Conversion of Coal-Fired Power Plant to Cogeneration and Combined-Cycle presents the methodology, calculation procedures and tools used to support enterprise planning for adapting power stations to cogeneration and combined-cycle forms. The authors analyze the optimum selection of the structure of heat exchangers in a 370 MW power block, the structure of heat recovery steam generators and gas turbines. Conversion of Coal-Fired Power Plant to Cogeneration and Combined-Cycle also addresses the problems of converting existing power plants to dual-fuel gas-steam combined-cycle technologies coupled with parallel systems. Conversion of Coal-Fired Power Plant to Cogeneration and Combined-Cycle is an informative monograph written for researchers, postgraduate students and policy makers in power engineering.

Atmospheric and climatological studies are becoming more and more important in day-to-day living. Winds and ocean current owe their existence to the thermodynamic imbalances that arise from the differential heating of the Earth and air by the sun. Accounting for heat exchanges with the atmosphere and ocean is essential in any predictive model of the ocean and/or atmosphere. Thermodynamic feedback processes in the atmosphere and ocean are critical to understanding the overall stability of the Earth's climate and climate change. Water and its phase changes make the thermodynamics of the atmosphere and ocean uniquely interesting and challenging.
Written by leading scientists in the field, Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans incorporates all the relevant information from the varying fields of dynamics meteorology, atmospheric physics and cloud physics, into a comprehensive, self-contained guide ideal for students and researchers of atmospheric thermodynamics. At the moment, courses in atmospheric thermdynamics typically have to use one or two chapters in textbooks on dynamic meteorology, atmospheric physics or cloud physics. This book combines these topics in one text.

This textbook covers a broad spectrum of developments in QFT, emphasizing those aspects that are now well consolidated and for which satisfactory theoretical descriptions have been provided. The book is unique in that it offers a new approach to the subject and explores many topics merely touched upon, if covered at all, in standard reference works. A detailed and largely non-technical introductory chapter traces the development of QFT from its inception in 1926. The elegant functional differential approach put forward by Schwinger, referred to as the quantum dynamical (action) principle, and its underlying theory are used systematically in order to generate the so-called vacuum-to-vacuum transition amplitude of both abelian and non-abelian gauge theories, in addition to Feynman's well-known functional integral approach, referred to as the path-integral approach. Given the wealth of information also to be found in the abelian case, equal importance is put on both abelian and non-abelian gauge theories. Particular emphasis is placed on the concept of a quantum field and its particle content to provide an appropriate description of physical processes at high energies, where relativity becomes indispensable. Moreover, quantum mechanics implies that a wave function renormalization arises in the QFT field independent of any perturbation theory - a point not sufficiently emphasized in the literature. The book provides an overview of all the fields encountered in present high-energy physics, together with the details of the underlying derivations. Further, it presents "deep inelastic" experiments as a fundamental application of quantum chromodynamics. Though the author makes a point of deriving points in detail, the book still requires good background knowledge of quantum mechanics, including the Dirac Theory, as well as elements of the Klein-Gordon equation. The present volume sets the language, the notation and provides additional background for reading Quantum Field Theory II - Introduction to Quantum Gravity, Supersymmetry and String Theory, by the same author. Students in this field might benefit from first reading the book Quantum Theory: A Wide Spectrum (Springer, 2006), by the same author.

The book provides an introduction to the methods of quantum statistical mechanics used in quantum optics and their application to the quantum theories of the single-mode laser and optical bistability. The generalized representations of Drummond and Gardiner are discussed together with the more standard methods for deriving Fokker--Planck equations. Particular attention is given to the theory of optical bistability formulated in terms of the positive P-representation, and the theory of small bistable systems. This is a textbook at an advanced graduate level. It is intended as a bridge between an introductory discussion of the master equation method and problems of current research.

