Search Results (324)

The central charge occupies a unique role in conformal field theory, simultaneously serving as a measure of degrees of freedom, as the determinant of Casimir energy through modular transformations, and as an obstruction to the naive extension of the Witt algebra. The Virasoro central extension itself is rigid: it fixes c as a label of a given conformal field theory. In this work, we propose that higher categorical coherence—the pentagon and hexagon constraints governing fusion and braiding data, one level above the cocycle responsible for the Virasoro extension—supplies an additional, physically controllable handle. We show that controlled deformations of this higher coherence (higher categorical coherence breakdown, HCCB), implemented consistently through anomaly inflow, shift the effective central charge read out by anomaly-sensitive observables in quantized steps, opening the possibility of treating the measured central charge not as a fixed label but as an experimentally addressable piecewise-quantized quantity. We then focus on the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), where the chiral central charge $c_{-}$ directly governs the quantized thermal Hall conductance. After reviewing the role of edge conformal field theories and current bounds on thermal transport, we propose experimental modifications—such as engineering multi-component edge states, coupling to non-Abelian quasiparticles, or introducing controlled categorical perturbations—that could render higher coherence breakdown detectable as shifts in the effective central charge. Two further elements complete the program. First, we show that within the consistent framework, all route- and bracketing-dependent observables vanish identically (route blindness), so that the pentagon and hexagon interferometers and thermal Y-junction networks we design operate as precision null tests of the modular-functor axioms themselves—the axioms stating that anyonic amplitudes are determined by the topology of a process rather than by the bookkeeping route used to compose it. Second, we show that a quantized remnant of route sensitivity survives in exactly one consistent form: the holonomy of closed cycles of categorical controls, realizing a central-charge pump for which the integer count per cycle is a family invariant beyond any static stacking description. The resulting framework provides both a conceptual reinterpretation of the central charge as a higher obstruction in categorical terms and a concrete experimental route for probing its dynamical behavior. Beyond the quantum Hall setting, these ideas suggest a broader program: anomalies, topological phases, and even string worldsheet central charges may admit reinterpretation through higher coherence. We conclude by outlining a research agenda in which categorical methods yield new experimental observables, potentially transforming the interplay between mathematics, condensed matter physics, and high-energy theory. Full article

Ireland was an early offshore wind pioneer, with Arklow Bank Phase 1 commissioned in 2004 as one of the world’s first commercial offshore wind farms (OWFs). Despite this early start, offshore wind development (OWD) in Ireland remained limited for almost two decades. In recent years, however, the Government of Ireland has declared ambitious offshore renewable energy (ORE) targets, aiming to deliver up to 37 GW of capacity by 2050. One of the key constraints during this period has been the absence of a coherent and integrated marine planning and consenting framework capable of supporting large-scale ORE. This paper examines the evolution of Ireland’s ORE planning and consenting regime, tracing the transition from fragmented, largely “developer-led” arrangements toward a more coordinated and “state-led” framework. It reviews key legislative and policy developments, including the National Marine Planning Framework, the Maritime Area Planning (MAP) Act 2021, the establishment of the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority (MARA), and the introduction of Designated Maritime Area Plans (DMAPs), particularly the South Coast DMAP. The paper also situates Ireland’s recent reforms within selected leading European jurisdictions, highlighting persistent challenges related to governance coordination, permitting complexity, and regulatory sequencing in offshore wind deployment in Ireland. Full article

