The Tower of London (ToL) test is widely used for measuring planning and aspects of problem solving. The primary focus of this study was to asses the relationship among different measures on the ToL. A secondary purpose was to examine the putative relationship between intelligence and working memory with that of ToL performance. Analyses of the interrelation of several ToL parameters indicated that better ToL performance was associated with longer preplanning time and shorter movement execution time. Good performers showed a stronger increase in preplanning duration with task difficulty then intermediate or poor planners. Stepwise multiple regression analysis yield fluid intelligence as the only significant predictor of ToL performance. These result suggest that the Tower of London assesses predominantly planning and problem solving and could not be explained by other cognitive domains.

During the last 15 years a novel decay mechanism of excited atoms has been discovered and investigated. This so called "Interatomic Coulombic Decay" (ICD) involves the chemical environment of the electronically excited atom: the excitation energy is transferred (in many cases over long distances) to a neighbor of the initially excited particle usually ionizing that neighbor. It turned out that ICD is a very common decay route in nature as it occurs across van-der-Waals and hydrogen bonds. The time evolution of ICD is predicted to be highly complex, as its efficiency strongly depends on the distance of the atoms involved and this distance typically changes during the decay. Here we present the first direct measurement of the temporal evolution of ICD using a novel experimental approach.In 1997 Cederbaum and coworkers realized that the presence of loosely bound atomic or molecular neighbors opens a new relaxation pathway to an electronically excited atom or molecule. In the decay mechanism they proposed -termed Intermolecular Coulombic Decay (ICD) -the excited particle relaxes efficiently by transferring its excitation energy to a neighboring atom or molecule [1]. As a consequence the atom or molecule receiving the energy emits an electron of low kinetic energy. The occurrence of ICD was proven in experiments in the mid 2000s by means of electron spectroscopy [2] and multi-coincidence techniques [3]. Since that time a wealth of experimental and theoretical studies have shown that ICD is a rather common decay path in nature, as it occurs almost everywhere in loosely bound matter. It has been proven to occur after a manifold of initial excitation schemes such as innervalence shell ionization, after Auger cascades [4,5], resonant excitation [6,7], shakeup ionization [8] and resonant Auger decay. ICD has also been observed in many systems as rare gas clusters [9], even on surfaces [10] and small water droplets [11,12]. The latter suggested that ICD might play a role in radiation damage of living tissue [13], as it creates low energy electrons, which are known to be genotoxic [14,15]. More recently that scenario was reversed as it was suggested to employ ICD in treatment of tagged malignant cells [16]. Apart from these potential applications the elementary process of ICD is under investigation, as the decay is predicted to have a highly complex temporal * Electronic address: jahnke@atom.uni-frankfurt.de behavior. The efficiency and thus the decay times of ICD depend strongly on the size of the system, i.e. the number of neighboring particles and the distance between them and the excited particle. However, even for most simple possible model systems consisting of only two atoms the temporal evolution of the decay is non-trivial and predicted theoretically to exhibit exciting physics [17]: as ICD happens on a timescale that is fast compared to relaxation via photon emission, but comparable to the typical times of nuclear motion in the system, the dynamics of the decay is complicated and so far only theoretically explored...

A new approach to enantioselective haloetherification reactions via desymmetrization of in situ-generated meso-halonium ions is described. The combination of N-haloamides as a halogen source and sodium salts of chiral phosphoric acids as catalysts can be used for the cyclization of symmetrical ene-diol substrates, yielding the haloetherification products under practical conditions in enantioenriched form.

In broad daylight: The double-decker thiostannate [(RSn(IV))(4)S(6)] (1, R = CMe(2)CH(2)COMe) condenses to form [{(RSn(IV))(2)(mu-S)(2)}(3)Sn(III)(2)S(6)] (2; see picture). This mixed-valent complex, which formally contains both Sn(III) and Sn(IV) atoms as confirmed by Mössbauer spectroscopy and DFT calculations, forms by a complicated, concerted mechanism. Additionally, 2 provides six carbonyl groups for further derivatization.

Two new classes of lipophilic prodrugs of the antiviral active phosphonate 9-[2-phosphonomethoxyethyl]adenine (PMEA 1) have been prepared and were studied with regard to their hydrolysis properties and biological activity. A first series of compounds was prepared on the basis of the cycloSal nucleotide approach. Because of the surprisingly low hydrolysis stability of these cycloSal-PMEA derivatives, more stable derivatives have to be developed. Instead of using salicyl alcohol, in cycloAmb-PMEA derivatives 2-aminobenzyl alcohols were attached to PMEA 1. The latter compounds showed a considerably higher stability compared to the cycloSal counterparts. Stability studies revealed that all lipophilic prodrugs delivered PMEA selectively by chemical means. All compounds proved to be noninhibiting to acetyl- and butyrylcholinesterase, and some of the phosphonate diesters were found to be more active against HIV compared to the parent PMEA.

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A series of compounds comprising functionalized thiometallate cages [(RT)4S6] (R terminated by COO(H) or COR groups), based on adamantane (T=Ge) or double-decker (T=Sn) type structures or [(RSn)3S4]2- anionic defect heterocubanes were synthesized and their reactions with 1) transition-metal compounds and 2) hydrazine derivatives were explored. Hence it was possible to generate functionalized ternary CuSnS or CuGeS clusters and to transfer COR ligands into CR(N-NH2) or CR(N-NHPh) terminal groups, respectively. The report provides the proof-of-principle for a directed functionalization and derivatization of chalcogenidometallate cages with respect to the formation of chalcogenidometallate-organic hybrid compounds containing M/E semiconductor nodes, as an alternative to the so far most prominent M/O combination in metal-organic frameworks. DFT investigations deliver further insight in the peculiarities of Ge/S versus Sn/S precursors and their products.