Within the framework of Jaynes' "Predictive Statistical Mechanics," this book presents a detailed derivation of an ensemble formalism for open systems arbitrarily away from equilibrium. This involves a large systematization and extension of the fundamental works and ideas of the outstanding pioneers Gibbs and Boltzmann, and of Bogoliubov, Kirkwood, Green, Mori, Zwanzig, Prigogine and Zubarev, among others.
Chapters 1 to 5 include a description of the philosophy, foundations, and construction (methodology) of the formalism, including the derivation of a nonequilibrium grand-canonical ensemble for far-from-equilibrium systems as well as the derivation of a quantum nonlinear kinetic theory and a response function theory together with a theory of scattering. In chapter 6 applications of the theory are cataloged, making comparisons with experimental data (a basic step for the validation of any theory). Chapter 7 is devoted to the description of irreversible thermodynamics, providing a far-reaching generalization of Informational-Statistical Thermodynamics. The last chapter gives an overall picture of the formalism, and questions and criticisms related to it are discussed.
Audience: This book is directed at an audience of researchers in the field of Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics of open nonequilibrium systems. In addition, it is relevant for the study of far-from-equilibrium processes in condensed matter, particularly semiconductor physics, as well as molecular Hydrodynamics, Rheology, many-body systems with complex behavior and areas of engineering, etc. The book can also be used as a complement to advanced graduate courses in Statistical Mechanics.

This book presents a solution for direct and inverse heat conduction problems, discussing the theoretical basis for the heat transfer process and presenting selected theoretical and numerical problems in the form of exercises with solutions. The book covers one-, two- and three dimensional problems which are solved by using exact and approximate analytical methods and numerical methods. An accompanying CD-Rom includes computational solutions of the examples and extensive FORTRAN code.

Computer science and physics have been closely linked since the birth of modern computing. In recent years, an interdisciplinary area has blossomed at the junction of these fields, connecting insights from statistical physics with basic computational challenges. Researchers have successfully applied techniques from the study of phase transitions to analyze NP-complete problems such as satisfiability and graph coloring. This is leading to a new understanding of the structure of these problems, and of how algorithms perform on them.
Computational Complexity and Statistical Physics will serve as a standard reference and pedagogical aid to statistical physics methods in computer science, with a particular focus on phase transitions in combinatorial problems. Addressed to a broad range of readers, the book includes substantial background material along with current research by leading computer scientists, mathematicians, and physicists. It will prepare students and researchers from all of these fields to contribute to this exciting area.

This book is dedicated to the recent developments in RET with the aim to explore polyatomic gas, dense gas and mixture of gases in non-equilibrium. In particular we present the theory of dense gases with 14 fields, which reduces to the Navier-Stokes Fourier classical theory in the parabolic limit. Molecular RET with an arbitrary number of field-variables for polyatomic gases is also discussed and the theory is proved to be perfectly compatible with the kinetic theory in which the distribution function depends on an extra variable that takes into account a molecule's internal degrees of freedom. Recent results on mixtures of gases with multi-temperature are presented together with a natural definition of the average temperature. The qualitative analysis and in particular, the existence of the global smooth solution and the convergence to equilibrium are also studied by taking into account the fact that the differential systems are symmetric hyperbolic. Applications to shock and sound waves are analyzed together with light scattering and heat conduction and the results are compared with experimental data. Rational extended thermodynamics (RET) is a thermodynamic theory that is applicable to non-equilibrium phenomena. It is described by differential hyperbolic systems of balance laws with local constitutive equations. As RET has been strictly related to the kinetic theory through the closure method of moment hierarchy associated to the Boltzmann equation, the applicability range of the theory has been restricted within rarefied monatomic gases. The book represents a valuable resource for applied mathematicians, physicists and engineers, offering powerful models for potential applications like satellites reentering the atmosphere, semiconductors and nano-scale phenomena.

The primary goal of the book is to present the ideas and research findings of active researchers such as physicists, economists, mathematicians and financial engineers working in the field of "Econophysics," who have undertaken the task of modeling and analyzing systemic risk, network dynamics and other topics.

Of primary interest in these studies is the aspect of systemic risk, which has long been identified as a potential scenario in which financial institutions trigger a dangerous contagion mechanism, spreading from the financial economy to the real economy.

This type of risk, long confined to the monetary market, has spread considerably in the recent past, culminating in the subprime crisis of 2008. As such, understanding and controlling systemic risk has become an extremely important societal and economic challenge. The Econophys-Kolkata VI conference proceedings are dedicated to addressing a number of key issues involved. Several leading researchers in these fields report on their recent work and also review contemporary literature on the subject.

