Order Phase Research Articles

Feasibility of individualized home exercise programs for patients with head and neck cancer-study protocol and first results of a multicentre single-arm intervention trial (OSHO #94).

Patients with head and neck cancer (PwHNC) benefit from targeted exercise interventions: symptom relief, compensation for dysfunction, improvement in quality of life (QoL). Data on acceptance physical interventions in PwHNC are rare. The 'OSHO #94' trial investigates the short- and medium-term effects of individualized home exercise in PwHNC on QoL, physical activity and functionality. The study includes a feasibility phase (proof of concept) in order to evaluate the acceptance. Here we present the study protocol as well as the feasibility results. This prospective, multicentre, single-arm intervention study includes PwHNC ≥18 years of age in aftercare or palliative care with stable remission under immunotherapy. The study opened in January 01, 2021, with estimated completion by December 31, 2024. The PwHNC receive an individualized home exercise program consisting of mobilization, coordination, strengthening and stretching exercises. This should be carried out at least three times a week over 12 weeks for 15 to 30 minutes, supplemented by aerobic training two to three times a week for 30 minutes (intervention). Once weekly telephone calls with a physiotherapist are performed. Subsequently, there is a 12-week follow-up (FU) without exercise specifications/contact. Outcomes are measured before and after the intervention and following the FU. Primary outcome of the feasibility phase (n = 25) was the determination of the dropout rate during the intervention with a termination cut off if more than 30% PwHNC withdrew premature. The primary outcome of the OSHO #94' trial (N = 53) is the change in global QoL score from pre- to post-intervention (EORTC QLQ-C30). Secondary outcomes include clinical and patient-reported measures, training details as well as functional diagnostic data (e.g. level of physical activity, training frequency, flexibility, fall risk and aerobic performance). 25 PwHNC were enrolled onto the feasibility cohort. Only16% (4/25 patients) did not complete the study. Therefore, recruitment of PwHNC was continued. The dropout rate was adjusted from 30% (N = 60) to 20% (N = 53, calculated sample size n = 42 PwHNC and 20% (n = 11) to dropout). Individualized home exercise programs in PwHNC in aftercare seem feasible. Consequently, the aim is now to evaluate the short and medium-term effects of individualized home exercise.

Regulating the microstructures and creep behaviors of an LPSO-containing Mg alloy via heat treatment

The microstructures and creep behaviors of a hot-extruded Mg-Gd-Y-Zn-Zr alloy containing long period stacking order (LPSO) phases prepared by different heat treatment procedures were investigated in this work. Three samples were made, including Sample #1, which was in the as-extruded state; Sample #2, which was preserved at 500 °C for 12 h; and Sample #3, which was preserved at 500 °C for 12 h and 460 °C for 10 h. The average grain sizes of the heat treated samples were much larger than those of the as-extruded samples. The second phases included mainly blocky 18R LPSO phases, lamellar 14H LPSO phases and needlelike ZnZr compounds in the three samples, but Sample #2 had much fewer 14H LPSO phases than the other two samples. The grain boundary migration resulting from the small grain size induced the lowest creep resistance in Sample #1. In contrast, the hardening effects generated from the pyramidal <c+a> dislocations and the dynamic precipitation of dense β’ phases dramatically retarded the cross-slip, resulting in the highest creep resistance in Sample #2. Although the aging treatment introduced numerous 14H LPSO phases in Sample #3, they delayed the dislocation movements to a limited degree, and the creep resistance was inferior to that of Sample #2. Therefore, the creep resistance ultimately decreased in the order of Sample #2 > Sample #3 > Sample #1. It is suggested that the microstructures and creep behaviors of LPSO-containing Mg alloys can be well regulated through appropriate heat treatment, and this work can hopefully offer important guidance for the design of highly creep resistant Mg-Gd-Y-Zn-Zr alloys.

An update on risk factors for relapse in antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis.

Ongoing therapeutic advances in antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis (AAV) have significantly reduced the risk of death in AAV, but 30%-50% of patients still relapse. Relapse is a major problem in these diseases, leading to increased morbidity and mortality. It is, therefore, necessary to find predictors of relapse at the end of the remission induction and maintenance phases in order to personalize treatment.

