Surface induced crystallization/amorphization of phase change materials.

Surface induced crystallization/amorphization of a Germanium-antimony-tellurium (GST) nanolayer is investigated using the phase field model. A Ginzburg-Landau (GL) equation introduces an external surface layer (ESL) within which the surface energy and elastic properties are properly distributed. Next, the coupled GL and elasticity equations for the crystallization/amorphization are solved.

EN ISO 15189 revision: EFLM Committee Accreditation and ISO/CEN standards (C: A/ISO) analysis and general remarks on the changes.

The EN ISO 15189:2022 standard, titled "Medical laboratories - Requirements for quality and competence," is a significant update to the regulations for medical laboratories. The revised standard was published on December 6, 2022, replacing both EN ISO 15189:2012 and EN ISO 22870:2016. Key objectives of the revision include: 1.

Frequency-differencing strategy to kickstart full-waveform inversion without cycle skipping.

Ultrasound tomography fundamentally relies on low-frequency data to avoid cycle skipping in full-waveform inversion (FWI). In the absence of sufficiently low-frequency data, we can extrapolate low-frequency content from existing high-frequency signals by using the same approach used in frequency-difference beamforming. This low-frequency content is then used to kickstart FWI and avoid cycle skipping at higher frequencies.

Quantification of Citrullinated Histone H3 as a Marker for Neutrophil Extracellular Traps Correlated to Clinical Characteristics of Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease whose pathogenesis is not fully understood to date. One of the suggested mechanisms for its development is NETosis, which involves the release of a specific network consisting of chromatin, proteins, and enzymes from neutrophils, stimulating the immune system. One of its markers is citrullinated histone H3 (H3Cit).

Nursing Practices for Preventing Delirium in Patients with Cancer with Prognoses of Months and Weeks: A Multi-Site Cross-Sectional Study in Japan.

Background: Delirium is a condition characterized by an acute and transient disturbance in attention, cognition, and consciousness. It is increasingly prevalent at the end of life in patients with cancer. While non-pharmacological nursing interventions are essential for delirium prevention, their effectiveness in terminally ill patients with cancer remains unclear.

Impact of Psychosocial and Palliative Care Training on Nurses' Competences and Care of Patients With Cancer in Cameroon: Protocol for Quasi-Experimental Study.

Background: Cancer is a leading cause of global mortality, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020. This is projected to increase by more than 60% by 2040, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Yet, palliative and psychosocial oncology care is very limited in these countries.

Thalamic deep brain stimulation for central poststroke pain syndrome: an international multicenter study.

Objective: The effectiveness and optimal stimulation site of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for central poststroke pain (CPSP) remain elusive. The objective of this retrospective international multicenter study was to assess clinical as well as neuroimaging-based predictors of long-term outcomes after DBS for CPSP.

Methods: The authors analyzed patient-based clinical and neuroimaging data of previously published and unpublished cohorts from 6 international DBS centers.

Intraventricular baclofen for the treatment of pediatric spasticity in cerebral palsy: technique and outcomes.

Objective: Intraventricular baclofen (IVB) administration is used for the treatment of secondary dystonia associated with cerebral palsy (CP), but it has not been reported as a first-line infusion technique for spasticity. In this study, the authors report outcomes of patients with mixed or isolated spasticity treated with IVB administration.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed of consecutive patients treated with IVB between 2019 and 2023.

Matched Guiding and Controlled Injection in Dark-Current-Free, 10-GeV-Class, Channel-Guided Laser-Plasma Accelerators.

We measure the high-intensity laser propagation throughout meter-scale, channel-guided laser-plasma accelerators by adjusting the length of the plasma channel on a shot-by-shot basis, showing high-quality guiding of 500 TW laser pulses over 30 cm in a hydrogen plasma of density n_{0}≈1×10^{17}  cm^{-3}. We observed transverse energy transport of higher-order modes in the first ≈12  cm of the plasma channel, followed by quasimatched propagation, and the gradual, dark-current-free depletion of laser energy to the wake. We quantify the laser-to-wake transfer efficiency limitations of currently available petawatt-class lasers and demonstrate via simulation how control over the laser mode can significantly improve beam parameters.

