Description: This article discusses reversible beta-hydrogen elimination of three-coordinate iron(II) alkyl complexes. High-spin organometallic complexes have not received extensive mechanistic study, despite their potential importance as unsaturated intermediates in catalytic transformations. The authors have found that, with a suitably bulky bidentate ligand, three-coordinate, high-spin alkyl complexes of iron(II) are stable. They undergo isomerization and exchange reactions of the alkyl group through β-hydride elimination and reinsertion, and the β-hydride elimination step is rate-limiting. The alkyl complexes transfer a β-hydrogen atom to C=C, C=N, and C=O double bonds and undergo deprotonation by Brønsted acids. The reversible β-hydride elimination reactions can be used to explore relative M-C bond energies. Competition experiments and density functional calculations demonstrate an enthalpic preference for alkyl isomers with iron bound to the terminal carbon of the alkyl fragment. This preference arises from steric and electronic effects. The steric preference could be overcome with a phenyl substituent, which steers iron to the benzylic position. A Hammett correlation and density functional calculations suggest that the substituent effect is attributable to resonance stabilization of partial negative charge on the alkyl ligand.

Description: This book review discusses 'A Grammar of Mongsen Ao' by Alec R. Coupe. Ao is one of the approximately 20 indigenous languages of Nagaland spoken in around fifty villages in northwestern area of the state. This book reviews discusses each of the eleven chapters in the book.

Description: This book review discusses 'Communication and Management at Work' by Thomas Klikauer. The book, intended primarily for scholars of management, business, and organizational communication, invokes the theories of Kant, Habermas, Orwell, and Marx to assess at a macro level the historical and contemporary relationships between communication and control in the workplace.

Description: This book review discusses 'Deciphering the Chemical Code: Bonding Across the Periodic Table' by Nicolaos D. Epiotis from the University of Washington. The reviewer describes the work as a new theoretical framework for describing chemical bonding and gives specific information on what's covered in the book, the themes, and ideal audiences.

Description: This book review discusses 'Nexus of Empire: Negotiating Loyalty and Identity in the Revolutionary Borderlands' edited by Gene Allen Smith and Sylvia L. Hilton. The book examines the individuals who inhabited the Gulf of Mexico regions, analyzing the ways in which these people defined and redefined themselves amid a world of competing loyalties.