Magnetic properties and large low-field magnetocaloric effect of RFe2Si2 (R = Ho, Tm) compounds

Nowadays, magnetic refrigerant technology has drawn much attention for its environmental friendliness. Those magnetic materials possessing giant low-field magnetocaloric effect (MCE) performance are of great importance for practical applications, especially at low temperatures. Herein, we present a detailed study on polycrystalline magnetocaloric compounds HoFe2Si2 and TmFe2Si2. HoFe2Si2 exhibits a transition from antiferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase at 2.2 K, while no long-range magnetic ordering is observed in TmFe2Si2 even temperature down to 2 K. For both compounds, they showed large low-field magnetic entropy change (−ΔSM) with the peak values of 10.6 and 7.9 J kg−1 K−1 under field change of 0–2 T for HoFe2Si2 and TmFe2Si2, respectively, which is comparable or even larger than some low-temperature magnetocaloric materials. In addition, the characteristic of second-order magnetic transitions of both compounds were confirmed on basis of Arrott plots and mean-field theory criterion. The low magnetic ordering temperatures, large low-field MCE performance along with the feature of second order phase transition for HoFe2Si2 and TmFe2Si2 indicate that both compounds are promising candidate for magnetic refrigerant materials at liquid helium temperature.

Dark matter from phase transition generated PBH evaporation with gravitational waves signatures

We study the possibility of generating dark matter (DM) purely from ultralight primordial black hole (PBH) evaporation with the latter being produced from a first order phase transition (FOPT) in the early Universe. If such ultralight PBH leads to an early matter domination, it can give rise to a doubly peaked gravitational wave (GW) spectrum in Hz-kHz ballpark with the low frequency peak generated from PBH density fluctuations being within near future experimental sensitivity. In the subdominant PBH regime, the FOPT generated GW spectrum comes within sensitivity due to absence of entropy dilution. In both the regimes, PBH mass from a few kg can be probed by GW experiments like BBO, ET, CE, UDECIGO etc. while DM mass gets restricted to the superheavy ballpark in the PBH dominance case. Apart from distinct DM mass ranges in the two scenarios, GW observations can differentiate by measuring their distinct spectral shapes. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

First order phase transition with the functional renormalization group method

The renormalization group method, more specifically the Wegner-Houghton equation, is used to find first order phase transitions in a simple scalar field theory with a polynomial potential. An improved definition of the running parameters allows us to explore the renormalization group flow down to the IR endpoint and to locate phase transitions. Beyond the expected first order transition further radiative correction generated first and second order transitions are found. The phase diagram is reviewed by a Monte-Carlo simulation of the lattice regulated version of the theory but the serious slow down of the convergence prevents us from obtaining conclusive results from the simulation. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Quantum logic automata generalizing the edge of chaos in complex systems

BackgroundHistorically, although researchers in the science of complex systems proposed the idea of the edge of chaos and/or self-organized criticality as the essential feature of complex organization, they were not able to generalize this concept. Complex organization is regarded at the edge of chaos between the order phase and the chaos phase and a very rare case. Additionally, in cellular automata, the critical property is class IV, which is also rarely found. Therefore, there can be overestimation for natural selection. More recently, developments in cognitive and brain science have led to the free energy principle based on Bayesian inference, while quantum cognition has been established to explain various cognitive phenomena. Since Bayesian inference results in the perspective of a steady state, it can be described in Boolean logic. Considering that quantum logic consists of multiple Boolean logic in terms of lattice theory, the perspective of the free energy principle is the perspective of order, and the perspective of quantum logic might be the perspective of multiple worlds, which is strongly relevant for the edge of chaos.ProblemThe next question arises whether the perspective derived from quantum logic can be generalized for the complex behavior consisting of both order and chaos, instead of the edge of chaos or self-organized criticality, to reveal the property of critical behavior such as a power-law distribution.SolutionIn this study, we define quantum logic automata, which entail quantum logic (orthomodular lattice) in terms of lattice theory and have the features of a dynamical system. Because quantum logic automata are applied to a binary sequence, one can estimate the behavior of those automata with respect to patterns and a time series. Here, we show that most of a group of quantum logic automata display class IV-like behavior, in which oscillatory traveling waves collide with each other, leading to complex behavior; moreover, a time series of binary sequences displays 1/f noise. Therefore, one can see that quantum logic automata generalize and expand the idea of the edge of chaos.

