The challenge of distinguishing between abusive and non-abusive constitutional practices – Main ways of detecting abuse: analyses of intent and effects – Obstacles to detecting bad faith intent in constitutional law – Structured and focused analysis of the effects of abusive constitutionalism: introducing the foreseeable effects test – Normative benchmark: substantial diminishment of accountability – Step 1: probability of harm, analysing the tested constitutional measure’s foreseeable effects on operability and autonomy of an accountability mechanism – Step 2: seriousness of potential harm, analysing the constitutional measure’s effects in the broader constitutional context (including interaction effects) – Step 3: harm mitigation, analysing the existence and adequacy of harm-mitigating safeguards accompanying the constitutional measure – Strengths and limits of the foreseeable effects test

Aphidius colemani is an important biological control agent, used in greenhouses and open fields against aphid pests. Despite this economical importance, A. colemani, along with A. transcaspicus and A. platensis, has gone through a complex taxonomical history. The three species have only recently gained status as separate species again, comprising the morphologically defined Aphidius colemani species group. Other than sporadic records probably as a consequence of escape from greenhouses, the A. colemani species group members prefer warmer regions and there are numerous records from South America, Southern Europe and Asia. Based on slide-mounted material collected in the period 1964–2001 in Africa, we describe five new species belonging to this group, and report A. colemani, A. transcaspicus and A. platensis from several African countries. This data opens questions about the origin of the group and presents potential for the diversification of biological control agents against aphid pests.

In our recent faculty meetings here in Virginia, issues regarding ChatGPT and its uses were often broached, for reasons both good and bad, and this November, as I am writing these lines, turbulences in the AI sector are making the news. In papyrology and epigraphy, we have been relying on advanced digital technologies for a while now, and there's no doubt that recent advances in generative AI will soon bear fruit for all text and image-based disciplines in the humanities. Hence, I will open this general review with four exciting books on ancient science and technology.

Direct application of heavy metals as antibacterial agents can cause skin irritations and discoloration of the tissue and it can result in short-term applicability. One of the ways to solve these problems is to immobilize these agents on bentonite. Treatment of textile materials with such activated bentonite for use in various branches of industry has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years. The objective of the present study was to develop a potential use of Cu- and Zn-modified bentonites as antibacterial finishing agents for two textile materials, non-woven textile (NT) and knitted fabric (PL). The bentonite samples were characterized using ED-XRF (energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry), XRPD (X-ray powder diffraction), SEM (scanning electron microscopy), FTIR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy), and BET (N2 adsorption-desorption) analyses. SiO2 and Al2O3 oxides were the main components of all bentonite samples indicated by ED-XRF analysis, while the XRPD analysis confirmed that the natural bentonite (NB) consisted of montmorillonite (Mnt) as the dominant mineral (peaks at 6.94, 19.94, 35.09, and 54.09°2θ) and small amounts of quartz and calcite. A reduction in the basal plane spacing, d001, of Mnt occurred in Cu/Zn-B1, Cu/Zn-B3, and CuB, while in Cu/Zn-B2 and ZnB the basal spacing increased. Also, the size and form of particles and porosity changed, which was confirmed by the BET analysis. Modified bentonite samples experienced a reduction in the specific surface area and total pore volume, as well as movement of the middle mesopore diameter toward the larger diameters. The Zn-modified bentonite demonstrated a greater antibacterial effect on Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Bacillus cereus than Cu- and Na-modified bentonite samples with a MIC (minimum inhibitory concentration) of 0.94 mg/mL, while among Cu/Zn bentonite samples, Cu/Zn-B2 had the strongest antibacterial effect (MIC 0.47 mg/mL). Cu/Zn-B2 was integrated on NT and PL using a screen printing method and showed good antibacterial activity. The printed NT showed better activity than printed PL, and increasing the concentration of applied Cu/Zn-B2 also increased the antibacterial properties.

