Various experimental techniques have been advanced in recent years to measure non-equilibrium energy transformations on themicroscopic scale of single molecules. In general, the systems studied inthe correspondingexperiments are exposed to strong thermal fluctuations and thus the relevant energetic variables such as work and heat become stochastic.

This thesis addresses challenging theoretical problems in this active field of current research: 1) Exact analytical solutions of work and heat distributions for isothermal non-equilibrium processes in suitable models are obtained; 2) Corresponding solutions for cyclic processes involving two different heat reservoirs are found; 3) Optimization of periodic driving protocols for such cyclic processes with respect to maximal output power, efficiency and minimal power fluctuations is studied.

The exact solutions for work and heat distributionsprovide areference for theoretical investigations of more complicated models, giving insight into the structure of the tail of work distributions andserving asvaluable test cases for simulations of the underlying stochastic processes."

Based on courses given at the universities of Texas and California, this book treats an active field of research that touches upon the foundations of physics and chemistry. It presents, in as simple a manner as possible, the basic mechanisms that determine the dynamical evolution of both classical and quantum systems in sufficient generality to include quantum phenomena. The book begins with a discussion of Noether's theorem, integrability, KAM theory, and a definition of chaotic behavior; continues with a detailed discussion of area-preserving maps, integrable quantum systems, spectral properties, path integrals, and periodically driven systems; and concludes by showing how to apply the ideas to stochastic systems. The presentation is complete and self-contained; appendices provide much of the needed mathematical background, and there are extensive references to the current literature; while problems at the ends of chapters help students clarify their understanding. This new edition has an updated presentation throughout, and a new chapter on open quantum systems.

Focused on recent advances, this book covers theoretical foundations as well as various applications. It presents modern mathematical modeling approaches to the qualitative and numerical analysis of solutions for complex engineering problems in physics, mechanics, biochemistry, geophysics, biology and climatology. Contributions by an international team of respected authors bridge the gap between abstract mathematical approaches, such as applied methods of modern analysis, algebra, fundamental and computational mechanics, nonautonomous and stochastic dynamical systems on the one hand, and practical applications in nonlinear mechanics, optimization, decision making theory and control theory on the other. As such, the book will be of interest to mathematicians and engineers working at the interface of these fields.

One of the open challenges in fundamental physics is to combine Einstein's theory of general relativity with the principles of quantum mechancis. In this thesis, the question is raised whether metric quantum gravity could be fundamental in the spirit of Steven Weinberg's seminal asymptotic safety conjecture, and if so, what are the consequences for the physics of small, possibly Planck-size black holes? To address the first question, new techniques are provided which allow, for the first time, a self-consistent study of high-order polynomial actions including up to 34 powers in the Ricci scalar. These novel insights are then exploited to explain quantum gravity effects in black holes, including their horizon and causal structure, conformal scaling, evaporation, and the thermodynamics of quantum space-time. Results indicate upper limits on black hole temperature, and the existence of small black holes based on asymptotic safety for gravity and thermodynamical arguments.

This textbook offers an advanced undergraduate or initial graduate level introduction to topics such as kinetic theory, equilibrium statistical mechanics and the theory of fluctuations from a modern perspective. The aim is to provide the reader with the necessary tools of probability theory and thermodynamics (especially the thermodynamic potentials) to enable subsequent study at advanced graduate level. At the same time, the book offers a bird's eye view on arguments that are often disregarded in the main curriculum courses. Further features include a focus on the interdisciplinary nature of the subject and in-depth discussion of alternative interpretations of the concept of entropy. While some familiarity with basic concepts of thermodynamics and probability theory is assumed, this does not extend beyond what is commonly obtained in basic undergraduate curriculum courses.

In this thesis, quantum estimation theory is applied to investigate uncertainty relations between error and disturbance in quantum measurement. The author argues that the best solution for clarifying the attainable bound of the error and disturbance is to invoke the estimation process from the measurement outcomes such as signals from a photodetector in a quantum optical system. The error and disturbance in terms of the Fisher information content have been successfully formulated and provide the upper bound of the accuracy of the estimation. Moreover, the attainable bound of the error and disturbance in quantum measurement has been derived. The obtained bound is determined for the first time by the quantum fluctuations and correlation functions of the observables, which characterize the non-classical fluctuation of the observables. The result provides the upper bound of our knowledge obtained by quantum measurements. The method developed in this thesis will be applied to a broad class of problems related to quantum measurement to build a next-generation clock standard and to successfully detect gravitational waves.