Nickel ferrite (NiFe₂O₄) is one of the most studied inverse-spinel ferrites because it combines moderate saturation magnetization, comparatively high electrical resistivity, chemical stability, and broad synthesis flexibility. Yet the literature shows that the measured structure and magnetism of NiFe₂O₄ are not intrinsic constants; they evolve strongly with dimensionality, size, thickness, strain state, cation distribution, surface spin disorder, and synthesis pathway. This review develops a unified theoretical and literature-based interpretation of how dimensionality reshapes the structural and magnetic behavior of NiFe₂O₄ across bulk ceramics, nanoparticles, one-dimensional nanostructures, polycrystalline thin films, and ultrathin epitaxial films. The review is anchored in the two uploaded nickel ferrite attachments and expanded using internet-sourced journal literature on spinel inversion, surface effects, mechanochemical synthesis, sputtered and pulsed laser deposited thin films, and epitaxial ultrathin-film anomalies. The central novelty of this article is the formulation of a dimensionality-dependent framework in which the observed magnetic response is governed by a competition among three coupled factors: (i) the cation-distribution function, which controls the A–B superexchange balance and therefore the net ferrimagnetic moment; (ii) the microstructural coherence function, which measures how crystallinity, strain, defects, and anti-phase boundaries preserve or degrade exchange continuity; and (iii) the surface/interface spin-order parameter, which quantifies the loss or reconfiguration of magnetic order at free surfaces and buried interfaces. Within this framework, bulk NiFe₂O₄ behaves as a near-equilibrium inverse spinel with relatively stable magnetization, whereas nanoscale NiFe₂O₄ experiences strong spin canting and finite-size suppression due to the growing fraction of disordered surface spins. Thin films introduce a distinct regime in which strain, texture, anti-phase boundaries, substrate mismatch, and growth kinetics determine both anisotropy and magnetization. In ultrathin epitaxial films, off-equilibrium cation redistribution and interface-controlled electronic reconstruction may even generate magnetization values far above bulk expectations. The review also compares major synthesis routes—solid-state reaction, sol–gel, co-precipitation, hydrothermal growth, reactive milling, combustion, pulsed laser deposition, and radio-frequency sputtering—and explains why each route biases the final dimensionality-dependent properties differently. A set of word-style equations is provided to formalize spinel inversion, finite-size suppression, anisotropy scaling, coercivity trends, and superparamagnetic crossover. Beyond summarizing the field, the review proposes a regime map linking dimensionality to characteristic structural defects and magnetic signatures, and it identifies unresolved questions concerning the true origin of enhanced magnetization in ultrathin NiFe₂O₄, the interplay between anti-phase boundaries and strain, and the distinction between intrinsic inversion changes and extrinsic substrate artifacts. The resulting article offers a submission-ready, originality-focused review that positions dimensionality as the master variable governing structure–magnetism correlations in nickel ferrite. Full article

Substantial uncertainties remain in climate model simulations of tropical cyclones (TCs), particularly those associated with internal climate variability. While the influence of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on interannual TC variability is well established, the contribution of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) to decadal-scale uncertainty is less well constrained. Although models generally reproduce IPO-related variations in tropical cyclone genesis frequency (TCGF) over the eastern North Pacific, large discrepancies persist across the broader North Pacific basin. Clarifying the role of IPO in modulating TCGF uncertainty is therefore essential for improving decadal TC projections. In this study, we analyzed a large ensemble of historical simulations from the MRI-AGCM within the d4PDF (Database for Policy Decision Making for Future Climate Change) framework. Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis is applied to IPO-composited fields to identify the leading modes of intermember (100 members *60 y, 6000 times) simulation uncertainty on a decadal-scale. The results reveal that state-of-the-art models exhibit robust and spatially coherent uncertainty structures in TCGF under different IPO phases. Two leading modes are identified: (1) a South China Sea mode, closely associated with systematic precipitation biases, and (2) a zonal dipole mode between the eastern and western North Pacific, linked to the equatorward propagation of Arctic Oscillation (AO)-related variability. Misrepresentation of AO variability is found to contribute substantially to biases in simulated TCGF patterns. Comparisons with observational datasets further support the proposed mechanisms. These findings highlight the importance of improving the representation of precipitation processes and extratropical–tropical teleconnections in climate models, which is critical for enhancing the reliability of decadal predictions of North Pacific TC activity. Full article