Fano Resonance in Epsilon-Near-Zero Media.

Fano resonance is achieved by tuning two coupled oscillators and has exceptional potential for modulating light dispersion. Here, distinct from the classical Fano resonances achieved through photonics methodologies, we introduce the Fano resonance in epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) media with novel electromagnetic properties. By adjusting the background permeability of the ENZ host, the transmission spectrum exhibits various dispersive line shapes and covers the full range of Fano parameter q morphologies, from negative to positive infinity.

Giant Thermoelectric Response of Fluxons in Superconductors.

We investigate the thermoelectric response of an Abrikosov vortex in type-II superconductors in the deep quantum limit. We consider two thermoelectric geometries, a type-II superconductor-insulator-normal-metal (S-I-N) junction and a local scanning tunneling microscope (STM)-tip normal metal probe over the superconductor. We exploit the strong breaking of particle-hole symmetry in vortex-bound states at subgap energies within the superconducting vortex to realize a giant thermoelectric response in the presence of fluxons.

Curvature Dependence of Gravitational-Wave Tests of General Relativity.

High-energy extensions to general relativity modify the Einstein-Hilbert action with higher-order curvature corrections and theory-specific coupling constants. The order of these corrections imprints a universal curvature dependence on observations while the coupling constant controls the deviation strength. In this Letter, we leverage the theory-independent expectation that modifications to the action of a given order in spacetime curvature (Riemann tensor and contractions) lead to observational deviations that scale with the system length scale to a corresponding power.

Measuring Attractive Interaction between a Self-Electrophoretic Micromotor and a Wall.

Chemically driven micromotors exhibit a pronounced affinity for nearby surfaces, yet the quantification of this motor-wall interaction strength remains unexplored in experiments. Here, we apply an external force to a self-electrophoretic micromotor which slides along a wall and measures the force necessary to disengage the motor from the wall. Our experiments unveil that the required disengaging force increases with the strength of chemical driving, often surpassing both the motor's effective gravity and its propulsive thrust.

Kolmogorov-Hinze Scales in Turbulent Superfluids.

When a two-component mixture of immiscible fluids is stirred, the fluids are split into smaller domains with more vigorous stirring. We numerically investigate the sizes of such domains in a fully developed turbulent state of a two-component superfluid stirred with energy input rate ε. For the strongly immiscible condition, the typical domain size is shown to be proportional to ε^{-2/5}, as predicted by the Kolmogorov-Hinze theory in classical fluids.

Black Box Work Extraction and Composite Hypothesis Testing.

Work extraction is one of the most central processes in quantum thermodynamics. However, the prior analysis of optimal extractable work has been restricted to a limited operational scenario where complete information about the initial state is given. Here, we introduce a general framework of black box work extraction, which addresses the inaccessibility of information on the initial state.

Mass Acquisition of Dirac Fermions in Bi_{4}I_{4} by Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking.

Massive Dirac fermions, which are essential for realizing novel topological phenomena, are expected to be generated from massless Dirac fermions by breaking the related symmetry, such as time-reversal symmetry in topological insulators or crystal symmetry in topological crystalline insulators. Here, we report scanning tunneling microscopy and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy studies of α-Bi_{4}I_{4}, which reveals the realization of massive Dirac fermions in the (100) surface states without breaking the time-reversal symmetry. Combined with first-principles calculations, our experimental results indicate that the spontaneous symmetry breaking engenders two nondegenerate edge states at the opposite sides of monolayer Bi_{4}I_{4} after the structural phase transition, imparting mass to the Dirac fermions after taking the interlayer coupling into account.