Microcontinuum Field Theories constitutes an extension of classical field theories - of elastic solids, viscous fluids, electromagnetism, and the like - to microscopic length and time scales. Material bodies are viewed as collections of a large number of deformable particles (sub-continua), suitable for modeling blood, porous media, polymers, liquid crystals, slurries, and composite materials. This volume extends and applies the ideas developed in the first volume, Microcontinuum Field Theories: Foundations and Solids, to liquid crystals, biological fluids, and other microstretch and micomorphic fluids. The theory makes it possible to discuss properties of such materials that are beyond the scope of classical field theories and may provide a basis for the resolution of some outstanding problems, such as turbulence.

This book is the first major work covering applications in thermal engineering and offering a comprehensive introduction to optimal control theory, which has applications in mechanical engineering, particularly aircraft and missile trajectory optimization. The book is organized in three parts: The first part includes a brief presentation of function optimization and variational calculus, while the second part presents a summary of the optimal control theory. Lastly, the third part describes several applications of optimal control theory in solving various thermal engineering problems. These applications are grouped in four sections: heat transfer and thermal energy storage, solar thermal engineering, heat engines and lubrication.Clearly presented and easy-to-use, it is a valuable resource for thermal engineers and thermal-system designers as well as postgraduate students.

This is a textbook which gradually introduces the student to the statistical mechanical study of the different phases of matter and to the phase transitions between them. Throughout, only simple models of both ordinary and soft matter are used but these are studied in full detail. The subject is developed in a pedagogical manner, starting from the basics, going from the simple ideal systems to the interacting systems, and ending with the more modern topics. The textbook provides the student with a complete overview, intentionally at an introductory level, of the theory of phase transitions. All equations and deductions are included.

This new volume of the annual review "Advances in Transport Phenomena" series contains three in-depth review articles on the microfluidic fabrication of vesicles, the dielectrophoresis field-flow fractionation for continuous-flow separation of particles and cells in microfluidic devices, and the thermodynamic analysis and optimization of heat exchangers, respectively.

The book offers a snapshot of the theories and applications of soft computing in the area of complex systems modeling and control. It presents the most important findings discussed during the 5th International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control, held in Cairo, from August 31-September 2, 2013. The book consists of twenty-nine selected contributions, which have been thoroughly reviewed and extended before their inclusion in the volume. The different chapters, written by active researchers in the field, report on both current theories and important applications of soft-computing. Besides providing the readers with soft-computing fundamentals, and soft-computing based inductive methodologies/algorithms, the book also discusses key industrial soft-computing applications, as well as multidisciplinary solutions developed for a variety of purposes, like windup control, waste management, security issues, biomedical applications and many others. It is a perfect reference guide for graduate students, researchers and practitioners in the area of soft computing, systems modeling and control.

The main body of this book is devoted to statistical physics, whereas much less emphasis is given to thermodynamics. In particular, the idea is to present the most important outcomes of thermodynamics - most notably, the laws of thermodynamics - as conclusions from derivations in statistical physics. Special emphasis is on subjects that are vital to engineering education. These include, first of all, quantum statistics, like the Fermi-Dirac distribution, as well as diffusion processes, both of which are fundamental to a sound understanding of semiconductor devices. Another important issue for electrical engineering students is understanding of the mechanisms of noise generation and stochastic dynamics in physical systems, most notably in electric circuitry. Accordingly, the fluctuation-dissipation theorem of statistical mechanics, which is the theoretical basis for understanding thermal noise processes in systems, is presented from a signals-and-systems point of view, in a way that is readily accessible for engineering students and in relation with other courses in the electrical engineering curriculum, like courses on random processes.

This textbook takes an interdisciplinary approach to the subject of thermodynamics and is therefore suitable for undergraduates in chemistry, physics and engineering courses. The book is an introduction to phenomenological thermodynamics and its applications to phase transitions and chemical reactions, with some references to statistical mechanics. It strikes the balance between the rigorousness of the Callen text and phenomenological approach of the Atkins text. The book is divided in three parts. The first introduces the postulates and laws of thermodynamics and complements these initial explanations with practical examples. The second part is devoted to applications of thermodynamics to phase transitions in pure substances and mixtures. The third part covers thermodynamic systems in which chemical reactions take place. There are some sections on more advanced topics such as thermodynamic potentials, natural variables, non-ideal mixtures and electrochemical reactions, which make this book of suitable also to post-graduate students.

