This commentary article explores some of the problems encountered by independent scholars seeking to get their work published in peer-reviewed journals and in particular the difficulties they face in accessing online resources. Though often hidden, these issues are nevertheless very real for aspiring historians and those who have returned late to the historical fold. The article acknowledges the efforts of a number of journals to encourage different voices, but highlights how the limitations of current licensing and Open Access arrangements hinders this ambition.

To understand the genetic relationship between hisingerite material in the joints of an overlying grey basalt and nontronite and Fe-rich saponite in the joints and matrix of a more deuterically altered, underlying green basalt, the hisingerite material was treated in a series of hydrothermal experiments. No well-ordered clay mineral was produced at temperatures <340°C, although extended treatment for 445 days and at 110°C or 42 days at 180°C resulted in the formation of materials that gave broad, weak, basal X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) reflections characteristic of 2:1 phyllosilicates. Hematite did not form at 110°C, but it did form at 180°C in 1- and 6-week runs. Treatments at 340°C in Pt, Ag-Pd, and Au containers resulted in mixtures of Fe-rich saponite + hematite, but the same starting material treated at 340°C in stainless steel yielded, in addition, some chlorite, probably due to the more reducing conditions in the stainless steel container. Treatment of the unaltered grey basalt at 340°C and 50 MPa for 10 days resulted in complete alteration of olivine (and probably glass) to a trioctahedral smectite.

The Fe-rich saponite produced by the hydrothermal treatment of the hisingerite material has a composition and XRD pattern similar to the Fe-rich saponite found in the green basalt and an XRD pattern similar to that produced by the hydrothermal treatment of the grey basalt; thus these clays may have had a similar origin. The compositions and XRD patterns of these clays are not similar, however, to those of the nontronite in the joints of the green basalt. The nontronite probably formed during a subsequent low-temperature alteration.

Reaction of mixtures of cobalt nitrate, colloidal silica, and a metal hydroxide (MOH) under hydrothermal conditions produced a range of cobalt hydroxysilicates, the components of which depended upon the identity of M, temperature, and reactant ratios. At 250°C, if M = Na, a smectite of composition Na0.06Co3.07Si3.95O10(OH)2 (I) was produced. If M = K, either a mica, KCo2.5Si4O10(OH)2 (II), intermediate between di- and trioctahedral, or a Si-deficient mica, KCo3Si3.75O10(OH)2 (III), was formed depending upon the reactant ratios. Similarly, if M = Cs, either a vermiculite or a 2:1 layer silicate intermediate between a mica and a brittle mica was produced. If M = Li, only the non-clay mineral Li2CoSiO4 was formed. Tetraalkylammonium hydroxides (NR4OH, R = methyl, ethyl, or propyl) yielded chrysotile. All phases were characterized by elemental analysis, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray powder diffraction. Further characterization of smectite I was undertaken by diffuse reflectance, infrared, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The layer charge in these clays appears to stem from cation vacancies within an almost trioctahedral sheet and, possibly, within the tetrahedral sheets. Some of the cobalt present had tetrahedral coordination geometry, but its location was not determined.

This paper presents a novel Hamiltonian formulation of the isotropic Navier–Stokes problem based on a minimum-action principle derived from the principle of least squares. This formulation uses the velocities $u_{i}(x_{j},t)$ and pressure $p(x_{j},t)$ as the field quantities to be varied, along with canonically conjugate momenta deduced from the analysis. From these, a conserved Hamiltonian functional $H^{*}$ satisfying Hamilton's canonical equations is constructed, and the associated Hamilton–Jacobi equation is formulated for both compressible and incompressible flows. This Hamilton–Jacobi equation reduces the problem of finding four separate field quantities ($u_{i}$,$p$) to that of finding a single scalar functional in those fields – Hamilton's principal functional ${S}^{*}[u_{i},p,t]$. Moreover, the transformation theory of Hamilton and Jacobi now provides a prescribed recipe for solving the Navier–Stokes problem: find ${S}^{*}$. If an analytical expression for ${S}^{*}$ can be obtained, it will lead via canonical transformation to a new set of fields which are simply equal to their initial values, giving analytical expressions for the original velocity and pressure fields. Failing that, if one can only show that a complete solution to this Hamilton–Jacobi equation does or does not exist, that will also resolve the question of existence of solutions. The method employed here is not specific to the Navier–Stokes problem or even to classical mechanics, and can be applied to any traditionally non-Hamiltonian problem.

