Impact of birth weight and gender on early postnatal hypothalamic energy balance regulatory gene expression in the young lamb

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N-Benzyl-N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-2-(oxazolidin-2-on-3-yl)-2-phenylacetamide

The title compound, obtained by base-induced dimerization of 3-benzyloxazolidin-2-one has been prepared and fully characterised. Its X-ray structure features hydrogen bonded dimers involving the hydroxyl OH and amide carbonyl forming a 14-membered ring.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

X-ray structures of 3-acetyloxazolidin-2-one, 3-acetyloxazolin-2-one and oxazolin-2(3H)-one

The X-ray structures of three simple heterocyclic compounds have been obtained for the first time. Structures of both 3-acetyloxazolidin-2-one 1 and its unsaturated analogue 3-acetyloxazolin-2-one 3 show a planar imide nitrogen with the exocyclic C=O oriented anti to the ring N–C(=O) bond and negligible intermolecular interactions, a pattern consistent with previously reported analogues. In contrast the parent NH heterocycle, oxazolin-2(3H)-one 4 , exists as hydrogen bonded dimers of two closely similar independent molecules but an unusual type of disorder involving exchange of the ring O and NH positions results in a very high R factor.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

3,5-Dithiatricyclo[5.2.1.02,6]decan-2-one

The X-ray structure of the title compound has been determined and the structure shows an exo-configured planar dithiolanone ring. This is in contrast to the few previous dithiolanones to be characterised crystallographically which are all twisted.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

No evidence for killer sperm or other selective interactions between human spermatozoa in ejaculates of different males in vitro

This study examines one of the possible mechanisms of sperm competition, i.e. the kamikaze sperm hypothesis. This hypothesis states that sperm from different males interact to incapacitate each other in a variety of ways. We used ejaculates from human donors to compare mixes of semen in vitro from the same or different males. We measured the following parameters: (i) the degree of sperm aggregation, velocity and proportion of morphologically normal sperm after 1 and 3 h incubation in undiluted semen samples, (ii) the proportion of viable sperm plus the same parameters as in (i) in 'swim-up' sperm suspensions after 1 and 3 h incubation, (iii) the degree of self and non-self sperm aggregation using fluorescent dyes to distinguish the sperm of different males, and (iv) the extent of sperm capacitation and acrosome-reacted sperm in mixtures of sperm from the same and different males. We observed very few significant changes in sperm aggregation or performance in mixtures of sperm from different males compared with mixtures from the same male and none that were consistent with previously reported findings. The incapacitation of rival sperm therefore seems an unlikely mechanism of sperm competition in humans

Spillovers from Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe. An index for measuring a country’s potential to benefit from technology spillovers

In the paper, we construct a composite indicator to estimate the potential of four Central and Eastern European countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) to benefit from productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) in the manufacturing sector. Such transfers of technology are one of the main benefits of FDI for the host country, and should also be one of the main determinants of FDI incentives offered to investing multinationals by governments, but they are difficult to assess ex ante. For our composite index, we use six components to proxy the main channels and determinants of these spillovers. We have tried several weighting and aggregation methods, and we consider our results robust. According to the analysis of our results, between 2003 and 2007 all four countries were able to increase their potential to benefit from such spillovers, although there are large differences between them. The Czech Republic clearly has the most potential to benefit from productivity spillovers, while Poland has the least. The relative positions of Hungary and Slovakia depend to some extent on the exact weighting and aggregation method of the individual components of the index, but the differences are not large. These conclusions have important implication both the investment strategies of multinationals and government FDI policies

Precise calculation of transition frequencies of hydrogen and deuterium based on a least-squares analysis

We combine a limited number of accurately measured transition frequencies in hydrogen and deuterium, recent quantum electrodynamics (QED) calculations, and, as an essential additional ingredient, a generalized least-squares analysis, to obtain precise and optimal predictions for hydrogen and deuterium transition frequencies. Some of the predicted transition frequencies have relative uncertainties more than an order of magnitude smaller than that of the g-factor of the electron, which was previously the most accurate prediction of QED.Comment: 4 pages, RevTe