AI Ethics beyond Principles: Strengthening the Life-world Perspective.

The search for ethical guidance in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, especially in healthcare and decision support, remains a crucial effort. So far, principles usually serve as the main reference points to achieve ethically correct implementations. Based on reviewing classical criticism of principle-based ethics and taking into account the severity and potentially life-changing relevance of decisions assisted by AI-driven systems, we argue for strengthening a complementary perspective that focuses on the life-world as ensembles of practices which shape people's lives.

MONA - Interactive manipulation of molecule collections.

: Working with small-molecule datasets is a routine task for cheminformaticians and chemists. The analysis and comparison of vendor catalogues and the compilation of promising candidates as starting points for screening campaigns are but a few very common applications. The workflows applied for this purpose usually consist of multiple basic cheminformatics tasks such as checking for duplicates or filtering by physico-chemical properties.

Reading PDB: perception of molecules from 3D atomic coordinates.

The analysis of small molecule crystal structures is a common way to gather valuable information for drug development. The necessary structural data is usually provided in specific file formats containing only element identities and three-dimensional atomic coordinates as reliable chemical information. Consequently, the automated perception of molecular structures from atomic coordinates has become a standard task in cheminformatics.

NAOMI: on the almost trivial task of reading molecules from different file formats.

In most cheminformatics workflows, chemical information is stored in files which provide the necessary data for subsequent calculations. The correct interpretation of the file formats is an important prerequisite to obtain meaningful results. Consistent reading of molecules from files, however, is not an easy task.

Lotus leaf extract and L-carnitine influence different processes during the adipocyte life cycle.

Background: The cellular and molecular mechanisms of adipose tissue biology have been studied extensively over the last two decades. Adipose tissue growth involves both an increase in fat cell size and the formation of mature adipocytes from precursor cells. To investigate how natural substances influence these two processes, we examined the effects of lotus leaf extract (Nelumbo nucifera-extract solution obtained from Silab, France) and L-carnitine on human preadipocytes and adipocytes.

Synthesis of cystothiazole E and formal syntheses of cystothiazoles A and C by Pd0-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions.

The synthesis of the naturally occurring bithiazole (+)-cystothiazole E (1e) is described starting from oxazolidinone 2. It proceeded in 10 steps and an overall yield of 37%. The key reaction of the sequence was a Suzuki cross-coupling between bromobithiazole 4 and the (E)-alkenylboronic acid derived from alkyne 18 (94% yield).

Synthesis of 2'-substituted 4-bromo-2,4'-bithiazoles by regioselective cross-coupling reactions.

The synthesis of the title compounds (1) was achieved in two steps starting from readily available 2,4-dibromothiazole (2). In a regioselective Pd(0)-catalyzed cross-coupling step, compound 2 was converted into a variety of 2-substituted 4-bromothiazoles 3 (10 examples, 65-85% yield). Alkyl and aryl zinc halides were employed as nucleophiles to introduce an alkyl or aryl substituent.

Regioselective Cross-Coupling Reactions as an Entry into Biologically Relevant Bithiazoles: First Total Synthesis of Cystothiazole E.

No problems have been encountered while using bithiazoles in Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. It was thus possible to achieve the first synthesis of cystothiazole E (1) with a Suzuki coupling of the building blocks 2 and 3 as the pivotal C-C bond-formation step (94 % yield, TBDMS=tBuMe Si). The bithiazole 3 could be prepared very conveniently from 2,4-dibromothiazole by regioselective cross-coupling reactions.