When a party or candidate loses the popular vote but still wins the election, do voters view the winner as legitimate? This scenario, known as an electoral inversion, describes the winners of two of the last six presidential elections in the United States. We report results from two experiments testing the effect of inversions on democratic legitimacy in the US context. Our results indicate that inversions significantly decrease the perceived legitimacy of winning candidates. Strikingly, this effect does not vary with the margin by which the winner loses the popular vote, nor by whether the candidate benefiting from the inversion is a co-partisan. The effect is driven by Democrats, who punish inversions regardless of candidate partisanship; few effects are observed among Republicans. These results suggest that the experience of inversions increases sensitivity to such outcomes among supporters of the losing party.

Seed retention, and ultimately seed shatter, are extremely important for the efficacy of harvest weed seed control (HWSC) and are likely influenced by various agroecological and environmental factors. Field studies investigated seed-shattering phenology of 22 weed species across three soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]-producing regions in the United States. We further evaluated the potential drivers of seed shatter in terms of weather conditions, growing degree days, and plant biomass. Based on the results, weather conditions had no consistent impact on weed seed shatter. However, there was a positive correlation between individual weed plant biomass and delayed weed seed–shattering rates during harvest. This work demonstrates that HWSC can potentially reduce weed seedbank inputs of plants that have escaped early-season management practices and retained seed through harvest. However, smaller individuals of plants within the same population that shatter seed before harvest pose a risk of escaping early-season management and HWSC.

The motion of thin curved falling particles is ubiquitous in both nature and industry but is not yet widely examined. Here, we describe an experimental study on the dynamics of thin cylindrical shells resembling broken bottle fragments settling through quiescent fluid and homogeneous anisotropic turbulence. The particles have Archimedes numbers based on the mean descent velocity $0.75 \times 10^{4} \lesssim Ar \lesssim 2.75 \times 10^{4}$. Turbulence reaching a Reynolds number of $Re_\lambda \approx 100$ is generated in a water tank using random jet arrays mounted in a coplanar configuration. After the flow becomes statistically stationary, a particle is released and its three-dimensional motion is recorded using two orthogonally positioned high-speed cameras. We propose a simple pendulum model that accurately captures the velocity fluctuations of the particles in still fluid and find that differences in the falling style might be explained by a closer alignment between the particle's pitch angle and its velocity vector. By comparing the trajectories under background turbulence with the quiescent fluid cases, we measure a decrease in the mean descent velocity in turbulence for the conditions tested. We also study the secondary motion of the particles and identify descent events that are unique to turbulence such as ‘long gliding’ and ‘rapid rotation’ events. Lastly, we show an increase in the radial dispersion of the particles under background turbulence and correlate the time scale of descent events with the local settling velocity.

Potential effectiveness of harvest weed seed control (HWSC) systems depends upon seed shatter of the target weed species at crop maturity, enabling its collection and processing at crop harvest. However, seed retention likely is influenced by agroecological and environmental factors. In 2016 and 2017, we assessed seed-shatter phenology in 13 economically important broadleaf weed species in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] from crop physiological maturity to 4 wk after physiological maturity at multiple sites spread across 14 states in the southern, northern, and mid-Atlantic United States. Greater proportions of seeds were retained by weeds in southern latitudes and shatter rate increased at northern latitudes. Amaranthus spp. seed shatter was low (0% to 2%), whereas shatter varied widely in common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) (2% to 90%) over the weeks following soybean physiological maturity. Overall, the broadleaf species studied shattered less than 10% of their seeds by soybean harvest. Our results suggest that some of the broadleaf species with greater seed retention rates in the weeks following soybean physiological maturity may be good candidates for HWSC.

