Experimental Validation of Enhanced Information Capacity by Quantum Switch in Accordance with Thermodynamic Laws.

We experimentally probe the interplay of the quantum switch with the laws of thermodynamics. The quantum switch places two channels in a superposition of orders and may be applied to thermalizing channels. Quantum-switching thermal channels has been shown to give apparent violations of the second law. Central to these apparent violations is how quantum switching channels can increase the capacity to communicate information. We experimentally show this increase and how it is consistent with the laws of thermodynamics, demonstrating how thermodynamic resources are consumed. We use a nuclear magnetic resonance approach with coherently controlled interactions of nuclear spin qubits. We verify an analytical upper bound on the increase in capacity for channels that preserve energy and thermal states, and demonstrate that the bound can be exceeded for an energy-altering channel. We show that the switch can be used to take a thermal state to a state that is not thermal, while consuming free energy associated with the coherence of a control system. The results show how the switch can be incorporated into quantum thermodynamics experiments as an additional resource.

General limit to thermodynamic annealing performance.

Annealing has proven highly successful in finding minima in a cost landscape. Yet, depending on the landscape, systems often converge towards local minima rather than global ones. In this Letter, we analyze the conditions for which annealing is approximately successful in finite time. We connect annealing to stochastic thermodynamics to derive a general bound on the distance between the system state at the end of the annealing and the ground state of the landscape. This distance depends on the amount of state updates of the system and the accumulation of nonequilibrium energy, two protocol and energy landscape-dependent quantities which we show are in a trade-off relation. We describe how to bound the two quantities both analytically and physically. This offers a general approach to assess the performance of annealing from accessible parameters, both for simulated and physical implementations.

Bound on annealing performance from stochastic thermodynamics, with application to simulated annealing.

Annealing is the process of gradually lowering the temperature of a system to guide it towards its lowest energy states. In an accompanying paper [Y. Luo et al., Phys. Rev. E 108, L052105 (2023)10.1103/PhysRevE.108.L052105], we derived a general bound on annealing performance by connecting annealing with stochastic thermodynamics tools, including a speed limit on state transformation from entropy production. We here describe the derivation of the general bound in detail. In addition, we analyze the case of simulated annealing with Glauber dynamics in depth. We show how to bound the two case-specific quantities appearing in the bound, namely the activity, a measure of the number of microstate jumps, and the change in relative entropy between the state and the instantaneous thermal state, which is due to temperature variation. We exemplify the arguments by numerical simulations on the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) model of spin glasses.

Thermodynamics of Quantum Switch Information Capacity Activation.

We address a new setting where the second law is under question: thermalizations in a quantum superposition of causal orders, enacted by the so-called quantum switch. This superposition has been shown to be associated with an increase in the communication capacity of the channels, yielding an apparent violation of the data-processing inequality and a possibility to separate hot from cold. We analyze the thermodynamics of this information capacity increasing process. We show how the information capacity increase is compatible with thermodynamics. We show that there may indeed be an information capacity increase for consecutive thermalizations obeying the first and second laws of thermodynamics if these are placed in an indefinite order and moreover that only a significantly bounded increase is possible. The increase comes at the cost of consuming a thermodynamic resource, the free energy of coherence associated with the switch.

Treatment of wastewater containing methyl orange dye by fluidized three dimensional electrochemical oxidation process integrated with chemical oxidation and adsorption.

The integrated high-efficiency treatment technology for dye industry wastewater is one of the current research hot topic in industrial wastewater treatment area. This article reports a new fluidized three-dimensional electrochemical treatment process integrating activated carbon adsorption, direct electro-oxidation and ·OH oxidation. In the process, activated carbon is polarized in a fluidized bed electrochemical reactor to enhance the direct electro-oxidation and ·OH oxidation, and there is a synergistic effect of effective adsorption and electrochemical oxidation to strengthen the treatment efficiency. When 200 mg/L methyl orange is processed, its removal rate reaches 99.9% in 30min, and the synergistic efficiency is 57.3%. After 8 cycles of activated carbon reusage in the process, the removal rate of methyl orange still kept at 89.2%. It is also founded that the activated carbon maintains 64.5% of its original adsorption capacity during the cycle. These results shows its interesting application potential in the fields of high-efficiency, low-cost and green treatment of various industrial organic wastewaters. Further improvements should focus on the development of continuous operation model and the improvement of the activated carbon electro-catalytic performance and the practical regeneration ways of the activated carbon particle electrodes.