This paper explores the feasibility of a break-even-class mirror referred to as BEAM (break-even axisymmetric mirror): a neutral-beam-heated simple mirror capable of thermonuclear-grade parameters and $Q\sim 1$ conditions. Compared with earlier mirror experiments in the 1980s, BEAM would have: higher-energy neutral beams, a larger and denser plasma at higher magnetic field, both an edge and a core and capabilities to address both magnetohydrodynamic and kinetic stability of the simple mirror in higher-temperature plasmas. Axisymmetry and high-field magnets make this possible at a modest scale enabling a short development time and lower capital cost. Such a $Q\sim 1$ configuration will be useful as a fusion technology development platform, in which tritium handling, materials and blankets can be tested in a real fusion environment, and as a base for development of higher-$Q$ mirrors.

Microwave irradiation as a means for heating bentonites during acid activation has been investigated in the past but it has never been optimized for industrial applications. The purpose of this study was to apply a factorial 23 experimental design to a Serbian bentonite in order to determine the influence of microwave heating on the acid-activation process. The effect of acid activation under microwave irradiation on the textural and structural properties of bentonite was studied as a model reaction. A mathematical, second-order response surface model (RSM) was developed with a central composite design that incorporated the relationships among various process parameters (time, acid concentration, and microwave heating power) and the selected process response of specific surface area of the bentonite. The ranges of values for the process parameters chosen were: time, 5–21 min; acid concentration, 2–7 M; and microwave heating power, 63–172 W. The effect of individual variables and their interaction effects on the textural and structural properties of the bentonite were determined. Statistical analysis showed that the duration of microwave irradiation was less significant than the other two factors. The model showed that increasing the time and acid concentration improved the textural properties of bentonites, resulting in increased specific surface area. This model is useful for setting an optimum value of the activation parameters for achieving the maximum specific surface area. An optimum specific surface area of 142 m2g−1 was achieved with an acid concentration of 5.2 M, activation time of 7.4 min, and microwave power of 117 W.

The Wisconsin high-temperature superconductor axisymmetric mirror experiment (WHAM) will be a high-field platform for prototyping technologies, validating interchange stabilization techniques and benchmarking numerical code performance, enabling the next step up to reactor parameters. A detailed overview of the experimental apparatus and its various subsystems is presented. WHAM will use electron cyclotron heating to ionize and build a dense target plasma for neutral beam injection of fast ions, stabilized by edge-biased sheared flow. At 25 keV injection energies, charge exchange dominates over impact ionization and limits the effectiveness of neutral beam injection fuelling. This paper outlines an iterative technique for self-consistently predicting the neutral beam driven anisotropic ion distribution and its role in the finite beta equilibrium. Beginning with recent work by Egedal et al. (Nucl. Fusion, vol. 62, no. 12, 2022, p. 126053) on the WHAM geometry, we detail how the FIDASIM code is used to model the charge exchange sources and sinks in the distribution function, and both are combined with an anisotropic magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium solver method to self-consistently reach an equilibrium. We compare this with recent results using the CQL3D code adapted for the mirror geometry, which includes the high-harmonic fast wave heating of fast ions.

Two splendid Oxford Handbooks deserve the opening slot of my review. The Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography contains forty chapters, each of which closes with a helpful section on recommended further reading. The editors have organized the material in five very well-conceived parts. The first section, ‘Mythography from Archaic Greece to the Empire’, naturally wrestles with the question: When does mythography start? Two initial chapters provide their answers, and the rest of the contributions in this section offer an overview of mythography in Greek (Hellenistic and Imperial period) and Latin. The second section aims to provide an overview of individual mythographers: the stars of this section are Apollodorus, Antoninus Liberalis, Parthenius, Conon, and Hyginus. The eighteen chapters provide informative and concise introductions to authors who specialized in mythography, but also to the mythographic tendencies in authors such as Pausanias or Ovid, as well as in the scholia and even mythographical papyri. The third section is on the typical genres or interpretative models with which mythography tends to intersect: rationalizing historical approaches, philosophical allegoresis, etymologizing, catasterism, local historiography, paradoxography, creative approaches to mythography in ancient education, the role of mythography in political discourse, geography, and, finally, an investigation of the ancient terms used to designate the activity and the writings of a mythographer. The fourth section, ‘Mythography and the visual arts’, is a provocative and highly interesting experiment in viewing visual representations of myth as a mythography of sorts: can vases, frescoes, and sarcophagi be seen as visual pendants to literary mythography? These three contributions are all highly rewarding and thought-provoking. The closing, fifth, section offers richly rewarding discussions of the role of mythography in the age of Christianity, starting with the way early Christian writers draw on Greek and Latin mythographers, followed by chapters on mythography in the Byzantine Empire, the Latin West, and in the Renaissance.

