Scheme 1 A reaction pathway for the formation of 3a. ... Besides active methylene compounds, arylacetic acid esters and arylacetonitriles proved to serve efficaciously as third components in the reaction. As described in Table 2, ethyl 2-pyridylacetate (2j) and ethyl 4-pyridylacetate (2k) smoothly participate in the reaction to afford 3j and 3k in 95% and 70% yield (entries 1 and 2), whereas the reaction of ethyl 3-pyridylacetate (2l) resulted in a lower yield (entry 3), ...