To the 90th Birthday of Professor Igor O. Kulik (1935–2019)

Professor Igor Pioro is one of the well-known names in the field of nuclear engineering and heat transfer. Born on 22.09.1956 in Kiev, Ukraine, he received his M.A.Sc. in Thermal Physics in 1979 from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute (nowadays, National Technical University of Ukraine (NTUU) "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute"), Department of NPP and Engineering Thermal Physics. In the same year, he started to work as an engineer in the Institute of Engineering Thermal Physics (IEThPh), National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NAScU). During his more than 42 years of the professional career, Professor Pioro has published in total more than 500 publications including 12 technical books, 36 chapters in encyclopaedias, handbooks, and books, ~100 papers in refereed journals, ~300 papers in refereed proceedings of international and national conferences and symposiums, 26 patents and inventions, and ~50 major technical reports. Also, Professor Igor Pioro is a well-known promoter of the nuclear power around the world. He gave lectures / seminars / presentations in many world universities, institutes, research organizations, agencies, companies, etc. For his achievements within the area of nuclear engineering, he has received many awards and certificates of appreciation including Harold A. Smith Outstanding Contribution Award from CNS (2017); Honorary Doctor of the NTUU, etc. On the occasion of his 65th birthday, on behalf of the Journal Board, his colleagues, friends, and students all over the world, we wish Professor Igor Pioro a continuous active life in happiness and good health, and further scientific achievements!

The Beckwith Memorial Symposium on Free Radical Chemistry was held in Philadelphia, USA, on 19 August 2012, as part of the 244th American Chemical Society National Meeting and Exposition, ‘Materials for Health and Medicine’. It was organised by Professor Derek Pratt of the University of Ottawa and Professor Igor Alabugin of Florida State University, as part of the program of the Organic Chemistry Division, at the invitation of the American Chemical Society. It follows other international meetings dedicated to the memory of Professor Athelstan (Athel) L. J. Beckwith, including the 11th International Symposium on Organic Free Radicals (ISOFR-11) held in Bern, Switzerland, in July 2012. Athel’s outstanding contributions to chemistry have also been acknowledged in many other ways, including through his election to the Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science (1973) and the Royal Society of London (1989), and Membership of the Order of Australia (2004); with a special issue of Aust. J. Chem. celebrating his 65th birthday and posthumous issues of Aust. J. Chem. and Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry; and in obituaries published in Historical Records of Australian Science and Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. These are all a reflection of a quite remarkable man and his chemistry, but the Beckwith Symposium stood out as an opportunity for some of his close friends to reflect on their memories of Athel, sufficiently after his untimely, accidental death in May 2010 for some of the raw emotions to have passed. Invited lectures were presented at the symposium by Professor Carl Schiesser (University of Melbourne – ‘Building Bridges Using Homolytic Substitution Chemistry’), Professor Curt Wentrup (University of Queensland – ‘Rearrangement of Triplet Nitrenes and Carbenes to Triplet 1,5-Biradicals’), Professor Leo Radom (University of Sydney – ‘Influence of Connector Groups on the Stabilities of Radicals’), Professor Wes Borden (University of North Texas – ‘Effects of Tunnelling by Carbon on the Ring Opening of Cyclopropylcarbinyl Radicals’), Professor David Crich (Wayne State University – ‘Lessons from Radical Chemistry and their Application to Glycochemistry’), Dr Chrys Chatgilialoglu (Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche (Bologna) – ‘Bio-Inspired Synthetic Strategies of Purine 50,8-Cyclonucleoside Derivatives’), Professor Chris Easton (Australian National University – ‘Effect of Radical Modifications of Amino Acids on Protein Synthesis, Structure and Function’), Professor John Murphy (University of Strathclyde – ‘Super-Electron Donors (SEDs): New Frontiers’), Professor Michelle Coote (Australian National University – ‘New Insights into the Catalytic Cycle of Nitroxide Activation and Regeneration’), Professor Marc Greenberg (Johns Hopkins University – ‘Free Radical Mediated Nucleic Acid Damage’), Professor Louis Fensterbank (Universite Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris) – ‘New Developments in Tin-Free Radical Chemistry’), Professor Armido Studer (Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster – ‘Applications of Nitroxides and Quinones as Mild Oxidants in Catalysis’), Professor David Procter (University of Manchester – ‘SmI2-Mediated Cyclisation Cascades: An Approach to Pleuromutilin’), Professor Robert Flowers (Lehigh University – ‘Unravelling the Mechanism of Single-Electron Oxidation and Reduction in Important Synthetic Reactions’), Professor Dennis Curran (University of Pittsburgh – ‘Radical Reactions of N-Heterocyclic Carbene Boranes’) and Professor Philippe Renaud (University of Bern – ‘Boron: A Unique Element in Radical Chemistry’). Following the scientific program, many of the symposium participants adjourned to Zahav, a nearby Israeli restaurant, and following that to a local bar. As when Athel was present, the social interactions were as important as, and inseparable from, the science. This issue of Aust. J. Chem. contains a selection of papers authored by Athel’s ex-students, colleagues, and friends who attended the Beckwith Symposium. They cover new methods for the generation of radicals in ‘Convenient Ambient Temperature Generation of Sulfonyl Radicals’ by I. V. Alabugin et al. and ‘New Elements on the Behaviour of a Bissulfinylmethyl Radical’ by L. Fensterbank and co-workers, as well as studies that establish new fundamental principles of free radical chemistry reported in articles by C. H. Schiesser and his

Professor Igor Pioro on his 65th birthday

Laudatio: Professor Igor Buchwalow on the occasion of his 70th birthday: (Gerhard Domagk Institute for Pathology, University of Münster, Germany)

Professor Igor Sergeevich Glazunov (on the occasion of the 85th birthday)