Several legal scholars have recently argued that U.S. tort law’s physical-emotional distinction commits tort to the objectionable position of mind-body dualism, but they have not considered the distinction’s role as an aid to judicial cognition and decision-making. Drawing primarily on the law of negligent infliction of emotional distress, this essay argues that tort’s physical-emotional distinction is not a relic of mind-body dualism but a heuristic that judges have used to structure and simplify the difficult but unavoidable task of drawing lines between legally cognizable and non-cognizable harm. The analysis has at least three normative implications: (1) users of tort’s physical-emotional distinction should clarify that they neither endorse dualism nor depreciate emotional harm; (2) because judicial expertise may not extend to the task of drawing lines between legally cognizable and non-cognizable harm, judicial performance in this area may be more adequate than critics suggest; and (3) although it may not be possible to determine the optimal way of drawing lines between legally cognizable and non-cognizable emotional harm, moral-philosophical tools such as Rawlsian and Scanlonian contractualism may be able to identify partial or pro tanto considerations for choosing among different ways of doing so.

Kruskal’s theorem states that a sum of product tensors constitutes a unique tensor rank decomposition if the so-called k-ranks of the product tensors are large. We prove a ‘splitting theorem’ for sets of product tensors, in which the k-rank condition of Kruskal’s theorem is weakened to the standard notion of rank, and the conclusion of uniqueness is relaxed to the statement that the set of product tensors splits (i.e., is disconnected as a matroid). Our splitting theorem implies a generalization of Kruskal’s theorem. While several extensions of Kruskal’s theorem are already present in the literature, all of these use Kruskal’s original permutation lemma and hence still cannot certify uniqueness when the k-ranks are below a certain threshold. Our generalization uses a completely new proof technique, contains many of these extensions and can certify uniqueness below this threshold. We obtain several other useful results on tensor decompositions as consequences of our splitting theorem. We prove sharp lower bounds on tensor rank and Waring rank, which extend Sylvester’s matrix rank inequality to tensors. We also prove novel uniqueness results for nonrank tensor decompositions.

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) hosts several species of aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harris), Aphis craccivora Koch and Therioaphis trifolii (Monell). The preference of the aphids of alfalfa plants for dense assemblies or individual plants, as well as for healthy or infested plants, was investigated in the field as in the laboratory. Years of field research have revealed the specific preferences of all three species of aphid. A. pisum and T. trifolii are most commonly found in alfalfa crops, while A. craccivora is mostly found on alfalfa weeds. Also, a single species of aphid alone is usually present on a plant. In order to determine the reason for this clear preference and to establish whether at the very beginning, i.e. at the stage of choosing a host, aphid species distance themselves from each other, we tested the effect of the volatiles of healthy and infested plants on their attractiveness to aphids. A. craccivora is repelled by the volatiles of dense crops and plants previously infested with one of the other two species. A. pisum and T. trifolii choose a dense assembly of plants, repelled by the volatiles of plants previously infested with A. craccivora. A. pisum displays the weakest competitive traits, and A. craccivora the strongest. This research showed that competition between aphid species does not occur only when they find themselves on the same plant at the same time, fighting for resources, but also in the choice of plant, in order to avoid later competition.

Since we are globally more or less saved from a disease, if perhaps not quite yet from the threat of a global conflict (the transition from a pandemic to a large-scale war is never easy), I start with two books that deal with deliverance, the first one deliverance from danger, the second book with the deliverance from death.