The effect of milorganite, a commercially available organic soil amendment, on soil nutrients, plant growth, and yield has been investigated. However, its effect on soil hydraulic properties remains less understood. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of milorganite amendment on soil evaporation, moisture retention, hydraulic conductivity, and electrical conductivity of a Krome soil. A column experiment was conducted with two milorganite application rates (15 and 30% v/v) and a non-amended control soil. The results revealed that milorganite reduced evaporation rates and the length of Stage I of the evaporation process compared with the control. Moreover, milorganite increased moisture retention at saturation and permanent wilting point while decreasing soil hydraulic conductivity. In addition, milorganite increased soil electrical conductivity. Overall, milorganite resulted in increased soil moisture retention; however, moisture in the soil may not be readily available for plants due to increased soil salinity.

The short timescale of the solar flare reconnection process has long proved to be a puzzle. Recent studies suggest the importance of the formation of plasmoids in the reconnecting current sheet, with quantifying the aspect ratio of the width to length of the current sheet in terms of a negative power $ \alpha $ of the Lundquist number, that is, $ {S}^{-\alpha } $, being key to understanding the onset of plasmoids formation. In this paper, we make the first application of theoretical scalings for this aspect ratio to observed flares to evaluate how plasmoid formation may connect with observations. For three different flares that show plasmoids we find a range of $ \alpha $ values of $ \alpha =0.26 $ to $ 0.31 $. The values in this small range implies that plasmoids may be forming before the theoretically predicted critical aspect ratio ($ \alpha =1/3 $) has been reached, potentially presenting a challenge for the theoretical models.

The crystal structure of vismodegib has been solved and refined using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data, and optimized using density functional theory techniques. Vismodegib crystallizes in space group P21/a (#14) with a = 16.92070(20), b = 10.20235(4), c = 12.16161(10) Å, β = 108.6802(3)°, V = 1988.873(9) Å3, and Z = 4. The crystal structure consists of corrugated layers of molecules parallel to the bc-plane. There is only one classical hydrogen bond in the structure, between the amide nitrogen atom and the N atom of the pyridine ring. Pairs of these hydrogen bonds link the molecules into dimers, with a graph set R2,2(14) > a > a. The powder pattern has been submitted to ICDD for inclusion in the Powder Diffraction File™ (PDF®).

The crystal structure of one form of halofuginone hydrobromide has been solved and refined using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data, and optimized using density functional theory techniques. Halofuginone hydrobromide crystallizes in space group P21 (#4) with a = 8.87398(13), b = 14.25711(20), c = 15.0153(3) Å, β = 91.6867(15)°, V = 1898.87(4) Å3, and Z = 4. The crystal structure consists of alternating layers (parallel to the ab-plane) of planar and nonplanar portions of the cations. N–H⋯Br and O–H⋯Br hydrogen bonds link the protonated piperidine rings and bromide anions into a two-dimensional network parallel to the ab-plane. The powder pattern has been submitted to ICDD for inclusion in the Powder Diffraction File™ (PDF®).

A clear understanding of the solid-state reaction of kaolinite (Kln), quartz (Qtz), and sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) is of great significance for the process optimization of coal gangue calcined with Na2CO3. In this work, a comparative study of the isothermal solid-state reaction systems of Kln–Na2CO3 and Kln–Qtz–Na2CO3 was performed by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope, and energy dispersion spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). The results showed that the calcined products both for these reaction systems mainly contain different kinds of sodium aluminum silicates (e.g., NaAlSiO4, Na1.55Al1.55Si0.45O4, and Na1.95Al1.95Si0.05O4) and various kinds of sodium silicates (e.g., Na2Si3O7, Na2SiO3, and Na6Si2O7). The mass percentage of Na2CO3 played a key role in the phase transformation, determining the Na/Al/Si molar ratio of the formed sodium aluminum silicates. Compared with the reaction system of Kln–Na2CO3, the existence of Qtz inhibited the formation of sodium aluminum silicates in the reaction system of Kln–Qtz–Na2CO3. It should be noted that the formed phases both for these reaction systems were slightly different from that of the thermodynamical calculated results of Na2O–SiO2–Al2O3 using FactSage™ software. According to both the experimental and calculated results, a reasonable batching area for coal gangue activation was proposed that the addition of Na2CO3 should be in the range of 20–50% of the total mass of Kln, Qtz, and Na2CO3.

Digital image correlation (DIC) techniques were used to evaluate strain distributions along tensile gage lengths immediately after yielding of a medium manganese steel (7 wt% Mn) in samples cold rolled in the range of 1–6 pct. With an increase in cold work, DIC confirmed that the yielding behavior transitioned from nucleation and propagation of a single localized deformation zone (Lüders band) to uniform deformation, that is, no evidence of strain localization. At intermediate amounts of cold work, a unique yielding behavior was evident where the initially-low positive strain hardening rate increased with tensile strain until conventional strain hardening (i.e., decrease in strain hardening rate with strain). The intermediate yielding behavior was associated with the development of multiple non‑propagating regions of strain localization, an observation not previously evident without the use of DIC.

The distribution of human leukocyte antigens in the population assists in matching solid organ donors and recipients when the typing methods used do not provide sufficiently precise information. This is made possible by linkage disequilibrium (LD), where alleles co-occur more often than random chance would suggest. There is a trade-off between the high bias and low variance of a broad sample from the population and the low bias but high variance of a focused sample. Some of this trade-off could be alleviated if sub-populations shared LD despite having different allele frequencies. These experiments show that Bayesian estimation can balance bias and variance by tuning the effective sample size of the reference panel, but the LD as represented by an additive or multiplicative copula is not shared.

The crystal structure of ponazuril has been solved and refined using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data, and optimized using density functional theory techniques. Ponazuril crystallizes in space group P21/c (#14) with a = 8.49511(6), b = 12.38696(6), c = 18.84239(17) Å, β = 96.7166(4)°, V = 1969.152(12) Å3, and Z = 4. N–H⋯O hydrogen bonds link the molecules into chains along the a-axis, with a graph set C1,1(6). The powder pattern has been submitted to ICDD for inclusion in the Powder Diffraction File™ (PDF®).

The crystal structure of imepitoin has been solved and refined using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data, and optimized using density functional techniques. Imepitoin crystallizes in space group Pbca (#61) with a = 12.35541(2), b = 28.43308(8), c = 7.340917(7) Å, V = 2578.882(7) Å3, and Z = 8. The roughly planar molecules stack along the c-axis. There are no traditional hydrogen bonds in the structure, but several intramolecular and intermolecular C–H⋯O, C–H⋯N, and C–H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds contribute to the crystal energy. The powder pattern has been submitted to ICDD for inclusion in the Powder Diffraction File™ (PDF®).