the inter-electrode potential, current density, and the supporting electrolyte have all been found to affect the process. Hydrogen is generated at the cathode which further adds to the attractiveness of the process. Keywords: Hazardous organic pollutants, electrochemical incineration, electrocoagulation, anode materia

Motivating knowledge agents : can incentive pay overcome social distance?

This paper studies the interaction of incentive pay and social distance in the dissemination of information. We analyse theoretically as well as empirically the e ect of incentive pay when agents have pro-social objectives, but also preferences over dealing with one social group relative to another. In a randomised eld experiment undertaken across 151 villages in South India, local agents were hired to spread information about a public health insurance programme. Relative to at pay, incentive pay improves knowledge transmission to households that are socially distant from the agent, but not to households similar to the agent

IMPLEMENTING HEALTH INSURANCE FOR THE POOR: THE ROLLOUT OF RSBY IN KARNATAKA

The National Health Insurance Scheme (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, RSBY) aims to improve poor people's access to quality health care in India. This paper looks at the implementation of the scheme in Karnataka, drawing on a large survey of eligible households and interviews with empanelled hospitals in the state. Six months after initiation, an impressive 85% of eligible households in the sample were aware of the scheme, and 68% had been enrolled. However, the scheme was hardly operational and utilisation was virtually zero. A large proportion of beneficiaries were yet to receive their cards, and many did not know how and where to obtain treatment under the scheme. Moreover, hospitals were not ready to treat RSBY patients. Surveyed hospitals complained of a lack of training and delays in the reimbursement of their expenses. Many were refusing to treat patients under the scheme until the issues were resolved, and others were asking cardholders to pay cash. As is typical for the implementation of a government scheme, many of the problems discussed can be related to a misalignment of incentives.

Synthesis of 1-p-methoxyphenyl- and 1-(p-methoxyphenyl)-4- methylbicyclo(2.2.1)heptan-7-one. The oxidation of 7-hydroxy-1-(p- methoxyphenyl)-4-methylbicyclo(2.2.1)heptane-7-carboxylic acid with lead tetraacetate

A simple synthetic route to 1-p-methoxyphenyl and 1-p-methoxyphenyl-4-methylbicyclo [2.2.1]heptan-7-one 6b,a has been developed through benzilic acid rearrangement of the bicyclo[2.2.1]octandiones 2b,a. The oxidation of 7-hydroxy-1-p-methoxyphenyl-4-methylbicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-7-carboxylic acid 3a with lead tetraacetate gives the carbolactone 7a which is also formed by the reaction of the ketone 6a with m-chloroperbenzoic acid

Cache Enabled UAV HetNets Access xHaul Coverage Analysis and Optimal Resource Partitioning

We study an urban wireless network in which cache-enabled UAV-Access points (UAV-APs) and UAV-Base stations (UAV-BSs) are deployed to provide higher throughput and ad-hoc coverage to users on the ground. The cache-enabled UAV-APs route the user data to the core network via either terrestrial base stations (TBSs) or backhaul-enabled UAV-BSs through an xHaul link. First, we derive the association probabilities in the access and xHaul links. Interestingly, we show that to maximize the line-of-sight (LoS) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) association, densifying the UAV deployment may not be beneficial after a threshold. Then, we obtain the signal to interference noise ratio (SINR) coverage probability of the typical user in the access link and the tagged UAV-AP in the xHaul link, respectively. The SINR coverage analysis is employed to characterize the successful content delivery probability by jointly considering the probability of successful access and xHaul transmissions and successful cache-hit probability. We numerically optimize the distribution of frequency resources between the access and the xHaul links to maximize the successful content delivery to the users. For a given storage capacity at the UAVs, our study prescribes the network operator optimal bandwidth partitioning factors and dimensioning rules concerning the deployment of the UAV-APs

Acid-catalysed intra-molecular C-alkylation and alkylation-rearrangements through unsaturated diazomethyl ketones. A new varsatile approach to the synthesis of complex carbocylic systems

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