With the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as large language models and autonomous driving, the data traffic via optical interconnects in data centers has surged significantly. The stability of the optical interconnects relies on intelligent operation and maintenance (O&M). Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) over fibers enables vibration sensing utilizing existing communication fibers, providing critical support for intelligent O&M in data centers. Compared to sensing in the coherent systems, it is difficult to use phase and state of polarization (SOP) monitoring for vibration detection in intensity-modulation and direct-detection (IM-DD) systems. In this paper, we propose a joint phase-based and SOP-based sensing scheme integrated in IM-DD systems. In the proposed scheme, the received IM-DD communication signals are tapped for sensing with a power ratio of 10%. Then the tapped signals are split for vibration sensing based on SOP and phase, respectively. In the phase-based sensing arm, a circulator, a $3\times 3$ coupler and two Faraday rotating mirrors (FRMs) are used to build an unbalanced Michelson interferometer without phase fading and polarization fading. For the purpose of SOP-based sensing, a polarizer is used to monitor the vibration-induced SOP variations. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme enables vibration sensing based on both phase and SOP across a frequency range of 200 Hz to 10 kHz. Regarding the communication performance, the integration of the sensing system only induces 0.8 dB received optical power penalty. This vibration-sensing scheme based on both phase and SOP can be integrated into pluggable optical modules, providing an efficient and reliable solution for intelligent optical network O&M. Full article

Hybrid carbon nanotube–fullerene architectures provide a controllable setting in which to study irreversibility and information flow in strongly structured quantum environments. We analyze entropy generation in a platform where paramagnetic endohedral fullerenes (PEFs), such as N@C₆₀ and P@C₆₀, are encapsulated inside a suspended carbon nanotube (CNT) resonator, such that selected multi-level PEF spin states define an effective qubit coupled to quantized CNT flexural modes. Motivated by prior work on fullerene-filled CNTs, on spin–phonon manipulation in suspended nanotubes, and on exact phase-space propagators for damped driven oscillators, we formulate a hybrid open-system description that combines a driven quantum Brownian description of the CNT resonator with an effective Jaynes–Cummings type spin–vibrational interaction. The resonator dynamics are represented in phase space through the Wigner function, whose time evolution can be written analytically in terms of the initial Wigner distribution and a Gaussian propagator. This representation makes it possible to separate drive-induced phase space displacement, diffusion, and damping, and to connect these features directly to entropy flow. The coupled spin–mechanical dynamics are then embedded in a Lindblad quantum master equation that includes mechanical damping, spin relaxation, pure dephasing, and thermally activated excitation channels. Within this framework we derive the entropy balance equation—identifying entropy flux and non-negative entropy production—and examine how hybridization between the molecular spin and the nanotube vibration redistributes irreversibility between coherent exchange and dissipative channels. We show that spin–phonon coupling enhanced by a magnetic field gradient, resonant driving, and moderate thermal occupation can produce identifiable crossovers between entropy–production regimes dominated by the oscillator and those dominated by the spin. The resulting framework provides a quantitative basis for using CNT–PEF hybrids as nanoscale platforms for studying nonequilibrium quantum thermodynamics, decoherence, and information loss in structured vibrational environments. Full article

To address carrier-phase loss of lock and long-term drift in frequency-offset estimation that may arise from time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements in enhanced Loran (eLoran) timing receivers under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and moderate-to-high dynamics, this paper proposes a joint TOA and carrier-phase measurement and tracking method. First, transmitter identification and group repetition interval (GRI) lock are achieved by exploiting the periodic repetition of pulse groups, and epoch folding is applied to enhance effective SNR. Then, a sub-sample TOA observation is constructed via a three-stage progressive refinement procedure: energy-matching coarse estimation, coherent cross-correlation, and parabolic peak interpolation. In parallel, baseband phase observations are obtained through coherent downconversion and accumulation. A unified state-space model incorporating TOA bias, TOA drift rate, baseband phase, and frequency offset is further established to enable joint Kalman filtering of TOA and phase. Moreover, an innovation-likelihood-weighted parallel multiple-model filter combined with measurement-noise covariance inflation is introduced to suppress outlier observations. Simulations show that the TOA estimate converges within about 1 s while maintaining phase continuity and stable frequency-offset estimation, and that the proposed method achieves superior overall robustness and long-term stability compared with a conventional Costas loop. Full article

