ThermoCalc Application for the Assessment of Binary Alloys Non-Equilibrium Solidification

The paper presents the possibility of application of the developed computer script which allows the assessment of non-equilibrium solidification of binary alloys in the ThermoCalc program. The script makes use of databases and calculation procedures of the POLY-3 module. A solidification model including diffusion in the solid state, developed by Wołczyński, is used to describe the non-equilibrium solidification. The model takes into account the influence of the degree of solute segregation on the solidification process by applying the so-called back-diffusion parameter. The core of the script is the iteration procedure with implemented model equation. The possibility of application of the presented calculation method is illustrated on the example of the Cr-30% Ni alloy. Computer simulations carried out with use of the developed script allow to determine the influence of the back-diffusion parameter on the course of solidification curves, solidus temperature, phase composition of the alloy and the fraction of each phase after the solidification completion, the profile of solute concentration in liquid during solidification process, the average solute concentration in solid phase at the eutectic temperature and many other quantities which are usually calculated in the ThermoCalc program

Traces of embryogenesis are the same in monozygotic and dizygotic twins: not compatible with double ovulation

Common knowledge of over a century has it that monozygotic and dizygotic twinning events occur by unrelated mechanisms: monozygotic twinning ‘splits’ embryos, producing anomalously re-arranged embryogenic asymmetries; dizygotic twinning begins with independent ovulations yielding undisturbed parallel embryogeneses with no expectation of departures from singleton outcomes. The anomalies statistically associated with twin births are due to the re-arranged embryos of the monozygotics. Common knowledge further requires that dizygotic pairs are dichorionic; monochorionicity is exclusive to monozygotic pairs. These are fundamental certainties in the literature of twin biology. Multiple observations contradict those common knowledge understandings. The double ovulation hypothesis of dizygotic twinning is untenable. Girl–boy twins differ subtly from all other humans of either sex, absolutely not representative of all dizygotics. Embryogenesis of dizygotic twins differs from singleton development at least as much as monozygotic embryogenesis does, and in the same ways, and the differences between singletons and twins of both zygosities represent a coherent system of re-arranged embryogenic asymmetries. Dizygotic twinning and monozygotic twinning have the same list of consequences of anomalous embryogenesis. Those include an unignorable fraction of dizygotic pairs that are in fact monochorionic, plus many more sharing co-twins’ cells in tissues other than a common chorion. The idea that monozygotic and dizygotic twinning events arise from the same embryogenic mechanism is the only plausible hypothesis that might explain all of the observations. Originally published in Human Reproduction, Vol. 24, No. 6, 2009