NMR of natural products as potential drugs

This review outlines methods to investigate the structure of natural products with emphasis on intramolecular hydrogen bonding, tautomerism and ionic structures using NMR techniques. The focus is on 1H chemical shifts, isotope effects on chemical shifts and diffusion ordered spectroscopy. In addition, density functional theory calculations are performed to support NMR results. The review demonstrates how hydrogen bonding may lead to specific structures and how chemical equilibria, as well as tautomeric equilibria and ionic structures, can be detected. All these features are important for biological activity and a prerequisite for correct docking experiments and future use as drugs

Structural Studies of β-Diketones and Their Implications on Biological Effects

The paper briefly summarizes methods to determine the structure of β-diketones with emphasis on NMR methods. Density functional calculations are also briefly treated. Emphasis is on the tautomeric equilibria of β-diketones in relation to biological effects. Relevant physical parameters such as acidity and solubility are treated. A series of biologically active molecules are treated with respect to structure (tautomerism). Characteristic molecules or groups of molecules are usnic acids, tetramic and tetronic acids, o-hydroxydibenzoylmethanes, curcumines, lupulones, and hyperforines

Effect of feeding fermentable fibrerich feedstuffs lupin and chicory prior to slaughter with special emphasis on the effect on chemical boar taint in organic entire male and female pigs and technological meat quality

Boar taint is an off-flavour of pork caused primarily by skatole and, androstenone. Pig off-odour and flavour mostly caused by higher skatole concentrations in backfat. It is a problem in all types of pork production and is not restricted to entire male pigs. If uncastrated, 5-10% of Danish entire male pigs (100 kg liveweight) have > 0.25 ppm skatole in backfat and are then classified as boar tainted, having a markedly reduced value. Even backfat skatole values above 0.15 ppm enhance the off-odour for skatole sensitive consumers. An alternative way to reduce high skatole concentrations may be feeding with fibre-rich feedstuffs. This idea is based on previous studies which have demonstrated that 10% dried chicory or more in the feed reduces skatole in entire male pigs significantly after 7, 14 and 21 days of feeding, resulting in a significant reduction in perceived boar taint and thus an improvement in the flavour and taste of meat. Significantly decreased skatole concentrations and a tendency to increased eating quality have also been demonstrated by feeding 25% lupines to female and castrated male pigs during the whole fattening period. The question remains, however, whether the effects of lupines on skatole and other sensory characteristics of female and entire male pigs can be obtained when used only in the last 1 or 2 weeks before slaughter. Two experimental replicates each consisting of 24 pigs (12 entire male and 12 female) was divided into three treatments according to litter and initial weight and kept in pairs (pens) of either female or entire male pigs. The male and female pigs were kept in different stables. The pairs of pigs have been fed three organic diets for either 1 or 2 weeks prior to slaughter of which two diets contained different fermentable fibre-rich feedstuffs (10% dried chicory root plus 90% organic control feed and 25% blue lupine seed plus 75% other organic feed components). These two treatments were compared with a control; where the pairs of pigs were fed organic control concentrate (“conventional”) either 1 or 2 weeks prior to slaughter (at approx. 104 kg liveweight). Levels of skatole and indole in blood plasma from Vena jugularis were monitored at the start of the experiment and just before slaughter, and skatole in backfat was measured at slaughter. Production results were registered (daily weight gain, FUp per kg gain, slaughter weight, carcass meat percentage, warm and cold carcass weight), and after slaughter at Research Centre Foulum the following technological meat quality attributes were measured on M. Longissimus dorsi (LD): meat colour (L*, a*, and b* values), drip loss, pH measurements, temperatures and glycogen at 45 minutes and 24 hours post mortem. There was a significant reduction in skatole in blood and backfat for both sexes by feeding 25% blue lupine one or two weeks prior to slaughter (P<0.001). The 10% (and 13.3%) dried chicory roots showed no significant effect. This is possibly due to error in the heat treatment of the roots during the drying process. A majority of the meat quality parameters were not significantly affected by either of the two dietary treatments. However, glycogen contents tended to be higher 45 minutes and 24 hours post mortem (P<0.10) and the drip loss lower in the lupine-fed pigs. There were clear tendencies to significant differences in production results as the 25% lupines showed negative impact on growth rate, feed conversion ratio, slaughter weight and carcass weight. Newly mixed entire male pigs showed worse performance than newly mixed female pigs during the short time experiment

Schering Rosenhane’s Book Collection at the Library of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities

Source at http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-512561.Part of the library of the civil servant, historian, and collector Schering Rosenhane the Younger (1754–1812) was in 1822 donated to the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities where it remains to this day. The donation to the Academy included 1,820 volumes, consisting chiefly of books on Swedish and Nordic history and topography. This chapter looks into Rosenhane’s collecting practices, provenance in the books and traces of reading

Otfried Czaika / Wolfgang Undorf (Hg.): Schwedische Buchgeschichte. Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung (Henning Hansen)

Source at https://www.steiner-verlag.de/brand/Jahrbuch-fuer-Kommunikationsgeschichte.Review of Otfried Czaika / Wolfgang Undorf (Hg.): Schwedische Buchgeschichte. Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierun

The Vicar , the Nobleman, and the Peasant: About a Book and its Readers

This article centres around a volume of sermons and its three documented owners. The book first belonged to a vicar, then to a nobleman, and finally to a farmhand. The three owners all left marks on the book, and the farmhand wrote a remarkable passage on its last page, detailing his reading of the book. The three owners’ possession of the book spans over a century, 1766–1876, a period that saw people’s reading habits and reading practices transform fundamentally. In this context Sweden, a forerunner in literacy development, constitutes a particularly interesting example. The journey that this book made provides an insight into provincial book culture and reading practices, and also tells us something about the literacy development of the time. Linking the reading practices to socioeconomic status, the article suggests that the habit of rereading lived on among uneducated readers in the countryside for quite some time.Le présent article porte sur un recueil de sermons et sur les trois personnes dont on peut attester qu’elles en ont été propriétaires. Le recueil appartint d’abord à un vicaire, puis à un noble et, enfin, à un ouvrier agricole. Ces trois propriétaires y laissèrent des traces, l’ouvrier agricole, notamment, ayant consigné de remarquables notes lecture à la dernière page du livre. À tour de rôle, ils eurent le recueil en leur possession durant plus d’un siècle, de 1766 à 1876, période qui vit les habitudes et pratiques de lecture se transformer en profondeur. La Suède, précurseure en matière de littératie, constitue en cela un exemple particulièrement intéressant. En effet, les « pérégrinations » du recueil donnent à voir quelles étaient la culture du livre et les pratiques de lecture en province, tout comme elles sont révélatrices des progrès sur le plan de la littératie. En établissant des liens entre pratiques de lecture et statut socioéconomique, l’article révèle entre autres que la relecture fut durant longtemps chose courante, à la campagne, chez les lecteurs peu scolarisés