The terahertz (THz) frequency band has emerged as a promising frontier for next-generation wireless communication systems targeting ultra-high data rates, ultra-low latency, and spectrum expansion beyond conventional millimeter-wave regimes. Realizing practical THz communication links, however, critically depends on stable, tunable, and integrable signal sources capable of delivering sufficient output power while maintaining spectral purity and energy efficiency. Among the various THz generation approaches, optoelectronic techniques offer unique advantages, including large bandwidth, wide frequency tunability and compatibility with fiber-optic infrastructures. This review provides a technology-focused assessment of key optoelectronic THz source technologies, namely photoconductive antennas, quantum cascade lasers, and unitraveling carrier photodiode (UTC-PD)-based photomixers, with particular emphasis on UTC-PD photomixers due to their strong suitability for continuous-wave THz generation and fiber-compatible architectures. The implications of optoelectronic THz sources for system-level architectures, including THz-over-fiber links, coherent detection schemes, and phased-array integration, are further examined. Finally, critical challenges and emerging research directions toward monolithic photonic–terahertz integration and deployable high-capacity wireless front-ends are discussed. This review aims to provide a structured perspective on the state of optoelectronic THz source technologies and their role in enabling practical next-generation communication systems. Full article

This article investigates how EU and Member State legislation contributes to advancing circularity in the textile value chain, a priority sector due to its significant environmental impacts and economic relevance. The research aims to address the lack of comprehensive analysis of national legislation supporting textile circularity and to assess its alignment with the evolving EU framework. An inventory and critical analysis of legislative measures adopted at EU and Member State levels, covering all phases of the textile value chain, has been developed, based on review of the literature, screening of European Environment Agency and European Commission reports, and targeted web search. Results show that recent reforms of EU legislation, such as the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and the revised Waste Framework Directive, have marked a shift toward a more systemic, lifecycle-oriented regulatory framework promoting textile circularity. Moreover, approximately 130 national policy initiatives and legislative measures exceeding EU requirements have been identified, with legislation focusing especially on the consumption and end-of-life stages and relevant innovation in countries such as France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. However, regulatory gaps remain, particularly regarding consumption, prevention of textile waste, secondary raw materials market, and recycling capacity. The findings also highlight the importance of stronger policy coherence between EU and national legislation. Full article

The survival of complex multicellular organisms depends on continuous inter-organ communication networks that coordinate organism-wide responses across physiological conditions and stress states, including adaptation to environmental challenges, infection, and injury. Rather than operating as isolated units, organ systems are integrated through interconnected signaling networks that transmit biological information across tissues. Building on prior work examining individual physiological pathways, this review introduces a unified systems-level framework that integrates inter-organ communication into a coherent model of organism-wide regulation. This review proposes a systems-level framework in which homeostasis is maintained through eight principal communication systems: neural, endocrine, immune-inflammatory, vascular, lymphatic, metabolic, microbiome–gut, and mechanical-structural. Epithelial barriers function as dynamic signaling interfaces within multiple systems, while extracellular vesicles act as cross-system mediators of information transfer rather than as independent communication networks. These systems operate across distinct temporal scales to coordinate host defense, metabolic adaptation, vascular regulation, and tissue repair. The framework further introduces a temporal hierarchy of signaling dynamics that links communication systems to phase-specific responses during physiological stress. Within this integrated network, glucocorticoid receptor α (GRα) is proposed to function as a systems-level regulator of inter-organ communication, supported by converging mechanistic, experimental, and clinical evidence, with variability in the strength of evidence across domains. In contrast to prior reviews, which addressed GRα function within individual systems, this work conceptualizes GRα as a central rheostat coordinating cross-system signaling and temporal transitions in homeostatic correction. Evidence was identified through hypothesis-driven searches using the Consensus AI platform and verified through manual review of primary biomedical literature. GRα, a ligand-activated transcription factor expressed in most nucleated cells, enables hormonal stress signals to coordinate gene-expression programs across tissues, modulating neuroendocrine responses, endothelial function, inflammatory signaling, metabolic regulation, microbiome–host interactions, and tissue remodeling. Systemic responses to stress progress through three phases of homeostatic correction—Priming, Modulatory, and Restorative—within which GRα supports integrated organism-wide adaptation. This integrative framework provides a mechanistic basis for understanding the emergence and temporal evolution of biological responses in health and critical illness. Full article