Study on microstructure and wear resistance of laser cladding TiAlZrVNiX high entropy alloy coating based on Laves phase modulation

The incorporation of Laves phase into HEAs coating represents a novel approach to enhance wear resistance, building upon the innovative background of titanium alloy surface protection. The TiAlZrVNiX (X = 1, 1.5, 2) HEAs coatings were prepared in this study using laser cladding advantages to achieve dependable wear-resistant coatings. The microstructure, phase composition, microhardness, and tribological properties of the HEA coatings were simultaneously investigated. TiAlZrVNiX coatings were composed of V-rich HCP solid solution phases, C14-Laves phases, and NiTi2 phases. The microhardness of the 1.5Ni coating measured 708.75HV0.3 and wear rate of 1.12 × 10−13m3N−1 m−1. The primary wear mechanism was abrasive wear, and it had been confirmed that the 1.5Ni coating exhibited best wear resistance. The Laves phase with high space utilization would produce precipitation strengthening and dispersion strengthening, effectively reducing the stress-induced microcrack diffusion. Additionally, the introduction of Ni elements induced the growth of the NiTi2 phase in order to enhance the strength while mitigating brittleness, thereby enhancing the wear resistance of the coatings.

The role of zinc addition on the microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of wire-arc directed energy deposited Mg-Gd-Y-(Zn)-Zr alloys

Wire-arc directed energy deposition (WA-DED) demonstrates significant potential in the rapid and free forming of high-strength magnesium rare-earth (Mg-RE) alloys. This highlights a growing demand for tailored wire alloy compositions to promote engineering applications of this technology. In this work, the role of zinc addition on WA-DED processed Mg-Gd-Y based alloys has been thoroughly investigated by utilizing Mg-6Gd-3Y-0.5Zr (wt%, GW63K) and Mg-6Gd-3Y-0.5Zn-0.5Zr (wt%, GWZ631K) alloy wires as model materials. The microstructure evolution of these two alloys during deposition and heat treatment is revealed by multi-scale microstructure characterization techniques. The influences of Zn addition on mechanical properties of these deposited alloys are investigated comparatively. Obtained results indicate that addition of Zn element into Mg-Gd-Y based alloys promotes phase transformation between eutectic phases and long period stacking order (LPSO) phases during the WA-DED deposition process owing to the multiple thermal cycling. More importantly, the addition of Zn element increases the tendency of solidification shrinkage of the deposited metal. During high-temperature solid solution treatment, the presence of Zn is conducive to improving the thermal stability of the as-deposited grain boundaries and thus suppressing grain coarsening. After optimized T6 treatments, the strength of GW63K alloys increases to 374 ± 7 MPa, and is obviously higher than that (315 ± 6 MPa) of GWZ631K alloys. The addition of Zn element weakens the precipitation strengthening effect. This can be attributed to the formation of LPSO phases, which consumes a substantial amount of RE elements, and in turn decreases the density of aging precipitated nanoscale β´ phases. This work promotes the understanding of the non-equilibrium solidified microstructure evolution of multi-component Mg-RE alloys and guides the optimization of alloy composition of WA-DED specific wire materials.

Estimating metastable thermodynamic properties by isochoric extrapolation from stable states.

The description of metastable fluids, those in local but not global equilibrium, remains an important problem of thermodynamics, and it is crucial for many industrial applications and all first order phase transitions. One way to estimate their properties is by extrapolation from nearby stable states. This is often done isothermally, in terms of a virial expansion for gases or a Taylor expansion in density for liquids. This work presents evidence that an isochoric expansion of pressure at a given temperature is superior to an isothermal density expansion. Two different isochoric extrapolation strategies are evaluated, one best suited for vapors and one for liquids. Both are exact for important model systems, including the van der Waals equation of state. Moreover, we present a simple method to evaluate all the coefficients of the isochoric expansion directly from a simulation in the canonical ensemble. Using only the properties of stable states, the isochoric extrapolation methods reproduce simulation results with Lennard-Jones potentials, mostly within their uncertainties. The isochoric extrapolation methods are able to predict deeply metastable pressures accurately even from temperatures well above the critical. Isochoric extrapolation also predicts a mechanical stability limit, i.e., the thermodynamic spinodal. For water, the liquid spinodal pressure is predicted to be monotonically decreasing with decreasing temperature, in contrast to the re-entrant behavior predicted by the direct extension of the reference equation of state.

