In this review, the recent advances of the application of 1,2,3,5-tetrakis(carbazol-9-yl)-4,6-dicyanobenzene (4CzIPN) as a photoredox catalyst in the past three years (2016–2018) for various organic reactions are summarized.

Heart failure is one of the major causes of mortality worldwide and it is the end stage of several cardiovascular diseases. Traditional Chinese medicine has been used in the management of heart failure for a long time. Only until recently, well-designed clinical trials have been put into practice to study the efficacies of Chinese herbs. Extensive studies have also been carried out to explore the underlying mechanisms of pharmaceutical actions of Chinese herbs. In this study, we will summarize the frequently used Chinese herbs, formulae and patent Chinese drugs in treating patients with heart failure and review published clinical evaluations of Chinese herbs in treating cardiovascular diseases. The mechanisms by which Chinese herbs exert cardio-protective effects will also be reviewed. In the end, we will point out the limitations of current studies and challenges facing modernization of traditional Chinese medicine.

We report the study correlating the shape, surface plasmon resonance (SPR), and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) of gold nanorods (NRs) in dilute colloids. A series of gold NRs with various aspect ratios was prepared via an improved seed-mediated technique. Increasing the aspect ratio finely tunes the position of the longitudinal plasmon mode of the NRs in a wide spectral range. This shape-dependent SPR behavior was simulated by Gans theory and the discrete dipole approximation method. The subtle influence of SPR on SERS was then demonstrated by gradually tuning the SPR wavelength across a fixed excitation line. SERS experiments and theoretically predicted electromagnetic enhancement by the three-dimensional finite-difference time domain method clearly demonstrate that overlapping SPR and the excitation line maximizes the SERS enhancement. This correlation thus enables a quick diagnosis of SERS intensity by looking at the position of the SPR band.Natural Science Foundation of China [20603008, 20703032]; 973 program [2009CB930703]; Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [06JJ3006]; Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China [E0710028]; State Key Laboratory for Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces ; "985" Foundation of Ministry of Education of Chin

A facile, practical and eco-friendly protocol for the synthesis of various Z-vinyl thiocyanates under minimal solvent conditions was developed.