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Aliphatic and aromatic aldehydes were converted into the corresponding pinacoles by using different cerium catalysts. Ce(OtBu)3 proved to be superior over other cerium(III) catalysts. Especially the highly diastereoselective pinacol coupling of sterically non demanding aldehydes such as hexanal is remarkable.

Correction for 'Single-molecule magnet behaviour in polynuclear assembly of trivalent cerium ions with polyoxomolybdates' by A. Ben Khélifa, et al., Dalton Trans., 2015, 44, 16458-16464.

An isopolyoxomolybdate-based POM is coordinated to trivalent cerium ions to afford a hybrid complex namely, [Ce(dmso)8][Ce(η2-NO3)2(dmso)4(α-Mo8O26)0.5][Mo6O19]. The original electrostatic environment created around the Ce(III) by its coordination to the isopolyoxomolybdate core induces complex single-molecule magnet behavior.

Ultraviolet (UV) miniature cerium fluoride lasers have been demonstrated using a low cost, frequency-quadrupled microchip Nd:YAG pump laser. The use of miniature laser cavities was shown to significantly improve the laser performance in the low pump power region. We have achieved slope efficiencies up to 70% and pump thresholds as low as 100 nJ. Continuous tuning from 306 nm to 338 nm was achie...

In this paper we evaluate the performance of density functional theory with the B3LYP functional for calculations on ceria (CeO(2)) and cerium sesquioxide (Ce(2)O(3)). We demonstrate that B3LYP is able to describe CeO(2) and Ce(2)O(3) reasonably well. When compared to other functionals, B3LYP performs slightly better than the hybrid functional PBE0 for the electronic properties but slightly wor...