A comparison of political violence by left-wing, right-wing, and Islamist extremists in the United States and the world.

Although political violence has been perpetrated on behalf of a wide range of political ideologies, it is unclear whether there are systematic differences between ideologies in the use of violence to pursue a political cause. Prior research on this topic is scarce and mostly restricted to self-reported measures or less extreme forms of political aggression. Moreover, it has generally focused on respondents in Western countries and has been limited to either comparisons of the supporters of left-wing and right-wing causes or examinations of only Islamist extremism. In this research we address these gaps by comparing the use of political violence by left-wing, right-wing, and Islamist extremists in the United States and worldwide using two unique datasets that cover real-world examples of politically motivated, violent behaviors. Across both datasets, we find that radical acts perpetrated by individuals associated with left-wing causes are less likely to be violent. In the United States, we find no difference between the level of violence perpetrated by right-wing and Islamist extremists. However, differences in violence emerge on the global level, with Islamist extremists being more likely than right-wing extremists to engage in more violent acts.

Total synthesis of (+)-sarain A.

This article describes the details of our synthetic studies toward the complex marine alkaloid sarain A. Various strategies were conceived, setbacks encountered, and solutions developed, ultimately leading to a successful enantioselective total synthesis. Our route to (+)-sarain A features a number of key steps, including an asymmetric Michael addition to install the C4'-C3'-C7' stereotriad, an enoxysilane-N-sulfonyliminium ion cyclization to set the C3 quaternary carbon stereocenter, and assemble the diazatricycloundecane core, a ring-closing metathesis to construct the 13-membered ring, an intramolecular Stille coupling to fashion the unsaturated 14-membered macrocycle, and a late-stage installation of the tertiary amine-aldehyde proximity interaction.

A Method for High-Throughput Screening of Enantioselective Catalysts.

About 1000 catalytic or stoichiometric asymmetric reactions of racemic compounds or prochiral substrates bearing enantiotopic groups can be analyzed per day. In this highly efficient method the enantioselectivity is determined by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry using isotopically labeled substrates. The picture shows the mass spectrum of the mixture obtained upon hydrolysis of 1 to afford the pseudo-enantiomeric products 2 and 3.

Time-Resolved IR-Thermographic Detection and Screening of Enantioselectivity in Catalytic Reactions.

Simple monitoring of lipase- and transition metal catalyzed asymmetric esterifications [Eq. (1)] and opening of epoxides [Eq. (2)] can be achieved by IR thermography. Thus, a new method is available for screening of enantioselectivity in catalytic reactions.