This book presents a new economic theory developed from physical and biological principles. It explains how technology, social systems and economic values are intimately related to resources. Many people have recognized that mainstream (neoclassical) economic theories are not consistent with physical laws and often not consistent with empirical patterns, but most feel that economic activities are too complex to be described by a simple and coherent mathematical theory. While social systems are indeed complex, all life systems, including social systems, satisfy two principles. First, all systems need to extract resources from the external environment to compensate for their consumption. Second, for a system to be viable, the amount of resource extraction has to be no less than the level of consumption. From these two principles, we derive a quantitative theory of major factors in economic activities, such as fixed cost, variable cost, discount rate, uncertainty and duration. The mathematical theory enables us to systematically measure the effectiveness of different policies and institutional structures at varying levels of resource abundance and cost.The theory presented in this book shows that there do not exist universally optimal policies or institutional structures. Instead, the impacts of different policies or social structures have to be measured within the context of existing levels of resource abundance. As the physical costs of extracting resources rise steadily, many policy assumptions adopted in mainstream economic theories, and workable in times of cheap and abundant energy supplies and other resources, need to be reconsidered. In this rapidly changing world, the theory presented here provides a solid foundation for examining the long-term impacts of today's policy decisions.

In this book the author presents a general formalism of nonequilibrium thermodynamics with complex information flows induced by interactions among multiple fluctuating systems. The author has generalized stochastic thermodynamics with information by using a graphical theory. Characterizing nonequilibrium dynamics by causal networks, he has obtained a novel generalization of the second law of thermodynamics with information that is applicable to quite a broad class of stochastic dynamics such as information transfer between multiple Brownian particles, an autonomous biochemical reaction, and complex dynamics with a time-delayed feedback control. This study can produce further progress in the study of Maxwell's demon for special cases. As an application to these results, information transmission and thermodynamic dissipation in biochemical signal transduction are discussed. The findings presented here can open up a novel biophysical approach to understanding information processing in living systems.

"Introductory Statistical Thermodynamics" is a text for an introductory one-semester course in statistical thermodynamics for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in physics and engineering. The book offers a high level of detail in derivations of all equations and results. This information is necessary for students to grasp difficult concepts in physics that are needed to move on to higher level courses. The text is elementary, self contained, and mathematically well-founded, containing a number of problems with detailed solutions to help students to grasp the more difficult theoretical concepts.

Beginning chapters place an emphasis on quantum mechanics
Includes problems with detailed solutions and a number of detailed theoretical derivations at the end of each chapter
Provides a high level of detail in derivations of all equations and results

This book mainly focuses on the theoretical and experimental study of non-Fourier heat conduction behavior. A novel thermomass theory is used as the theoretical basis, which provides a general heat conduction equation for the accurate prediction of non-Fourier heat conduction. In order to prove the validity of this thermomass theory, a large current was used to heat the metallic nanofilm at the minimum temperature of 3 K. The measured average temperature of the nanofilm was notably higher than the prediction of Fourier's heat diffusion equation, while matching well with the general heat conduction equation. This is the first time that steady non-Fourier heat conduction has been observed. Moreover, this book concerns the role of electron-phonon interaction in metallic nanofilms, which involves the breakdown of the Wiedemann-Franz law at low temperatures and interfacial thermal resistance at femtosecond timescales. Readers will find useful information on non-Fourier heat conduction and the latest advances in the study of charge and heat transport in metallic nanofilms.

The second edition of this book includes the most up-to-date details on the advantages of Nuclear Air-Brayton Power Plant Cycles for advanced reactors. It demonstrates significant advantages for typical sodium cooled reactors and describes how these advantages will grow as higher temperature systems (molten salts) are developed. It also describes how a Nuclear Air-Brayton system can be integrated with significant renewable (solar and wind) energy systems to build a low carbon grid. Starting with basic principles of thermodynamics as applied to power plant systems, it moves on to describe several types of Nuclear Air-Brayton systems that can be employed to meet different requirements. It provides estimates of component sizes and performance criteria for Small Modular Reactors (SMR). This book has been revised to include updated tables and significant new results that have become available for intercooled systems in the time since the previous edition published. In this edition also, the steam tables have been updated and Chapters 9 and 10 have been rewritten to keep up with the most up-to- date technology and current research.

The book describes in a simple and practical way what non-equilibrium thermodynamics is and how it can add to engineering fields. It explains how to describe proper equations of transport, more precise than used so far, and how to use them to understand the waste of energy resources in central unit processes in the industry. It introduces the entropy balance as an additional equation to use, to create consistent thermodynamic models, and a systematic method for minimizing energy losses that are connected with transport of heat, mass, charge, momentum and chemical reactions. Readership: Senior undergraduate and graduate students in physics, chemistry, chemical engineering and mechanical engineering.

This book covers the parameterization of entry capsules, including Apollo capsules and planetary probes, and winged entry vehicles such as the Space Shuttle and lifting bodies. The aerodynamic modelling is based on a variety of panel methods that take shadowing into account, and it has been validated with flight and wind tunnel data of Apollo and the Space Shuttle. The shape optimization is combined with constrained trajectory analysis, and the multi-objective approach provides the engineer with a Pareto front of optimal shapes. The method detailed in Conceptual Shape Optimization of Entry Vehicles is straightforward, and the output gives the engineer insight in the effect of shape variations on trajectory performance. All applied models and algorithms used are explained in detail, allowing for reconstructing the design tool to the researcher's requirements. Conceptual Shape Optimization of Entry Vehicles will be of interest to both researchers and graduate students in the field of aerospace engineering, and to practitioners within the aerospace industry.

