Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive capabilities, but the bar for clinical applications is high. Attempts to assess the clinical knowledge of models typically rely on automated evaluations based on limited benchmarks. Here, to address these limitations, we present MultiMedQA, a benchmark combining six existing medical question answering datasets spanning professional medicine, research and consumer queries and a new dataset of medical questions searched online, HealthSearchQA. We propose a human evaluation framework for model answers along multiple axes including factuality, comprehension, reasoning, possible harm and bias. In addition, we evaluate Pathways Language Model1 (PaLM, a 540-billion parameter LLM) and its instruction-tuned variant, Flan-PaLM2 on MultiMedQA. Using a combination of prompting strategies, Flan-PaLM achieves state-of-the-art accuracy on every MultiMedQA multiple-choice dataset (MedQA3, MedMCQA4, PubMedQA5 and Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) clinical topics6), including 67.6% accuracy on MedQA (US Medical Licensing Exam-style questions), surpassing the prior state of the art by more than 17%. However, human evaluation reveals key gaps. To resolve this, we introduce instruction prompt tuning, a parameter-efficient approach for aligning LLMs to new domains using a few exemplars. The resulting model, Med-PaLM, performs encouragingly, but remains inferior to clinicians. We show that comprehension, knowledge recall and reasoning improve with model scale and instruction prompt tuning, suggesting the potential utility of LLMs in medicine. Our human evaluations reveal limitations of today’s models, reinforcing the importance of both evaluation frameworks and method development in creating safe, helpful LLMs for clinical applications.

Chiral ferrocene ligands have been widely used in asymmetric catalysis. The advantages of using ferrocene as a scaffold for chiral ligands are described, particularly those regarding planar chirality, rigid bulkiness, and ease of derivatization. The role of planar chirality in 1,2- and 1,1'-disubstituted ferrocene systems is discussed. By using a bulky ferrocene fragment, novel ferrocene ligands were designed, and high enantioselectivity and regioselectivity were achieved in the allylic substitution reaction of monosubstituted allyl substrates. Using the tunable electronic properties of a diphosphine-oxazoline ferrocenyl ligand, the regioselectivity of the intermolecular asymmetric Heck reaction was also examined.

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Over the past two decades, supramolecular gels have attracted significant attention from scientists in diverse research fields and have been extensively developed. This review mainly focuses on the significant achievements in supramolecular gels and catalysis. First, by incorporating diverse catalytic sites and active organic functional groups into gelator molecules, supramolecular gels have been considered as a novel matrix for catalysis. In addition, these rationally designed supramolecular gels also provide a variety of templates to access metal nanocomposites, which may function as catalysts and exhibit high activity in diverse catalytic transformations. Finally, as a new kind of biomaterial, supramolecular gels formed in situ by self-assembly triggered by catalytic transformations are also covered herein.

Novel pincer-type, pyridine-bridged bis(benzimidazolylidene)-palladium complexes 5-7 were synthesised from cheap commercial precursors under microwave assistance. Although simple in structure, carbene complexes 5a,b are efficient low-molecular-mass metallogelators. They gelate not only a broad variety of protic and aprotic organic solvents, but also different types of customary ionic liquids (such as imidazolium, pyridinium, pyrazolidinium, piperidinium and ammonium salts) at concentrations as low as 0.5 mg mL(-1). The morphologies of the resulting 3D gel networks composed from long and thin fibres were studied by TEM and light microscopy for a selection of organic and ionic liquids. The achiral gelators are able to induce the formation of helical fibres. The thermal stability of the gel samples increases with the gelator concentration as demonstrated by thermoreversible DSC studies. Temperature-dependent NMR and X-ray diffraction studies, as well as comparisons with pincer complex analogues bearing shorter alkyl chains, suggest that the 3D networks responsible for gelation are based on non-covalent interactions, such as pi-stacking, van der Waals interactions, and hydrogen and metal-metal bonding. Ionic liquids and gels obtained from them and 5a,b display comparable high conductivities, which characterises pyridine-bridged bis(benzimidazolylidene)-palladium pincer complexes as air-stable metallo gelators that efficiently immobilise ionic liquids in low gelator concentration indicating--beyond catalysis--their potential applications in electrochemical devices.

Along with the rapid expansion of the biodiesel industry to deal with the world energy crisis, inexpensive glycerol is also produced in large scale as the main byproduct in biodiesel production via transesterification. Much attention has been paid to the development of environmentally benign technologies for the transformation of glycerol to valuable DL-lactic acid and its derivatives. Herein, a series of NHC-Ir coordination polymers were readily synthesized via reaction of some structurally rigid bisbenzimidazolium salts with iridium precursors under alkaline conditions and were successfully applied as robust self-supported catalysts in the oxidative dehydrogenation of glycerol to potassium lactate with dihydrogen liberation. Extremely high activity and selectivity were attained in open air under the mild reaction conditions even with ppm-level loadings of the catalysts, which were readily recovered after reaction by simple filtration and reused for up to 31 runs without obvious loss of activity or selectivity. Probably owing to the effective suppression of inactive binuclear iridium species in a homogeneously catalyzed reaction, the catalysts assembled via self-supported strategy exhibited high selectivity and productivity for potassium lactate, with up to 1.24 × 10 5 turnover numbers (TON) being attained even in large-scale reactions of neat glycerol at an elevated temperature. The high catalytic activity, recyclability, and scalability of the robust self-supported catalysts highlight their potential toward the development of practical technologies for transformation of glycerol to value-added chemicals.

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Lieber etwas größer: Der Protonentransfer im elektronischen Grundzustand von (C6H5NH−)⋅(H2O)n wurde photoelektronenspektroskopisch untersucht. Bei n=3 wird ein Proton eines Wassermoleküls durch das deprotonierte Anilin unter Bildung von solvatisiertem OH− abgespalten (siehe Bild). Diese Beobachtungen werden durch Ab‐initio‐Rechnungen gestützt, die für n≥3 die größere Stabilität der solvatisierten OH−‐Ionen belegen.