Complexity science has been a source of new insight in physical and social systems and has demonstrated that unpredictability and surprise are fundamental aspects of the world around us. This book is the outcome of a discussion meeting of leading scholars and critical thinkers with expertise in complex systems sciences and leaders from a variety of organizations, sponsored by the Prigogine Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the Plexus Institute, to explore strategies for understanding uncertainty and surprise. Besides contributions to the conference, it includes a key digest by the editors as well as a commentary by the late nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine, "Surprises in half of a century." The book is intended for researchers and scientists in complexity science, as well as for a broad interdisciplinary audience of both practitioners and scholars. It will well serve those interested in the research issues and in the application of complexity science to physical and social systems.

Heat pipes today find many applications, in areas such as electronics cooling, diecasting and injection moulding, heat recovery and energy conservation, de-icing, and manufacturing process temperature control.

"Heat Pipe Technology: Theory, Applications and Prospects" contains the proceedings of an important international gathering of those at the cutting edge of research in the field, with representatives of more than 20 countries. In addition to the finest technical papers, a particularly valuable feature is the inclusion of a series of regional surveys portraying the latest developments worldwide.

The inherent characteristics of heat pipes (passiveness, absence of moving parts, high thermal efficiency) suggest for them an increasingly major role in the evolution of new thermal engineering systems in the years ahead. This volume will undoubtedly be an important resource for researchers worldwide in heat pipe technology.

In this book, the authors give an up-to-date account of thermoluminescence (TL) and other thermally stimulated phenomena. Although most recent experimental results of TL in different materials are described in some detail, the main emphasis in the present book is on general processes, and the approach is more theoretical. Thus the details of the possible processes which can take place during the excitation of the sample, and during its heating, are carefully analysed. The methods for analysing TL glow curves are critically discussed, and recommendations as to their application are made. Also discussed is the expected behavior of these phenomena as functions of the experimental parameters, for example, dose of excitation. The consequences of the main applications of TL (for example, radiation dosimetry) are also discussed in detail as are the similarities and dissimilarities of other thermally stimulated phenomena, and the simultaneous measurements of the latter and TL.

Industrial and Process Furnaces: Principles, Design and Operation, Third Editioncontinues to provide comprehensive coverage on all aspects of furnace operation and design, including topics essential for process engineers and operators to better understand furnaces. New to this edition are sections on production, handling and utilization of alternative fuels such as biomass, hydrogen and various wastes, modeling of the process, combustion and heat transfer, their benefits, advantages and limitations, mitigation and removal of CO2 , the role of solar and other renewable energy, recent research, and the practical approach of the Whyalla steelworks for harnessing solar energy for sustainable steelmaking, hydrogen and as a "clean fuel". The book also includes a discussion on the limitations of hydrogen supply owing to fresh water supply constraints, the difficulty of storing and transporting hydrogen, and the current sociopolitical impetus of CO2.

Kinetic Theory of granular Gases provides an introduction to the rapidly developing theory of dissipative gas dynamics as it has been developed mainly during the past decade. The book is aimed at readers from the advanced undergraduate level onwards and leads up to the present state of research. The text is self-contained, in the sense that no mathematical or physical knowledge is required that goes beyond standard undergraduate physics courses. The material is adequate for a one-semester course and contains chapter summaries as well as exercises with detailed solutions. Special emphasis is put on a microscopically consistent description of pairwise particle collisions which leads to an impact-velocity dependent coefficient of restitution. The description of the many-particle system, based on the Boltzmann equation, starts with the derivation of the velocity distribution function, followed by the investigation of self-diffusion and Brownian motion. Using hydrodynamical methods, transport processes and self-organized structure formulation are studies. An appendix gives a brief introduction to event-driven molecular dynamics. A second appendix describes a novel mathematical technique for the derivation of the kinetic properties which allows for the application of computer algebra. The book is accompanied by a web page where the molecular dynamics program as well as the computer-algebra programs are provided.

This book draws on the latest research to discuss the history and development of high-entropy alloys and ceramics in bulk, film, and fiber form. High-entropy materials have recently been developed using the entropy of mixing and entropy of configuration of materials, and have proven to exhibit unique properties superior to those of conventional materials. The field of high-entropy alloys was born in 2004, and has since been developed for both scientific and engineering applications. Although there is extensive literature, this field is rapidly transforming. This book highlights the cutting edge of high-entropy materials, including their fundamentals and applications. Above all, it reflects two major milestones in their development: the equi-atomic ratio single-phase high-entropy alloys; and the non-equi-atomic ratio dual-phase high-entropy alloys.

