Peripherally-metallated porphyrins: meso-n1-porphyrinyl-platinum(II) complexes of 5,15-diaryl- and 5,10,15-triarylporphyrins

Attempted metathesis reactions of peripherally-metallated meso-η1-porphyrinylplatinum(II) complexes such as trans-[PtBr(NiDPP)(PPh3)2] (H2DPP = 5,15-diphenylporphyrin) with organolithium reagents fail due to competitive addition at the porphyrin ring carbon opposite to the metal substituent. This reaction can be prevented by using 5,10,15-triarylporphyrins, e.g. 5,10,15-triphenylporphyrin (H2TrPP) and 5-phenyl-10,20-bis(3’,5’-di-t-butylphenyl)porphyrin (H2DAPP) as substrates. These triarylporphyrins are readily prepared using the method of Senge and co-workers by addition of phenyllithium to the appropriate 5,15-diarylporphyrins, followed by aqueous protolysis and oxidation. They are convenient, soluble building blocks for selective substitutions and subsequent transformations at the remaining free meso carbon. The sequence of bromination, optional central metallation and oxidative addition of Pt(0) tris(phosphine) complexes generates the organoplatinum porphyrins in high overall yields. The bromo ligand on the Pt(II) centre can be substituted by alkynyl nucleophiles, including 5-ethynylNiDPP, to form the first examples of meso-η1-porphyrinylplatinum(II) complexes with a second Pt-C bond. The range of porphyrinylplatinum(II) bis(tertiary phosphine) complexes was extended to the triethylphosphine analogues, by oxidative addition of H2TrPPBr to Pt(PEt3)3, and the initially-formed cis adduct is only slowly thermally transformed to trans-[PtBr(H2TrPP)(PEt3)2] 16. The molecular structures of NiDAPP 9b, trans-[Pt(NiDPP)(C2NiDPP)(PPh3)2] 14 and 16 were determined by X-ray crystallography

A comparison of two commercial and the terminal configured vehicle area navigation systems

A comparison was made of some of the more important features of two commercially available area navigation systems and the Terminal Configured Vehicle (TCV) area navigation system. Topics discussed included system design criteria, system elements, calculation of the navigation solution, and presentation of guidance information

Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay with SNO+

SNO+ will search for neutrinoless double beta decay by loading 780 tonnes of linear alkylbenzene liquid scintillator with O(tonne) of neodymium. Using natural Nd at 0.1% loading will provide 43.7 kg of 150Nd given its 5.6% abundance and allow the experiment to reach a sensitivity to the effective neutrino mass of 100-200 meV at 90% C.L in a 3 year run. The SNO+ detector has ultra low backgrounds with 7000 tonnes of water shielding and self-shielding of the scintillator. Distillation and several other purification techniques will be used with the aim of achieving Borexino levels of backgrounds. The experiment is fully funded and data taking with light-water will commence in 2012 with scintillator data following in 2013.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, prepared for TAUP 201

Wording the Wound Man

Little is known about the image of the Wound Man, a graphic drawing of a violently wounded figure repeated across a series of European surgical treatises from 1400 onwards. Focusing on the only known English example, preserved in the back of a late fifteenth-century medical miscellany now in the Wellcome Collection, London, this article seeks to unravel the origins and scope of this picture. Considering both the image’s diagrammatic and metaphorical qualities, it presents the Wound Man as a particularly potent site not just of surgical knowledge but of a broader medico-artistic entanglement

Imagining Exodus for Israel-Palestine: Reading the Secular and the Sacred, Diaspora and Homeland, in Edward Said and David Grossman

This paper takes as its starting point Edward Said's distinction between 'religious' and 'secular' modes of cultural affiliation. As these simultaneously diverging and converging modes also trammel the particular grounds of thinking that have been Said's natural target of criticism - Zionism - his work speaks particularly powerfully to the debate surrounding the religious genealogy of Jewish identity. This paper argues that Said's interventions on Zionism highlight as problematic the position whereby the 'Ingathering of the Exiles' is promoted as coexisting with a 'diasporic consciousness' nurtured by Judaism during exile; messianic hopes of religious Jews cannot be reconciled with physical return to the Promised Land; identity circumscribed by ethnicity and place cannot stand in as exemplary for the exiled, unsettled and ultimately homeless identity trumpeted by discourses of the 'post', as many contemporary theorists would have it. And yet through an exploration of the writings of David Grossman, whose construction of Jewish identity is envisaged through the regulating, competing and collaborating tropes of Zionism and Diaspora, I argue that this position is crucial for the elaboration of Israeli identity. I also argue that in fact there is room within Said's thinking both for the anti-essentialist elaboration of 'homeless' identities as well as 'the permission to narrate' an identity politics, and that his own distinction between the 'secular' and the 'religious' begins to disassemble. I explore this blurring of the sacred and the secular through the prism of Exodus - as both concept and narrative. This paper suggests that it is precisely Said's achievement to embody these tensions between religion and its other, divine providence and human agency, historical materialism and postmodernism, alienation and its perennially tempting opposite: home

Scanning Saint Amandus: Medical Technologies and Medieval Anatomies

Anatomy -- the practice of stripping back the body and revealing it, part by part, for discussion and debate -- is a process much explored by the medical humanities, and it presents rich intellectual and practical potential for medieval studies. Tracing anatomical tendencies in the actions of both modern practitioners and inhabitants of the medieval past, this article advocates for anatomy’s addition to the rostra of bodily discourses at the disposal of historians of medieval culture. Posited as a critical framework in its own right, notions of anatomy, autopsy, and a literal bodily reading offer us new ways of opening up medieval studies today in much the same way as medieval bodies were once opened on the slab

Philanthropy in the Arab Region

The report provides an overview of the current state of philanthropy in the Arabregion, particularly shining a light on new areas and innovation within philanthropy,and the implications of these for its future role. We hope this will enable us to betteraddress the question: how do we support and build philanthropy's role as an agentof social change

Individual giving in India, Russia, the Arab region and Brazil

Individual giving in India, Russia, the Arab region and Brazil is part of PSJP's Philanthropy Study. Previously the study has focused on producing a series of papers on philanthropy in four emerging market countries/regions – India, Russia, the Arab region and Brazil. These studies have taken a broad view of philanthropy, encompassing everything from individual giving (by the very wealthy and by people of more modest means, including crowdfunding) to giving by private and corporate foundations, CSR, community philanthropy, social justice philanthropy, self-funded movements and impact investing.The current paper looks at individual giving by ordinary people in these countries/ regions in more depth. Seen as an area of great promise in India and Russia, it is at an earlier stage in Brazil. In the Arab region giving to the social sector is barely making headway, though traditional giving is very much alive