This book presents the state of the art on thermophysical and thermochemical properties, fabrication methodologies, irradiation behaviours, fuel reprocessing procedures, and aspects of waste management for oxide fuels in general and for thoria-based fuels in particular.The book covers all the essential features involved in the development of and working with nuclear technology. With the help of key databases, many of which were created by the authors, information is presented in the form of tables, figures, schematic diagrams and flow sheets, and photographs. This information will be useful for scientists and engineers working in the nuclear field, particularly for design and simulation, and for establishing the technology. One special feature is the inclusion of the latest information on thoria-based fuels, especially on the use of thorium in power generation, as it has less proliferation potential for nuclear weapons. Given its natural abundance, thorium offers a future alternative to uranium fuels in nuclear technology. In closing, the latest information on conventional uranium and plutonium fuels is also provided."

This book highlights the design of a new type of solar chimney that has lower height and bigger diameter, and discusses its applications. The bigger diameter chimneys are introduced showing cold inflow phenomena that significantly reduced the performance of solar chimney. The cold inflow-free operation of solar chimneys restores the draft losses and enhances the performance of the solar chimneys. Numerical and experimental investigation results will be presented to highlight the performance of cold inflow-free solar chimney performance. In addition, this book covers the important basic design parameters that affect the design of solar chimney for different applications, mainly, solar chimney-assisted ventilation for passive cooling and power generation system.

In the 1970s F. Calogero and D. Sutherland discovered that for certain potentials in one-dimensional systems, but for any number of particles, the Schrödinger eigenvalue problem is exactly solvable. Until then, there was only one known nontrivial example of an exactly solvable quantum multi-particle problem. J. Moser subsequently showed that the classical counterparts to these models is also amenable to an exact analytical approach. The last decade has witnessed a true explosion of activities involving Calogero-Moser-Sutherland models, and these now play a role in research areas ranging from theoretical physics (such as soliton theory, quantum field theory, string theory, solvable models of statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, and quantum chaos) to pure mathematics (such as representation theory, harmonic analysis, theory of special functions, combinatorics of symmetric functions, dynamical systems, random matrix theory, and complex geometry). The aim of this volume is to provide an overview of the many branches into which research on CMS systems has diversified in recent years. The contributions are by leading researchers from various disciplines in whose work CMS systems appear, either as the topic of investigation itself or as a tool for further applications.

Since 1950, the "Highway Capacity Manual" has been a standard used in the planning, design, analysis and operation of virtually any highway traffic facility in the United States. It has also been widely used abroad and has spurred the development of similar manuals in other countries.

The twin concepts of capacity and level of service have been developed in the manual and methodologies have been presented that allow highway traffic facilities to be designed on a common basis and allow for the analysis of operational quality under various traffic demand scenarios. The manual also addresses related pedestrian, bicycle and transit issues. There have been five full editions of the "Highway Capacity Manual" 1950, 1975, 1985, 2000 and 2010, with interim updates in 1994 and 1997.

The manual has a rich conceptual and research history that should be understood both by users of the manual and by those who contribute to it through basic research and development of methodologies.I has become increasingly complex, as our understanding of complex interactions among drivers, vehicles and roadways improves. Through it all, there are common threads of understanding that have not changed a great deal since 1950.

This book details the fundamental development of the concepts of capacity and level of service and of the specific methodologies developed to describe them over a wide range of facility types.The book is comprised of two volumes.Volume 1 (this book) focuses on the development of basic principles and their application to uninterrupted flow facilities: freeways, multilane highways and two-lane highways. Weaving, merging and diverging segments on freeways and multilane highways are also discussed in detail. Volume 2 (expected to be completed in late 2014) focuses on interrupted flow facilities: signalized and unsignalized intersections, urban streets and arterials. It is intended to help users of the manual understand how concepts, approaches and specific methodologies were developed and to understand the underlying principles that each embodies.It is also intended to act as a basic reference for current and future researchers who will continue to develop new and improved capacity analysis methodologies for many years to come."

The purpose of this book is to thoroughly prepare the reader for research in string theory at an intermediate level. As such it is not a compendium of results but intended as textbook in the sense that most of the material is organized in a pedagogical and self-contained fashion.
Beyond the basics, a number of more advanced topics are introduced, such as conformal field theory, superstrings and string dualities - the text does not cover applications to black hole physics and cosmology, nor strings theory at finite temperatures.
End-of-chapter references have been added to guide the reader wishing to pursue further studies or to start research in well-defined topics covered by this book."