Effects of early rehabilitation on functional outcomes in patients after coronary artery bypass graft surgery: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated the effectiveness, feasibility, and safety of early rehabilitation for patients after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. METHODS: In a three-arm randomized controlled trial, patients who underwent CABG from January 2018 to June 2018 were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (i) usual care (UC group); (ii) UC + single general ward rehabilitation (SGR group); and (iii) UC + general ward rehabilitation and intensive care unit (ICU) rehabilitation (IGR group). The primary outcome was the Barthel Index scores. RESULTS: The Barthel Index score for UC (75.3 ± 12.1) was significantly lower than that of both SGR (86.2 ± 14.1) and IGR (89.1 ± 15.5). There was no significant difference in the Barthel Index scores between the SGR and IGR groups. Statistically significant differences were found in the length of ICU stay and post-operative hospital stay but not in post-operative pulmonary complications (PPC) or atrial fibrillation between the three groups. CONCLUSION: Early rehabilitation implemented during ICU stay and on the general ward resulted in significant improvements in functional independence and could be a safe part of routine care post-CABG.

Preoperative Short Physical Performance Battery as a predictor of prolonged hospitalization after coronary artery bypass grafting in older patients.

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to evaluate the predictive value of the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) and its three components for identifying the requirement for a prolonged hospitalization for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in older patients. METHODS: This prospective, observational study included 425 older patients who consecutively underwent selective CABG surgery. All patients were assessed for the SPPB. We analysed the association of the postoperative length of hospital stay with the SPPB and three components. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was performed to determine the validity of the SPPB for predicting older patients with a prolonged hospitalization (>8 days). RESULTS: The SPPB and its three individual components were independent risk factors for a prolonged postoperative length of hospital stay. Only the SPPB summary score and the 4-m gait speed components showed good discriminative capabilities. An SPPB score cut-off of 9.5 provided the best accuracy for identifying a prolonged hospitalization. A poor physical performance (SPPB <10 score) was related to an increased risk of adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events within 6 months after discharge. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence for clinical utility of the SPPB score for identifying older patients undergoing CABG who are at risk of prolonged hospitalization.

Perioperative poor grip strength recovery is associated with 30-day complication rate after cardiac surgery discharge in middle-aged and older adults - a prospective observational study.

BACKGROUND: Although perioperative care during heart surgery has improved considerably, the rate of postoperative complications has remained stable. It has not been concluded how to better apply grip strength to clinical, postoperative complications. So our study aimed at researching the best way for using grip value for predicting early postoperative complications. METHODS: A total of 212 patients with mean age 63.8 ± 6.3 who underwent cardiac surgery participated in our study. We analyzed the ROC curve of grip strength, grip/weight and grip recovery with complications, found the best cutoff point. Logistic regression confirmed the association between grip strength grouping and complications. RESULTS: We found that 36 patients had 30-day complications. EuroSCORE were 2.15 ± 1.52 and 2.42 ± 1.58 between normal and complication groups, respectively. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) of grip recovery take the most area (0.837, p < 0.001), and the cutoff point was 83.92%. In logistic regression, lower grip recovery has higher risk impact on 30-day complications for 25.68 times than normal group, after adjusted surgery-related factors. After regrouped characteristic information by grip recovery cutoff point, we found that percentage of the estimated 6 min walk distance (41.5 vs 48.3, p = 0.028) and hospitalization time (7.2 vs 6.1, p = 0.042) had worse trends in lower recovery group. CONCLUSIONS: Poor grip recovery may be related to higher risk of postoperative complications within 30 days after discharge in middle-aged and older people independent of surgical risk. The results of this study provide a reference for the development of rehabilitation programs in the early postoperative recovery, and may also be a prognostic indicator for postoperative high-risk groups. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Our research was registered on Research Registry website, the registry number was ChiCTR1800018465. Date: 2018/9/20. Status: Successful.

