A natural product is a natural compound or substance produced by a living organism—that is, found in nature. In the broadest sense, natural products include any substance produced by life. Natural products can also be prepared by chemical synthesis (both semisynthesis and total synthesis) and have played a central role in the development of the field of organic chemistry by providing challenging synthetic targets.
Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of patterns and regularities in data. While similar, pattern recognition (PR) is not to be confused with pattern machines (PM) which may possess (PR) capabilities but their primary function is to distinguish and create emergent pattern. PR has applications in statistical data analysis, signal processing, , information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, computer graphics and machine learning.
Oxidative coupling in chemistry is a coupling reaction of two molecular entities through an oxidative process. Usually oxidative couplings are catalysed by a transition metal complex like in classical cross-coupling reactions, although the underlying mechanism is different due to the oxidation process that requires an external (or internal) oxidant. Many such couplings utilize dioxygen as the stoichiometric oxidant but proceed by electron transfer. Many oxidative couplings generate new C-C bonds.
In pharmacology, biological activity or pharmacological activity describes the beneficial or adverse effects of a drug on living matter. When a drug is a complex chemical mixture, this activity is exerted by the substance's active ingredient or pharmacophore but can be modified by the other constituents. Among the various properties of chemical compounds, pharmacological/biological activity plays a crucial role since it suggests uses of the compounds in the medical applications.
In chemistry, functionality is the presence of functional groups in a molecule. A monofunctional molecule possesses one functional group, a difunctional two, a trifunctional three, and so forth. In organic chemistry (and other fields of chemistry), a molecule's functionality has a decisive influence on its reactivity. In polymer chemistry, the functionality of a monomer refers to its number of polymerizable groups, and affects the formation and the degree of crosslinking of polymers.