Exponentially Enhanced Scheme for the Heralded Qudit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger State in Linear Optics.

High-dimensional multipartite entanglement plays a crucial role in quantum information science. However, existing schemes for generating such entanglement become complex and costly as the dimension of quantum units increases. In this Letter, we overcome the limitation by proposing a significantly enhanced linear optical heralded scheme that generates the d-level N-partite Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state with single-photon sources and linear operations.

Quantum Thermodynamics of Nonequilibrium Processes in Lattice Gauge Theories.

A key objective in nuclear and high-energy physics is to describe nonequilibrium dynamics of matter, e.g., in the early Universe and in particle colliders, starting from the standard model of particle physics.

Quantifying Memory in Spin Glasses.

Rejuvenation and memory, long considered the distinguishing features of spin glasses, have recently been proven to result from the growth of multiple length scales. This insight, enabled by simulations on the Janus II supercomputer, has opened the door to a quantitative analysis. We combine numerical simulations with comparable experiments to introduce two coefficients that quantify memory.

Dual Mechanism for Transient Capacitance Anomaly in Improper Ferroelectrics.

Negative capacitance (NC) effects in ferroelectrics can potentially break fundamental limits of power dissipation known as "Boltzmann tyranny." However, the origin of transient NC of ferroelectrics, which is attributed to two different mechanisms involving free-energy landscape and nucleation, is under intense debate. Here, we report the coexistence of transient NC and an S-shaped anomaly during the switching of ferroelectric hexagonal ferrites capacitor in an RC circuit.

Bootstrap Principle for the Spectrum and Scattering of Strings.

We show that the Veneziano amplitude of string theory is the unique solution to an analytically solvable bootstrap problem. Uniqueness follows from two assumptions: faster than power-law falloff in high-energy scattering and the existence of some infinite sequence in momentum transfer at which higher-spin exchanges cancel. The string amplitude-including the mass spectrum-is an output of this bootstrap.

Inter- and Intrasublattice Spin Mixing Conductance of the Antiferromagnetic Spin Pumping Effect in α-Fe_{2}O_{3}/Pt.

The spin pumping effect in antiferromagnets, which ultimately converts THz waves into a spin current, is the key physical mechanism leading to an essential function which harnesses the THz technology and spintronics. Here, we report thorough experimental investigations of the spin current induced by the antiferromagnetic spin pumping effect in epitaxial α-Fe_{2}O_{3} thin films having two distinct dynamic modes and unambiguously show that both the inter- and intrasublattice spin mixing conductance are equally substantial. Our experimental insight is an important advance for understanding the physics of transduction between the spin current and the staggered magnetization dynamics at THz frequency.

Self-Intercalation as Origin of High-Temperature Ferromagnetism in Epitaxially Grown Fe_{5}GeTe_{2} Thin Films.

The role of self-intercalation in 2D van der Waals materials is key to the understanding of many of their properties. Here we show that the magnetic ordering temperature of thin films of the 2D ferromagnet Fe_{5}GeTe_{2} is substantially increased by self-intercalated Fe that resides in the van der Waals gaps. The epitaxial films were prepared by molecular beam epitaxy and their magnetic properties explored by element-specific x-ray magnetic circular dichroism that showed ferromagnetic ordering up to 375 K.

Disentangling Sources of Momentum Fluctuations in Xe+Xe and Pb+Pb Collisions with the ATLAS Detector.

High-energy nuclear collisions create a quark-gluon plasma, whose initial condition and subsequent expansion vary from event to event, impacting the distribution of the eventwise average transverse momentum [P([p_{T}])]. Disentangling the contributions from fluctuations in the nuclear overlap size (geometrical component) and other sources at a fixed size (intrinsic component) remains a challenge. This problem is addressed by measuring the mean, variance, and skewness of P([p_{T}]) in ^{208}Pb+^{208}Pb and ^{129}Xe+^{129}Xe collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.