The effects of five days of intensive preoperative inspiratory muscle training on postoperative complications and outcome in patients having cardiac surgery: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prophylactic efficacy of short-term intensive preoperative inspiratory muscle training on the incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications in patients scheduled for cardiac surgery. DESIGN: Single-blind, randomized controlled pilot study. SETTING: TEDA International Cardiovascular Hospital, China. SUBJECTS: In total, 197 subjects aged ⩾50 years scheduled for cardiac surgery were selected. INTERVENTION: The intervention group ( n = 98) received five days of preoperative inspiratory muscle training on top of the usual care received by the patients in the control group ( n = 99). MAIN MEASURES: The primary outcome variable was the occurrence of postoperative pulmonary complications. The secondary outcome variables were inspiratory muscle strength, lung function and length of hospitalization. RESULTS: After cardiac surgery, a total of 10 (10.2%) of the 98 patients in the intervention group and 27 (27.3%) of 99 patients in the control group had postoperative pulmonary complications (risk ratio, 0.23; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.09-0.58, P = 0.002). The study revealed that, compared with the control group, the intervention group had a significant increase in inspiratory muscle strength (by 10.48 cm H2O, P < 0.001), forced expiratory volume in the first second of expiration (FEV1) %predicted (by 3.75%, P = 0.030), forced vital capacity (FVC) %predicted (by 4.15%, P = 0.008) and maximal voluntary ventilation (MVV) %predicted (by 6.44%, P = 0.034). Length of hospital stay was 7.51 (2.83) days in the intervention group and 9.38 (3.10) days in the control group ( P = 0.039). CONCLUSION: A five-day intensive pattern of preoperative inspiratory muscle training reduced the incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications and duration of postoperative hospitalization in patients undergoing cardiac surgery.

Neurophysiological and Neuropsychological Correlates of Subconscious Auditory Processing During Anesthesia and Their Implications in Anesthesia Awareness.

Like any other unusual state of consciousness, the condition of anesthesia remains a mystery, especially regarding the information processing events of the brain. Evoked potentials are the only known way to understand the neurophysiological events of brain in this condition. Auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) have been used as a measure of the depth of anesthesia during the intra-operative process. AEPs have been classically divided, on the basis of their latency, into first, fast, middle, slow, and late components. Auditory evoked potential has been advocated for the assessment of intra-operative awareness (IOA) but has not been considered seriously enough to be universalized. It is because we have not explored enough the impact of auditory perception and auditory information processing on the IOA phenomena as well as on the subsequent psychological impact of IOA on the patient. This limitation is because we have poor understanding of the subconscious auditory processing itself. This perspective is especially important because more of the IOA phenomena exist in the subconscious domain than they do in the conscious domain of explicit recall. Two important forms of these subconscious manifestations of IOA are the implicit recall phenomena and post-operative dreams related to the operation. Here we present a review of the neurophysiological and neuropsychological correlates of auditory processing during anesthesia. We start with a brief description of auditory awareness and the factors affecting it. Further, we proceed to the evaluation of conscious and subconscious information processing by auditory modality and how they interact during and after intra-operative period. Further, we show that both conscious and subconscious auditory processing affect the IOA experience and both have serious psychological implications on the patient subsequently. These effects could be prevented using auditory evoked potential during monitoring of anesthesia, especially the midlatency auditory evoked potentials. To conclude, we propose that the use of Auditory evoked potential should be universal with general anesthesia use in order to prevent the occurrences of distressing outcomes resulting from both conscious and subconscious auditory processing during anesthesia.