We propose a structural framework for interpreting quantum computational advantage in terms of admissible continuation of configurations. In this framework, a quantum computation is described not only as a sequence of gates acting on a state vector but also as the organization of admissible histories whose phase contributions combine coherently in a manner related to sum-over-histories and path-integral formulations of quantum mechanics. We identify three structural features that are relevant to quantum advantage: the multiplicity of admissible histories, the degree of phase coherence among them, and the non-factorizable structure of continuation constraints corresponding to entanglement-like global dependence. To make these features explicit, we introduce the notion of effective coherent multiplicity, which measures the coherently usable portion of an admissible-history space before probability normalization. We then formulate a structural speedup conjecture: substantial quantum advantage requires not merely a large number of possible histories but scalable coherent multiplicity supported by non-factorizable constraints whose instability remains bounded. We also introduce a coherent-fiber criterion, which identifies phase-alignable families of histories selected by compact computational relations as a structural source of coherent amplification. This formulation does not replace standard complexity-theoretic measures such as circuit size, query complexity, or BQP membership. Rather, it provides a complementary structural language for relating those measures to interference, entanglement, decoherence, and the organization of computational history space. The framework clarifies, at a structural level, why raw branching alone is insufficient for speedup, why unstructured search yields only a limited advantage, and why problems with compact global regularities, such as Simon’s problem and period finding, can support stronger coherent amplification. The paper also discusses how the proposed quantities relate to standard notions, including success amplitudes, entanglement measures, tensor-network simulability, and fault-tolerance constraints. In this way, admissible-history structure is presented as a diagnostic viewpoint for understanding both the power and limitations of quantum computation. Full article

High-temperature superconductivity in strongly correlated materials is often accompanied by pseudogap behavior, strange-metal transport, strong phase fluctuations, and reduced superfluid stiffness, particularly in quasi-two-dimensional systems. These features suggest that pairing alone may not determine the onset of global superconductivity. We develop a coordination-based framework in which superconductivity is promoted by the collective organization of internal electronic degrees of freedom coupled to a carrier phase. A minimal lattice model is introduced, combining a U(1) phase sector, an internal coordination field, and an inter-sector coupling. A Landau analysis shows that internal coordination enhances the effective phase stiffness and can destabilize the incoherent state once the coordination amplitude becomes sufficiently large. Monte Carlo simulations of the model confirm that increasing coordination strength enhances phase stiffness and shifts the onset of global coherence to higher temperature. The framework provides a possible organizing interpretation of the separation between pseudogap onset and superconducting coherence, as well as the sensitivity of layered superconductors to reduced dimensionality, competing orders, and vortex-core structure. It is not intended to replace BCS theory, but to extend phase-stiffness-based descriptions to regimes where pairing, local coordination, and global phase coherence are distinct. Full article

Transformer-based speech enhancement (SE) architectures suffer from high computational complexity, while existing lightweight state space model (SSM) approaches are constrained to fixed one-dimensional scanning that cannot fully exploit the two-dimensional time–frequency structure of speech spectrograms. To address these limitations, we propose DOM-MUSE, a lightweight U-Net-style SE framework built upon the Mamba-2 SSM with four targeted innovations. First, a Deformable Feature Extractor (DFE) predicts per location spatial offsets that warp the feature sampling grid to align with speech formant trajectories and harmonic structures, providing geometrically coherent inputs to the state space model. Second, a DOM Mamba Block with Cross-Dimensional Gated Fusion (CDGF) deploys two parallel Mamba-2 instances scanning the time and frequency axes independently, and uses Taylor Channel Attention (TCA) to derive semantic gates that modulate each SSM output before fusion. Third, a Phase-Guided Feature Conditioner (PGFC) computes local phase-gradient gates that suppress noise-dominated activations prior to the SSM stage, making the feature extraction pathway implicitly phase-aware. Fourth, an Attention-Based Skip Connection (ABSC) replaces conventional concatenation skip connections with a learned channel gate, adaptively controlling the information flow from the encoder to the decoder. Experiments on the VoiceBank-DEMAND benchmark demonstrate that DOM-MUSE outperforms the reproduced MUSE baseline on all five evaluation metrics—including PESQ (+0.077), CSIG (+0.058), CBAK (+0.026), COVL (+0.070), and STOI (+0.002)—while reducing the parameter count by 24% (0.51 M to 0.39 M). Notably, DOM-MUSE also surpasses MUSE++ on perceptual quality metrics (PESQ +0.061, COVL +0.032) despite MUSE++ employing dynamic SNR augmentation and an augmented multi-objective loss that DOM-MUSE deliberately omits, demonstrating that the proposed architectural innovations yield genuine improvements independent of training strategy. When DOM-MUSE is additionally trained under the same augmented protocol as MUSE++, it achieves PESQ of 3.46 and COVL of 4.22, further confirming the complementary nature of architectural and training improvements. Full article