In this book, the equilibrium and nonequilibrium properties of continuous phase transitions are studied in various systems, with a special emphasis on understanding how well-established universal traits at equilibrium may be extended into the dynamic realm, going beyond the paradigmatic Kibble-Zurek mechanism of defect formation. This book reports on the existence of a quantum phase transition in a system comprising just a single spin and a bosonic mode (the quantum Rabi model). Though critical phenomena are inherent to many-body physics, the author demonstrates that this small and ostensibly simple system allows us to explore the rich phenomenology of phase transitions, both in- and out-of-equilibrium. Moreover, the universal traits of this quantum phase transition may be realized in a single trapped-ion experiment, thus avoiding the need to scale up the number of constituents. In this system, the phase transition takes place in a suitable limit of system parameters rather than in the conventional thermodynamic limit - a novel notion that the author and his collaborators have dubbed the finite-component system phase transition. As such, the results gathered in this book will open promising new avenues in our understanding and exploration of quantum critical phenomena.

This book demonstrates how mathematical methods and techniques can be used in synergy and create a new way of looking at complex systems. It becomes clear nowadays that the standard (graph-based) network approach, in which observable events and transportation hubs are represented by nodes and relations between them are represented by edges, fails to describe the important properties of complex systems, capture the dependence between their scales, and anticipate their future developments. Therefore, authors in this book discuss the new generalized theories capable to describe a complex nexus of dependences in multi-level complex systems and to effectively engineer their important functions. The collection of works devoted to the memory of Professor Valentin Afraimovich introduces new concepts, methods, and applications in nonlinear dynamical systems covering physical problems and mathematical modelling relevant to molecular biology, genetics, neurosciences, artificial intelligence as well as classic problems in physics, machine learning, brain and urban dynamics. The book can be read by mathematicians, physicists, complex systems scientists, IT specialists, civil engineers, data scientists, urban planners, and even musicians (with some mathematical background).

This text provides a teachable and readable approach to transport phenomena (momentum, heat, and mass transport) by providing numerous examples and applications, which are particularly important to metallurgical, ceramic, and materials engineers. Because the authors feel that it is important for students and practicing engineers to visualize the physical situations, they have attempted to lead the reader through the development and solution of the relevant differential equations by applying the familiar principles of conservation to numerous situations and by including many worked examples in each chapter. The book is organized in a manner characteristic of other texts in transport phenomena. Section I deals with the properties and mechanics of fluid motion; Section II with thermal properties and heat transfer; and Section III with diffusion and mass transfer. The authors depart from tradition by building on a presumed understanding of the relationships between the structure and properties of matter, particularly in the chapters devoted to the transport properties (viscosity, thermal conductivity, and the diffusion coefficients). In addition, generous portions of the text, numerous examples, and many problems at the ends of the chapters apply transport phenomena to materials processing.

This book presents the proceedings of the "5th International Interdisciplinary Chaos Symposium on Chaos and Complex Systems (CCS)." All Symposia in the series bring together scientists, engineers, economists and social scientists, creating a vivid forum for discussions on the latest insights and findings obtained in the areas of complexity, nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory, as well as their interdisciplinary applications. The scope of the latest Symposium was enriched with a variety of contemporary, interdisciplinary topics, including but not limited to: fundamental theory of nonlinear dynamics, networks, circuits, systems, biology, evolution and ecology, fractals and pattern formation, nonlinear time series analysis, neural networks, sociophysics and econophysics, complexity management and global systems.

This book is useful to engineers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and students in different branches of production, engineering, and systems sciences. The polytopic roadmaps are the guidelines inspired by the development stages of cognitive-intelligent systems, and expected to become powerful instruments releasing an abundance of new capabilities and structures for complex engineering systems implementation. The 4D approach developed in previous monographs and correlated with industry 4.0and Fourth Industrial Revolution is continued here toward higher dimensions approaches correlated with polytopic operations, equipment, technologies, industries, and societies. Methodology emphasizes the role of doubling, iteration, dimensionality, and cyclicality around the center, of periodic tables and of conservative and exploratory strategies. Partitions, permutations, classifications, and complexification, as polytopic chemistry, are the elementary operations analyzed. Multi-scale transfer, cyclic operations, conveyors, and assembly lines are the practical examples of operations and equipment. Polytopic flow sheets, online analytical processing, polytopic engineering designs, and reality-inspired engineering are presented. Innovative concepts such as Industry 5.0, polytopic industry, Society 5.0, polytopic society, cyber physical social systems, industrial Internet, and digital twins have been discussed. The general polytopic roadmaps, (GPTR), are proposed as universal guidelines and as common methodologies to synthesize the systemic thinking and capabilities for growing complexity projects implementation.