Dear Moo (or someone else), could you please elaborate a little bit for the ignorant?
From what i've learned, Michael addition is the addition of an enolized ketone to a nucleophil, such as double bond. In this case, i guess, a nucleophil is meant to bee the end aminogroup, while the electropositive part is.... what? The 'acidic' carbon attached to nitrogroup of the starting nitropropene? In this case, what does an alkali base have to do w/all this business?
Or - another possibility - a base abstracts a proton from nitropropene and it condenses w/itself?
Or am i altogether wandering in the dark??
Antoncho