From the banal to the bizarre: Unravelling immune recognition and response to microbial lipids

Microbes produce a rich array of lipidic species that through their location in the cell wall and ability to mingle with host lipids represent a privileged class of immune-active molecules....

Electrochemical Organic Synthesis of Electron-Rich Biaryl Scaffolds: An Update

Biaryl scaffolds are widely spread in biologically important natural products, in numerous therapeutic agents, but they are also considered a privileged class of ligands and (organo)catalysts; therefore, the development of efficient alternative methodologies to prepare such compounds is always attracting much attention. The present review discusses the organic electrosynthesis of biaryls starting from phenols, anilines, naphthols, and naphthylamines. The most significant examples of the works reported in the last decade are presented and classified according to the single class of molecules: after the introduction, the first three sections relate to the reactions of phenols, naphthols, and anilines, respectively; the other two sections refer to cross-coupling and miscellaneous reactions.

Facial Beauty and the Medial Orbitofrontal Cortex

Faces are a highly privileged class of stimuli in humans, and facial attractiveness is a particularly salient attribute of faces that can exert considerable influence on the behavior of others. In the 2003 paper discussed in this chapter, the authors aimed to investigate the neural correlates of facial attractiveness in the brain, hypothesizing that attractive faces would recruit basic reward circuits, especially the orbitofrontal cortex. Consistent with their hypothesis, they found robust engagement of the orbitofrontal cortex to attractive faces and, moreover, that this response was enhanced if a face exhibited a smiling expression. Taken together, these results suggest that facial attractiveness and cues signaling positive social feedback can robustly recruit the brain’s reward circuitry, positioning attractive faces alongside other basic rewards while also aligning attractive faces with other aesthetically pleasing stimuli that engage similar circuits such as works of art.

Class identity in times of social mobilization and labor union revitalization: Evidence from the case of Chile (2009–2019)

Over the past decade, there has been a revival of social protest and labor union activity in Chile. In this article, we examine the effects of this phenomenon to analyze its influence on working-class identity. Using International Social Survey Programme surveys from 2009 and 2019, we investigate whether class location and union membership affect people’s subjective identification with the working class and how that effect may have changed over the decade. Our findings suggest that subjects who are situated in a ‘subordinated’ class position (unskilled workers or informal self-employed workers) are more likely to identify with the working class compared to subjects located in a privileged class position (employers, experts, or managers). However, surprisingly, our analysis does not indicate that working-class identity is reinforced by union membership. In addition, our results do not demonstrate that the effect of class or union membership has strengthened over the past decade. At the end of this article, we offer some possible explanations for these findings.

On the concept of honor in mentality of the Russian landowners of the XVII century

The interdisciplinary approach that takes into account various points of view allows revealing the representations of honor in mentality of the Russian landowners of the XVII century. These representations are analyzed both in the context of national mentality of the XVII century overall, and within the privileged class. The article examines different meanings of honor typical to Russia of the XVII century: ancestral, official, corporate, spiritual, as well as assumptions on the presence of personal honor. Plausible mental representations of the honor of county landowners of the XVII century are viewed from the social, legal, spiritual, moral, and military-professional perspectives. The author goes along with the concepts that attribute honor to the fundamental concepts of national mentality of the XVII century. There are several meanings of honor: the medieval ideal of honor as virtue prevalent in Moscow society, honor of the rank, although the complete dominance of the latter in mentality of the XVII century seems exaggerated. The entire privileged class of the Russian society attached great importance to the meaning of “homeland”, while the provincial landowners valued the length of service. The author believes that the idea of syncretism of honor expressed by the scholars about Middle Ages also pertains to the Moscow period. The honor of noblemen and children of court nobility on the ancestral, corporate and personal levels was an achievement based on “accumulative” principle. The resentment of duels by the Russian privileged ranks of the XVII century, who defended their honor in a lawful manner, deserves particular attention. The representations of honor of the county landowners was stressed by mass poverty and closeness to the lower social classes, which encouraged to stay in the privileged environment. This was accompanied by continuous struggle for retaining paternal, official, corporate, personal honor.

Social stratification and access to resources in the alluvial tract of Ajay River situated in Ketugram block, Burdwan (W.B.): A case study

Every plot of a region in India has its productivity. Access to land is by and large determined by the prevailing social structure. Most productive land is usually owned by the privileged class in the social hierarchy. The present study examines if this structural control on land accessibility continues in the present times despite changes to the Indian social structure. A rural area in the Ajay River basin in West Bengal is purposively selected for the purpose to empirically examine the relationship. A micro-level survey has been carried out for the ownership distribution of land unit, the productivity of land, the land use. Availability of resources, their qualitative distributions is quantified through composite scores to arrive at meaningful conclusions. The study finds that social structure continues to act as a powerful force in access to resources but it is independent of the quality of life of the inhabitants.

Can labour market digitalization increase social mobility? Evidence from a European survey of online platform workers

Children tend to inherit their parents’ social class through the types of jobs they get. However, digital technologies are now transforming the way labour markets work. Candidates are increasingly screened using algorithmic decision making. Skills are validated with online tests and customer feedback ratings. Workplace communications take place over digital media. Could these transformations be undermining the advantages that have accrued to workers with posh accents, family connections, and expensively acquired educational qualifications? We examine this question with survey data from the online (remote) platform economy, a labour market segment in which these digital transformations have progressed furthest (N = 983). The results reveal that online platform workers come largely from privileged class backgrounds. Class also influences (via education) what types of online occupations workers do, from professional services to data entry. However, class background has surprisingly little influence on job quality, which is instead shaped by individual digital metrics such as feedback ratings. These findings cannot be fully reconciled with theories of a shift towards meritocracy nor with theories of a persisting influence of class origins. Instead, labour market digitalization may be decoupling inherited occupation from job quality.

A Review of the Synthetic Strategies toward Dihydropyrrolo[1,2-a]Pyrazinones

Dihydropyrrolo[1,2-a]pyrazinone rings are a class of heterocycles present in a wide range of bioactive natural products and analogues thereof. As a direct result of their bioactivity, the synthesis of this privileged class of compounds has been extensively studied. This review provides an overview of these synthetic pathways. The literature is covered up until 2020 and is organized according to the specific strategies used to construct the scaffold: fusing a pyrazinone to an existing pyrrole, employing a pyrazinone-first strategy, an array of multicomponent reactions and some miscellaneous reactions.

V1-Methyl-8-phenyl-1,3-diazaspiro[4.5]decane-2,4-dione

A simple, fast and cost-effective three-step synthesis of 1-methyl-8-phenyl-1,3-diazaspiro[4.5]decane-2,4-dione has been developed. The reactions described herein proceed readily, with high yields and no further purification. Therefore, the proposed method, with an overall yield of 60%, offers a facile pathway to the synthesis of N-1 monosubstituted spiro carbocyclic imidazolidine-2,4-diones (hydantoins), which constitute a privileged class of heterocyclic scaffolds with pharmacological interest.

Heterocycles as a Peptidomimetic Scaffold: Solid-Phase Synthesis Strategies

Peptidomimetics are a privileged class of pharmacophores that exhibit improved physicochemical and biological properties. Solid-phase synthesis is a powerful tool for gaining rapid access to libraries of molecules from small molecules to biopolymers and also is widely used for the synthesis of peptidomimetics. Small molecules including heterocycles serve as a core for hundreds of drugs, including peptidomimetic molecules. This review covers solid-phase synthesis strategies for peptidomimetics molecules based on heterocycles.