This text provides a uniform and consistent approach to diversified problems encountered in the study of dynamical processes in condensed phase molecular systems. Given the broad interdisciplinary aspect of this subject, the book focuses on three themes: coverage of needed background material, in-depth introduction of methodologies, and analysis of several key applications. The uniform approach and common language used in all discussions help to develop general understanding and insight on condensed phases chemical dynamics. The applications discussed are among the most fundamental processes that underlie physical, chemical and biological phenomena in complex systems.
The first part of the book starts with a general review of basic mathematical and physical methods (Chapter 1) and a few introductory chapters on quantum dynamics (Chapter 2), interaction of radiation and matter (Chapter 3) and basic properties of solids (chapter 4) and liquids (Chapter 5). In the second part the text embarks on a broad coverage of the main methodological approaches. The central role of classical and quantum time correlation functions is emphasized in Chapter 6. The presentation of dynamical phenomena in complex systems as stochastic processes is discussed in Chapters 7 and 8. The basic theory of quantum relaxation phenomena is developed in Chapter 9, and carried on in Chapter 10 which introduces the density operator, its quantum evolution in Liouville space, and the concept of reduced equation of motions. The methodological part concludes with a discussion of linear response theory in Chapter 11, and of the spin-boson model in chapter 12. The third part of the book applies the methodologies introducedearlier to several fundamental processes that underlie much of the dynamical behaviour of condensed phase molecular systems. Vibrational relaxation and vibrational energy transfer (Chapter 13), Barrier crossing and diffusion controlled reactions (Chapter 14), solvation dynamics (Chapter 15), electron transfer in bulk solvents (Chapter 16) and at electrodes/electrolyte and metal/molecule/metal junctions (Chapter 17), and several processes pertaining to molecular spectroscopy in condensed phases (Chapter 18) are the main subjects discussed in this part.

This book presents the latest advances in ultrafast science, including both ultrafast optical technology and the study of ultrafast phenomena. It covers picosecond, femtosecond, and attosecond processes relevant to applications in physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. Ultrafast technology has a profound impact in a wide range of applications, amongst them biomedical imaging, chemical dynamics, frequency standards, material processing, and ultrahigh-speed communications. This book summarizes the results presented at the 19th International Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena and provides an up-to-date view of this important and rapidly advancing field.

This book is concerned with the prediction of thermodynamic and transport properties of gases and liquids. The prediction of such properties is essential for the solution of many problems encountered in chemical and process engineering as well as in other areas of science and technology. The book aims to present the best of those modern methods which are capable of practical application. It begins with basic scientific principles and formal results which are subsequently developed into practical methods of prediction. Numerous examples, supported by a suite of computer programmes, illustrate applications of the methods. The book is aimed primarily at the student market (for both undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses) but it will also be useful for those engaged in research and for chemical and process engineering professionals.

This book is concerned with the prediction of thermodynamic and transport properties of gases and liquids. The prediction of such properties is essential for the solution of many problems encountered in chemical and process engineering as well as in other areas of science and technology. The book aims to present the best of those modern methods which are capable of practical application. It begins with basic scientific principles and formal results which are subsequently developed into practical methods of prediction. Numerous examples, supported by a suite of computer programmes, illustrate applications of the methods. The book is aimed primarily at the student market (for both undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses) but it will also be useful for those engaged in research and for chemical and process engineering professionals.

This book deals with models and model-building in classical and quantum physics; it relies on logic and the philosophy of science as well as on modern mathematics. The reader will also find vistas into the history of ideas. The philosophical analysis is based on the separation of syntax and semantics, which is at the root of Kolmogorov's theory of probability; recursive functions and algorithmic complexity are used to discuss entropy and randomness. Basic concepts are discussed, together with concrete physical models for phase transitions, scaling, renormalization semigroups, and the irreversible approach to equilibrium. The book is intended for mathematicians, physicists and philosophers of science, both researchers and graduate students.