Test-based patch clustering for automatically-generated patches assessment

Previous studies have shown that Automated Program Repair (apr) techniques suffer from the overfitting problem. Overfitting happens when a patch is run and the test suite does not reveal any error, but the patch actually does not fix the underlying bug or it introduces a new defect that is not covered by the test suite. Therefore, the patches generated by apr tools need to be validated by human programmers, which can be very costly, and prevents apr tool adoption in practice. Our work aims to minimize the number of plausible patches that programmers have to review, thereby reducing the time required to find a correct patch. We introduce a novel light-weight test-based patch clustering approach called xTestCluster, which clusters patches based on their dynamic behavior. xTestCluster is applied after the patch generation phase in order to analyze the generated patches from one or more repair tools and to provide more information about those patches for facilitating patch assessment. The novelty of xTestCluster lies in using information from execution of newly generated test cases to cluster patches generated by multiple APR approaches. A cluster is formed of patches that fail on the same generated test cases. The output from xTestCluster gives developers a) a way of reducing the number of patches to analyze, as they can focus on analyzing a sample of patches from each cluster, b) additional information (new test cases and their results) attached to each patch. After analyzing 902 plausible patches from 21 Java apr tools, our results show that xTestCluster is able to reduce the number of patches to review and analyze with a median of 50%. xTestCluster can save a significant amount of time for developers that have to review the multitude of patches generated by apr tools, and provides them with new test cases that expose the differences in behavior between generated patches. Moreover, xTestCluster can complement other patch assessment techniques that help detect patch misclassifications.

Friction Force Mapping of Molecular Ordering and Mesoscopic Phase Transformations in Layered-Crystalline Organic Semiconductor Films.

It is critical to understand molecular ordering processes in small-molecule organic semiconductor (OSC) films in optimizing electronic device applications, although it is difficult to observe and investigate the ordering characteristics at a mesoscopic or device scale. Here, we report that friction force microscopy (FFM) allows visualizing the ordering transformation process from a thermodynamically metastable phase to a stable phase at a mesoscopic scale. We utilized 2-octyl-benzothieno[3,2-b]naphtho[2,3-b]thiophene (2-C8-BTNT) as a typical highly layered-crystalline OSC. We found that the friction force between an AFM tip and spin-coated OSC films significantly depends on whether local film states are in metastable monolayer phase or stable bilayer-type herringbone (b-LHB) phase that exhibits high carrier mobility. The formation of the stable b-LHB phase leads to lower friction than the metastable monolayer phase, clearly visualizing the molecular order. Force map (Fmap) analysis indicates that the lower friction in the b-LHB phase should be associated with the reduction of interfacial adhesion force. Notably, the observed results demonstrate that the spin-coated thin film changes from continuous film with the monolayer phase to rugged microcrystal grains with the b-LHB phase when left at ambient conditions. By contrast, an appropriate post-thermal annealing process facilitates the phase transformation without inducing such morphological changes. The technique provides a unique and effective tool for revealing the relationship between processing conditions and device performance in polycrystalline OSC films.

When are galactic winds molecular?

ABSTRACT The molecular phase of supernova-driven outflows originates from the cold, molecular gas in the disc of a star-forming galaxy, and may carry a substantial fraction of the wind mass flux in some galaxies, but it remains poorly understood. Observations of this phase come mostly from very nearby galaxies due its low-surface brightness and covering fraction, and simulations often lack the spatial resolution necessary to resolve it. Here, we analytically estimate the survivability of this phase in order to understand under what conditions a galactic wind can contain a significant molecular phase. We show that the molecular content of outflows is primarily determined by two dimensionless numbers: a generalized Eddington ratio describing the strength of the outflow and the dissociation parameter, an ionization parameter-like quantity describing the strength of the radiation field per baryon. We apply this model to a sample of galaxies and show that, while any molecules entrained in the winds of normal star-forming galaxies should be destroyed close to the galactic disc, the outflows of strong starburst should become increasingly dominated by molecules.