Seed shatter is an important weediness trait on which the efficacy of harvest weed seed control (HWSC) depends. The level of seed shatter in a species is likely influenced by agroecological and environmental factors. In 2016 and 2017, we assessed seed shatter of eight economically important grass weed species in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] from crop physiological maturity to 4 wk after maturity at multiple sites spread across 11 states in the southern, northern, and mid-Atlantic United States. From soybean maturity to 4 wk after maturity, cumulative percent seed shatter was lowest in the southern U.S. regions and increased moving north through the states. At soybean maturity, the percent of seed shatter ranged from 1% to 70%. That range had shifted to 5% to 100% (mean: 42%) by 25 d after soybean maturity. There were considerable differences in seed-shatter onset and rate of progression between sites and years in some species that could impact their susceptibility to HWSC. Our results suggest that many summer annual grass species are likely not ideal candidates for HWSC, although HWSC could substantially reduce their seed output during certain years.

Is American democracy under threat? The question is more prominent in political debate now than at any time in recent memory. However, it is also too blunt; there is widespread recognition that democracy is multifaceted and that backsliding, when it occurs, tends to be piecemeal. To address these concerns, we provide original data from surveys of political science experts and the public measuring the perceived importance and performance of U.S. democracy on a number of dimensions during the first year-and-a-half of the Trump presidency. We draw on a theory of how politicians may transgress limits on their authority and the conditions under which constraints are self-enforcing. We connect this theory to our survey data in an effort to identify potential areas of agreement—bright lines—among experts and the public about the most important democratic principles and whether they have been violated. Public and expert perceptions often differ on the importance of specific democratic principles. In addition, though our experts perceive substantial democratic erosion, particularly in areas related to checks and balances, polarization between Trump supporters and opponents undermines any social consensus recognizing these violations.

We exhibit an action of Conway’s group – the automorphism group of the Leech lattice – on a distinguished super vertex operator algebra, and we prove that the associated graded trace functions are normalized principal moduli, all having vanishing constant terms in their Fourier expansion. Thus we construct the natural analogue of the Frenkel–Lepowsky–Meurman moonshine module for Conway’s group. The super vertex operator algebra we consider admits a natural characterization, in direct analogy with that conjectured to hold for the moonshine module vertex operator algebra. It also admits a unique canonically twisted module, and the action of the Conway group naturally extends. We prove a special case of generalized moonshine for the Conway group, by showing that the graded trace functions arising from its action on the canonically twisted module are constant in the case of Leech lattice automorphisms with fixed points, and are principal moduli for genus-zero groups otherwise.

Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy frequently experience anticipatory distress before treatment sessions. Eighty-six cancer patients (ovarian, lymphoma and breast) were assessed to determine the prevalence of anticipatory nausea and vomiting (ANV). Approximately one patient in three reported anticipatory nausea (AN), and of these 6 also experienced anticipatory vomiting (AV). Several patients reported anticipatory anxiety without any sensation of nausea. Clinically the notion of anticipatory distress may be more fruitful so that the problem of pretreatment anxiety is also addressed. Generally, AN was rated as moderate or worse in severity, occurred fairly consistently, and often began well before arrival at hospital on treatment day. It is suggested that future research should endeavour to link more closely the topography of the problem and the intervention techniques employed, as well as evaluating a broader range of possible interventions.

Three adults with haemophilia participated in a study designed to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioural techniques in the alleviation of chronic arthritic pain. The intervention comprised cognitive-coping skills, primarily relaxation training and guided imagery techniques, as well as identifying and altering antecedents and consequences that may have influenced their pain experience. The dependent measures included visual analogue rating scales, the Arthritis Impact Measurements Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory and pedometer readings. All three men showed significant reductions in pain, which were largely maintained at six-month follow-up. This study supports earlier findings with this population, and highlights the importance of monitoring the implementation of independent measures.