This is a graduate level monographic textbook in the field of Computational Intelligence. It presents a modern dynamical theory of the computational mind, combining cognitive psychology, artificial and computational intelligence, and chaos theory with quantum consciousness and computation. The book introduces to human and computational mind, comparing and contrasting main themes of cognitive psychology, artificial and computational intelligence.

The author investigates athermal fluctuation from the viewpoints of statistical mechanics in this thesis. Stochastic methods are theoretically very powerful in describing fluctuation of thermodynamic quantities in small systems on the level of a single trajectory and have been recently developed on the basis of stochastic thermodynamics. This thesis proposes, for the first time, a systematic framework to describe athermal fluctuation, developing stochastic thermodynamics for non-Gaussian processes, while thermal fluctuations are mainly addressed from the viewpoint of Gaussian stochastic processes in most of the conventional studies. First, the book provides an elementary introduction to the stochastic processes and stochastic thermodynamics. The author derives a Langevin-like equation with non-Gaussian noise as a minimal stochastic model for athermal systems, and its analytical solution by developing systematic expansions is shown as the main result. Furthermore, the a uthor shows a thermodynamic framework for such non-Gaussian fluctuations, and studies some thermodynamics phenomena, i.e. heat conduction and energy pumping, which shows distinct characteristics from conventional thermodynamics. The theory introduced in the book would be a systematic foundation to describe dynamics of athermal fluctuation quantitatively and to analyze their thermodynamic properties on the basis of stochastic methods.

Evolution is a critical challenge for many areas of science, technology and development of society. The book reviews general evolutionary facts such as origin of life and evolution of the genome and clues to evolution through simple systems. Emerging areas of science such as "systems biology" and "bio-complexity" are founded on the idea that phenomena need to be understood in the context of highly interactive processes operating at different levels and on different scales. This is where physics meets complexity in nature, and where we must begin to learn about complexity if we are to understand it. Similarly, there is an increasingly urgent need to understand and predict the evolutionary behavior of highly interacting man-made systems, in areas such as communications and transport, which permeate the modern world. The same applies to the evolution of human networks such as social, political and financial systems, where technology has tended to vastly increase both the complexity and speed of interaction, which is sometimes effectively instantaneous. The book contains reviews on such diverse areas as evolution experiments with microorganisms, the origin and evolution of viruses, evolutionary dynamics of genes and environment in cancer development, aging as an evolution-facilitating program, evolution of vision and evolution of financial markets.

Metaphors, generalizations and unifications are natural and desirable ingredients of the evolution of scientific theories and concepts. Physics, in particular, obviously walks along these paths since its very beginning. This book focuses on nonextensive statistical mechanics, a current generalization of Boltzmann-Gibbs (BG) statistical mechanics, one of the greatest monuments of contemporary physics. Conceived more than 130 years ago by Maxwell, Boltzmann and Gibbs, the BG theory exhibits uncountable - some of them impressive - successes in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and computational sciences, to name a few. Presently, more than two thousand publications, by over 1800 scientists around the world, have been dedicated to the nonextensive generalization. Remarkable applications have emerged, and its mathematical grounding is by now relatively well established. A pedagogical introduction to its concepts - nonlinear dynamics, extensivity of the nonadditive entropy, global correlations, generalization of the standard CLT's, among others - is presented in this book as well as a selection of paradigmatic applications in various sciences together with diversified experimental verifications of some of its predictions.

• This is the first pedagogical book on the subject, written by the proponent of the theory
• Presents many applications to interdisciplinary complex phenomena in virtually all sciences, ranging from physics to medicine, from economics to biology, through signal and image processing and others
• Offers a detailed derivation of results, illustrations and for the first time detailed presentation of Nonextensive Statistical Mechanics

This book presents a critical and modern analysis of the conceptual foundations of statistical mechanics as laid down in Boltzmann's works. The author emphasises the relation between microscopic reversibility and macroscopic irreversibility. Students will find a clear and detailed explanation of fundamental concepts such as equipartition, entropy and ergodicity. They will learn about Brownian motion, the modern treatment of the thermodynamic limit phase transitions, the microscopic and macroscopic theory of the coexistence of phases, statistical mechanics of stationary states, and fluctuations and dissipation in chaotic motions.