First order phase transition in the D3-D7 model from the point of view of the fermionic spectral functions

We consider the D3-D7 model and use the spectral function of a probe fermion on D7 to analyze the first order phase transition from the black-hole embedding phase to another black-hole embedding phase in the presence of the finite density and temperature. From the fermionic spectral functions, we study the temperature dependence of the decay rate, and we observe various phenomena that support the first order phase transition including jump in it at the critical temperature that corresponds to the first order phase transition. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Resource Allocation for UAV-RIS-Assisted NOMA-Based URLLC Systems

This work focuses on maximizing the sum rate of ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) systems by leveraging unmanned aerial vehicle-mounted reconfigurable intelligent surface (UAV-RIS) to provide short packet services for users based on the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) protocol. To optimize the sum rate of system, a joint optimization is performed with respect to the power allocation, UAV position, decoding order, and RIS phase shifts. As the original problem is a non-convex integer optimization problem, it is challenging to obtain the optimal solution. Therefore, approximate solutions are derived using successive convex approximation (SCA), slack variables, and penalty-based methods. The simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed resource allocation algorithm compared with the benchmark algorithm with orthogonal multiple access (OMA) scheme. In addition, this work emphasizes the performance gap between the proposed communication system and the traditional Shannon communication system in terms of throughput and the performance capacity sacrificed to achieve lower latency.

Spinning primordial black holes from first order phase transition

We conduct a novel study to obtain the initial spin of the primordial black holes created during a first-order phase transition due to delayed false vacuum decay. Remaining within the parameter space consistent with observational bounds, we express the abundance and the initial spin of the primordial black holes as functions of the phase transition parameters. The abundance of the primordial black holes is extremely sensitive to the phase transition parameters. We also find that the initial spin weakly depends on all parameters except the transition temperature.

Pressurized Phase Transitions Cascade in BaMn2P2 and BaMn2As2

The structural analogue of iron-based superconductors the BaMn2P2 and BaMn2As2 compounds under hydrostatic pressure upto 140 GPa were studied within the framework of DFT + U. The transition from an antiferromagnetic insulator to an antiferromagnetic metal is observed under pressure of 6.4 GPa for BaMn2P2 and 8.3 GPa for BaMn2As2. This second order phase transition to the AFM metallic state provides an appropriate normal state for possible superconductivity in these materials. Moreover, further increase in pressure leads to a series of first order magnetostructural phase transitions between different antiferromagnetic phases, then to a ferromagnetic metal and finally to a nonmagnetic metal. In case of doping, these compounds could potentially be superconductors under pressure (above 6–8 GPa) with critical temperature growing under pressure.

Magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect of Gd element under first order phase transition

Magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect of Gd element under first order phase transition

Introduction of novel method of cyclic self-heating for the experimental quantification of the efficiency of caloric materials shown for LaFe11,4Mn0,35Si1,26Hx

Hysteresis and the associated production of dissipative heat during first order phase transitions are often major contributors to thermodynamic losses in caloric heat pumps. The figure of merit (FOM), defined as the ratio of adiabatic temperature change and the thermal hysteresis of the caloric material, quantifies these losses, and can also be used to calculate the maximum potential efficiency of a caloric material in a thermodynamic cycle. This paper presents a novel and simple method to determine the heat loss and thus the FOM can be determined from self-heating of the caloric material during repeated field cycling. As this method mainly requires temperature readings and the ability to cycle the caloric material in a field, most test setups that directly measure the adiabatic temperature change should already be able to perform dissipative heat measurements with this technique. With the presented method, we were able to determine the efficiency of a commercial LaFeSiMnH-sample with a high degree of accuracy. A maximum FOM of 37±1 was determined for the selected LaFeSiMnH-sample. In an ideal cascaded magneto caloric system, this corresponds to a system efficiency of 90%, with an ideal heat regeneration this could theoretically even be increased to 97%.

Dark radiation isocurvature from cosmological phase transitions

Cosmological first order phase transitions are typically associated with physics beyond the Standard Model, and thus of great theoretical and observational interest. Models of phase transitions where the energy is mostly converted to dark radiation can be constrained through limits on the dark radiation energy density (parameterized by ΔN eff). However, the current constraint (ΔN eff < 0.3) assumes the perturbations are adiabatic. We point out that a broad class of non-thermal first order phase transitions that start during inflation but do not complete until after reheating leave a distinct imprint in the scalar field from bubble nucleation. Dark radiation inherits the perturbation from the scalar field when the phase transition completes, leading to large-scale isocurvature that would be observable in the CMB. We perform a detailed calculation of the isocurvature power spectrum and derive constraints on ΔN eff based on CMB+BAO data. For a reheating temperature of T rh and a nucleation temperature T *, the constraint is approximately ΔN eff ≲ 10-5 (T */T rh)-4, which can be much stronger than the adiabatic result. We also point out that since perturbations of dark radiation have a non-Gaussian origin, searches for non-Gaussianity in the CMB could place a stringent bound on ΔN eff as well.