Sweeping jet (SWJ) actuators are widely used in active flow control, but explicitly resolving actuator-scale unsteadiness in full-configuration computational fluid dynamics (CFD) remains prohibitively expensive because of the small geometric scales and high-frequency oscillations involved. Existing reduced-order boundary-condition models constructed from exit-plane data alone can reproduce the observed switching waveform, but they treat the actuator as an input–output black box and provide limited insight into the internal dynamics that generate the response. This work develops a causal state-space reduced-order modeling framework that links internal mixing-chamber dynamics to time-resolved exit-plane boundary conditions. Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is used to obtain a low-dimensional representation of the internal flow, and a data-driven linear evolution operator is identified in the reduced space by least-squares regression of successive snapshot pairs. A POD truncation rank of $r=60$ is selected from cumulative-energy and validation-error sensitivity analyses, capturing well above 99% of the fluctuation energy while lying within the converged performance regime. A corresponding reduced operator is identified for the exit plane, and spectral comparison reveals near-neutrally stable oscillatory modes in both regions. Using a $\pm 1\%$ relative frequency-matching tolerance, the dominant reduced-operator modes exhibit a 28.3% frequency overlap, providing operator-level evidence that exit-plane oscillations are dynamically linked to internal coherent structures. This correspondence is further supported by cross-spectral coherence analysis between representative internal and exit-plane probe signals, which shows strong coherence at dynamically relevant frequencies. A delayed causal output mapping is then formulated in which the internal reduced state drives the exit-plane response after an identified lag of 149 time steps, corresponding to $2.98\times {10}^{-3}$ s. This delay provides a physically interpretable convective transport timescale from the mixing chamber to the actuator exit. Over the validation interval, the model maintains a mean relative $L_2$ error below 0.02, with maximum normalized errors below 0.04 for most of the prediction horizon, and localized increases are confined to rapid jet-switching events. Field-level reconstructions of streamwise velocity and total pressure show that the model captures both phases of the jet-switching cycle, with errors concentrated primarily in high-gradient shear-layer regions. Compared with exit-only reduced-order models, the proposed internal-driven formulation improves amplitude and phase fidelity over extended prediction horizons. The resulting framework provides a compact, interpretable, operator-based representation of SWJ actuator dynamics suitable for use as a CFD-embeddable dynamic boundary condition. Full article

The development of reliable and scalable control software is a key requirement for the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, where distributed subsystems must operate coherently and support increasingly automated observing strategies. This paper presents the architecture and design of the Telescope Control System of the Small-Sized Telescopes of the observatory, addressing the need for modularity, deterministic behavior, and long-term maintainability. The proposed solution adopts a set of software managers implementing well-defined interfaces and state machines, enabling predictable control flows and consistent interaction with heterogeneous hardware. Modern software engineering practices were applied, including containerized services, automated deployment workflows, and a comprehensive simulation environment. These elements were evaluated through prototypes and pathfinder activities that allowed us to explore design alternatives, validate the behavior of individual components, and assess the scalability of the overall architecture. Results from these exploratory tests indicate that the interface-driven and modular design supports robust operation, facilitates integration, and reduces the effort required for system evolution. While full implementation is currently in progress, the findings confirm that the proposed architecture provides a solid foundation for the test readiness review phase (the phase preceding formal integration testing) and can be effectively extended to future facilities requiring flexible, maintainable, and resilient control software. Full article