Transition-metal-free synthesis of 4-pyrones via TfOH-promoted nucleophilic addition/cyclization of diynones and water has been developed. This transformation is simple, atom economical and environmentally benign, providing rapid and efficient access to substituted 4-pyrones.

Consider a weighted n-vertex, m-edge graph G with designated source s and destination t. The topology of G is known, while the edge weights are hidden. Our goal is to discover either the edge weights in the graph or a shortest (s, t)-path. This is done by means of agents that traverse different (s, t)-paths in multiple rounds and report back the total cost they incurred. Various cost models are...

First-order logic (FOL) is undecidable — that is, no algorithm exists that can decide whether a formula of FOL is valid or not. However, there are various fragments of FOL that are known to be decidable. FO, the two-variable fragment of FOL, is one of such languages [1,2]. FO is a first-order language where formulas have maximally two variables, no function symbols, but possibly do have equalit...

Several models have been proposed for scheduling the preventive maintenance (PM) of complex repairable systems in industry. These are often application-speci"c and some make unrealistic assumptions about stationarity of the process and quality of repairs. We investigate two principal types of general model, which have wider applicability. The "rst considers "xed PM intervals and is based on the...