2013 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I deeply appreciate many people for their assistance and contributions to the work in this dissertation. Firstly, I would like to express my most sincere appreciation to Professor Loh Teck-Peng for being a wonderful supervisor. Prof. Loh has a very broad research interest, including green chemistry, asymmetric synthesis, the development of new synthetic methodologies, and total synthesis of natural products. Such a broad research area provides me a unique environment to

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... o research in organic chemistry. He has been very patient and often cheered me up whenever I am in a bad condition with critical chemistry problems. He also provides me much freedom and allowed me to do some interesting projects. His enthusiasm and creativity towards chemistry often prompts my inspiration. I thank prof. Loh for letting me get involved in such a broad research area. I am very honored to have such a great opportunity to work in his group. Secondary, I am very grateful to my former supervisor, Professor Hong Soon Hyeok, for his great supervision in the first two years during my Ph. D career. During that period, I improved my English and learned to think more as a chemist under his guidance. He provided me opportunities to do some exciting projects and guided me to approach problems in the right direction. Also he taught me how to get a better research-life balance. I appreciate that period of happy time doing research in his group which taught me many things.