Ab initio calculations including correlation energy are reported on a series of halogen-substituted carbenes and silylenes: CH 2, CHF, CF 2, CHC1, CC12, CHBr, CBr2, Sill2, SiHF, SiF2, using the difference-dedicated configuration interaction method. All these compounds with the exception of CH 2 have singlet ground states. The singlet-triplet energy differences are in very good agreement with experiment when available, as well as with other high level calculations. The singlet-triplet separation is also determined in trifluoromethyl carbenes, CHCF3, CFCF3, CCICF 3 and CBrCF 3. The CF 3 substituent has little influence on the energy gap since CHCF 3 like CH 2 has a triplet ground state, with a gap of 11"1 kcal mo1-1, and CFCF~, CCICF 3 and CBrCF 3 have singlet ground states, like CHF, CHCI and CHBr, with gaps of -17.6, -5"4, and -3"5 kcal mo1-1.

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Ab initio DDCI2 (difference-dedicated configuration interaction) calculations are performed on the exchange coupling constant of the doubly-bridged Ni(II) complexes [Ni(en)(2)Cl](2)(2+) and [Ni(terpy)(N(3))](2)(2+), which are modeled by substituting the external ligands with ammonia groups. The variational CI space is selected on the grounds of the effective Hamiltonian theory and includes all the second-order contributions to the difference between the lowest quintet, triplet, and singlet states. Both complexes are found to be ferromagnetic, with coupling constants of 1.8 and 21.1 cm(-1), in good agreement with the experiment. A transformation of the molecular orbitals is also proposed for large systems, enabling the molecular orbital set to be significantly truncated-as well as the file of two-electron integrals and the DDCI2 space-with no loss of efficiency.