Cleavage of the Oxanorbornene Oxygen Bridge with Lewis Acids: Computation and Experiment

Since the discovery of the biological activity of aminophosphonates, research started on the synthesis of more constraint azaheterocyclic phosphonates. We developed a route via an intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction towards α-aminophosphonates 1. [1] The obtained oxanorbornene skeleton is a valuable synthetic intermediate that has been used in various natural product syntheses. [2] An important synthetic transformation involves the cleavage of the oxygen bridge, used to construct substituted arenes and cyclohexenes. We wanted to investigate the ring opening of adducts 1 using different Lewis acids experimentally and get more insight in the reaction pathways towards the different products via computational experiments. In this presentation the results obtained with TiCl4 and FeCl3 catalyst are shown. The computational study started with the catalysts and their multiplicity. Next, the complexation energy with different binding sites was calculated. Therefore, a level of theory study was done using an ONIOM QM/QM approach. This shows the importance of the inclusion of electron correlation effects. B3LYP geometries and energies can be used as a good approximation. Bidentate coordination towards the most electronegative phosphonate oxygen and the oxygen bridge is favoured for both catalysts. Then, different reaction pathways were investigated via a static, gas-phase approach. The energy barrier towards the transition state using the TiCl4 catalyst, shown in Figure 1, is much lower than for the FeCl3 catalyst and very different products are formed. The computational results were compared with the experiments

Studentenparticipatie als een strategie om leiderschapskwaliteiten te ontwikkelen

België is een van de weinige landen ter wereld waar de graad van studentenparticipatie in de opleiding geneeskunde zo hoog ligt. In deze studie gaan we na in hoeverre de studentenparticipatie kan bijdragen aan het ontwikkelen van leiderskwaliteiten die van belang zijn voor een arts. Studentenvertegenwoordigers uit de opleiding geneeskunde aan de Vlaamse universiteiten werden een vragenlijst voorgelegd. Uit de vragenlijst blijkt dat bepaalde competenties aangeleerd worden dankzij het engagement van de student. Deze vaardigheden kunnen bijdragen tot een goede ontwikkeling van een arts die kan inspelen op de noden van de maatschappij

The ‘T-Shaped Buyer’: a transactional perspective on supply chain relationships

This paper challenges the normative view of interdependent buyer-seller relationships and provides a more holistic perspective of the contextual reality that shapes buyer behaviour. By proposing an innovative qualitative methodology, which focusses on boundary-spanning, pre-sales interactions, the research penetrates complex and commercially sensitive buyer-seller relationships. The longitudinal research design uses web-based diaries and follow-up interviews to explore conditions of power based interdependence between buyers and sellers. The ensuing data is mapped using qualitative content analysis and the results are aggregated graphically for assessment. Using this approach the study develops a nuanced view of the dominant patterns of buyer behaviour, and challenges the opinion that a search for competitive advantage will strengthen cooperative relationships in conditions of power based interdependence. The paper introduces the metaphor of the 'T-Shaped Buyer' to explain the empirical findings and, while acknowledging the contextual limits of the study, suggests that this metaphor may cause both academics and practitioners to reflect on normative thinking

Student participation as a strategy for transformative learning

Goals: 1) Provide an overview of the organization of student participation at Ghent University; 2) The achievements of student participation in our curriculum in relation to the concepts of “transformative learning”; 3) Develop an interactive reflection with the participants on student participation; and 4) Provide a framework on how to organize student participation at your faculty. Skills area: The education of health professionals has evolved over the last decennia, a third generation reform imposes itself. Transformative learning, which is about developing leadership attributes, is a key feature in this reform. At Ghent University, the SWME (Student Workgroup of Medical Education) was founded and students began to have a say in the decision making process of the different policy bodies in the faculty (the Educational Committee, the Faculty Council,…). The SWME acts as a change agent, together with health professionals, by continuous review and suggestions for improvement of our curriculum. In the reform of the medicine studies in Belgium from a seven to six-year program, SWME played a big role in the changes of the current curriculum. SWME also encouraged student participation in all the training programs of the faculty (not only in medicine). Another example of student projects is Hercules, a searchable database of all course material of our curriculum at the faculty of Medicine, which will allow a critical review of our course material. Methods: 1) Short overview of the organization SWME; 2) How to motivate peer students to participate within student representation: what are the big difficulties?; 3) Short synopsis of our major projects: SWME-star, SWME-report etc; and 4) Hercules: illustration of the database with an example. Overview: 1)How is student participation organized within the discipline of Medicine of the University of Ghent?; 2) What can we achieve through this?; 3) What are the obstacles you go through?; 4) Presentation of Hercules; and 5) General discussion and conclusions

Student participation as a strategy for training leadership and becoming change agents

Background: The Lancet report requires medical faculties to train health professionals who have leadership attributes and who can act as change agents. Both the conceptual background of these requirements and the appropriate educational strategies are actually unclear. There is still a lot of debate on the concept of transformational leadership and how it could be learned (see Box C-1). Aim: To assess to what extent the different ways student participation in the medical training at Ghent University contributes to acquiring skills that could be useful for transformational leadership. Results: Medical students are organized via a Student Workgroup on Medical Education (SWME), founded in 1999. Students were very much involved in the fundamental curriculum reform that took place: from a traditional discipline-based curriculum towards an integrated contextual medical curriculum, organized in “units” and “lines” with a focus on problem and community orientation. Students participate in the committees that built the different “units” and “lines,” in the Educational Commission, in the Faculty Council, and in different, broader government structures of the university. SWME organizes monthly meetings, a research symposium, and a yearly seminar, where students spend 1 week of their holidays to study and analyze the actual curriculum and formulate proposals for improvement, presenting a 30- to 40- page report to the Educational Committee. This leads to a high degree of “ownership” of the curriculum by the students. In the recent reform from 7 to 6 years undergraduate training, the students formulated the first proposals for the new curriculum. Student-proposals are examined thoroughly and very often implemented partly or totally. Moreover, the students constructed the electronic repository of the learning materials of the whole curriculum, making it searchable for students and teachers. In a first attempt to assess what could be the effect, an exploratory questionnaire was sent to over 50 students who were active in SWME. A Likert-scale (1–5) was used to make the assessment. Four items focused on the function of a physician, and 20 items assessed the extent to which students felt their participation contributed to the development of some transformational leadership competencies. Students find that it is their responsibility to take initiatives to improve quality of care (4.52) and to improve accessibility of care (4.23). As far as the skills and competencies that the students learned through student participation were concerned, the highest scores were given to “dealing with decision making in an ethical way” (4.25), “defending the view points of the group I represent” (4.34), “formulating compromises when there are different opinions in a group” (4.15), “tackling problems in an effective way” (4.38), “ anticipating future developments” (4.18), “developing a vision for the future” (4.30), and “formulating proposals for improvement” (4.33). From the free-text comments it became clear that students were able to illustrate with concrete examples what those skills and competences meant and how they had been developed. Especially the importance of the SWME-meetings, the 1-week SWME seminar, participation in commission and working parties, being involved in curriculum reform, and representing fellow students was illustrated frequently. From the responses it became clear the students acquired several leadership skills, and they learned to act as change agents. Conclusion: Student participation in the development and quality assurance of the medical curriculum, and the existence of a formal student organization, together with an open attitude of the staff towards student participation, may contribute to the learning of transformational leadership. It will be important to look how these skills will further develop during specialty training and in professional life. BOX C-1: Definition of Transformational Leadership Jan De Maeseneer, Ghent University, and Dawn Forman, Curtin University, proposed the following definition for transformational leadership: Transformational leadership occurs when leaders articulate the purpose and the mission interactively (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009) with the group and are intellectually stimulating the group, championing innovation, and inspiring group members to become change agents. Transformational leadership is characterized by connecting the member's sense of identity and self to the project and the collective identity of the organization by being a role model for the group members that inspires them and keeps them interested. Transformational leadership challenges group members to take greater ownership and strategic understanding of the context, the strengths and the weaknesses that have to be addressed in the change process. Transformational leadership creates a climate of trust, a process of empowerment, and guarantees safety so that group members can look beyond their own self-interest (Bass and Avolio, 1994) in order to make change happen

A time-course analysis of four full-scale anaerobic digesters in relation to the dynamics of change of their microbial communities

This study describes the microbial community richness, -dynamics, and -organization of four full-scale anaerobic digesters during a time-course study of 45 days. The microbial community was analyzed using a Bacteria- and Archaea-targeting 16S rRNA gene-based Terminal-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism approach. Clustering analysis separated meso- and thermophilic reactors for both archaeal and bacterial communities. Regardless of the operating temperature, each installation possessed a distinct community profile. For both microbial domains, about 8 dominant terminal-restriction fragments could be observed, with a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 14. The bacterial community organization (a coefficient which describes the specific degree of evenness) showed a factor 2 more variation in the mesophilic reactors, compared with the thermophilic ones. The archaeal community structure of the mesophilic UASB reactor was found to be more stable. The community composition was highly dynamic for Bacteria and Archaea, with a rate of change between 20\u201350% per 15 days. This study illustrated that microbial communities in full-scale anaerobic digesters are unique to the installation and that community properties are dynamic. Converging complex microbial processes such as anaerobic digestion which rely on a multitude of microbial teams apparently can be highly dynamic

Student participation : to the benefit of both the student and the faculty

Students who actively participate in the evaluation of their undergraduate medical curriculum become important stakeholders in decisions related to the design of the school's curriculum. Research and reports on student participation in curriculum change are scarce, and not much is known about how students personally benefit. We describe the structure and activities of engaging students in designing and improving the curriculum at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of Ghent University (Belgium). We present an example of a major curriculum change led by students, and we assess the perceptions of the students on how engagement in student curriculum committees strengthened their leadership skills. We encourage students at other schools to become active participants in the curriculum design and improvement processes of their institutions as a way to improve medical education