The use of thermodynamics in biological research can be equated to an energy book-keeping system. While the structure and function of a molecule is important, it is equally important to know what drives the energy force. These methods look to answer: What are the sources of energy that drive the function? Which of the pathways are of biological significance? As the base of macromolecular structures continues to expand through powerful techniques of molecular biology, such as X-ray crystal data and spectroscopy methods, the importance of tested and reliable methods for answering these questions will continue to expand as well. This volume presents sophisticated methods for estimating the thermodynamic parameters of specific protein-protein, protein-DNA and small molecule interactions.

* Elucidates the relationships between structure and energetics and their applications to molecular design, aiding researchers in the design of medically important molecules * Provides a "must-have" methods volume that keeps MIE buyers and online subscribers up-to-date with the latest research * Offers step-by-step lab instructions, including necessary equipment, from a global research community

"Fundamental Aspects of Plasma Chemical Physics - Thermodynamics" develops basic and advanced concepts of plasma thermodynamics from both classical and statistical points of view.

After a refreshment of classical thermodynamics applied to the dissociation and ionization regimes, the book invites the reader to discover the role of electronic excitation in affecting the properties of plasmas, a topic often overlooked by the thermal plasma community.

Particular attention is devoted to the problem of the divergence of the partition function of atomic species and the state-to-state approach for calculating the partition function of diatomic and polyatomic molecules. The limit of ideal gas approximation is also discussed, by introducing Debye-Huckel and virial corrections.

Throughout the book, worked examples are given in order to clarify concepts and mathematical approaches.

This book is a first of a series of three books to be published by the authors on fundamental aspects of plasma chemical physics. The next books will discuss transport and kinetics.

"

The book provides a systematic view on flammability and a collection of solved engineering problems in the fields of dilution and purge, mine gas safety, clean burning safety and gas suppression modeling. For the first time, fundamental principles of energy conservation are used to develop theoretical flammability diagrams and are then explored to understand various safety-related mixing problems. This provides the basis for a fully-analytical solution to any flammability problem. Instead of the traditional view that flammability is a fundamental material property, here flammability is discovered to be a result of the explosibility of air and the ignitability of fuel, or a process property. By exploring the more fundamental concepts of explosibility and ignitability, the safety targets of dilution and purge can be better defined and utilized for guiding safe operations in process safety. This book provides various engineering approaches to mixture flammability, benefiting not only the safety students, but also field operators, as a useful resource for the safe handling of flammable gases and liquids. It will be useful to anyone who worries about the ignition potential of a flammable mixture.

This book describes the theory of radiation thermometry, both at a primary level and for a variety of applications, such as in the materials processing industries and remote sensing. This book is written for those who will apply radiation thermometry in industrial practice; use radiation thermometers for scientific research; the radiation thermometry specialist in a national measurement institute; developers of radiation thermometers who are working to innovate products for instrument manufacturers, and developers of non-contact thermometry methods to address challenging thermometry problems.

The authors of each chapter were chosen from a group of international scientists who are experts in the field and specialists on the subject matter covered in the chapter. A large number of references are included at the end of each chapter as a resource for those seeking a deeper or more detailed understanding.

This book is more than a practice guide, readers will gain in-depth knowledge in:

(1) the proper selection of the type of thermometer;

(2) the best practice in using the radiation thermometers;

(3) awareness of the error sources and subsequent appropriate procedure to reduce the overall uncertainty; and

(4) understanding of the calibration chain and its current limitations.
Covers allfundamental aspects of the radiometric measurementsDiscusses practical applications with details on the instrumentation, calibration, and error sourcesAuthorsare from leading national labsworking in R&Dof temperature measurements"

This book presents the theory of gas discharge plasmas in a didactical way. It explains the processes in gas discharge plasmas. A gas discharge plasma is an ionized gas which is supported by an external electric field. Therefore its parameters are determined by processes in it. The properties of a gas discharge plasma depend on its gas component, types of external fields, their geometry and regimes of gas discharge. Fundamentals of a gas discharge plasma include elementary, radiative and transport processes which are included in its kinetics influence. They are represented in this book together with the analysis of simple gas discharges. These general principles are applied to stationary gas discharge plasmas of helium and argon. The analysis of such plasmas under certain conditions is theoretically determined by numerical plasma parameters for given regimes and conditions.

This work presents a series of experiments with ultracold one-dimensional Bose gases, which establish said gases as an ideal model system for exploring a wide range of non-equilibrium phenomena. With the help of newly developed tools, like full distributions functions and phase correlation functions, the book reveals the emergence of thermal-like transient states, the light-cone-like emergence of thermal correlations and the observation of generalized thermodynamic ensembles. This points to a natural emergence of classical statistical properties from the microscopic unitary quantum evolution, and lays the groundwork for a universal framework of non-equilibrium physics. The thesis investigates a central question that is highly contested in quantum physics: how and to which extent does an isolated quantum many-body system relax? This question arises in many diverse areas of physics, and many of the open problems appear at vastly different energy, time and length scales, ranging from high-energy physics and cosmology to condensed matter and quantum information. A key challenge in attempting to answer this question is the scarcity of quantum many-body systems that are both well isolated from the environment and accessible for experimental study.

This text outlines the fundamentals required to understand the science of thermodynamics and provides a comprehensive and balanced coverage of the application of thermodynamics in geochemistry.

In the past several years, there has been an explosion in the ability of biologists, molecular biologists and biochemists to collect vast amounts of data on their systems. This volume presents sophisticated methods for estimating the thermodynamic parameters of specific protein-protein, protein-DNA and small molecule interactions.
The use of thermodynamics in biological research is used as an energy book-keeping system. While the structure and function of a molecule is important, it is equally important to know what drives the energy force. These methods look to answer: What are the sources of energy that drive the function? Which of the
pathways are of biological significance? As the base of macromolecular structures continues to expand through powerful techniques of molecular biology, such as X-ray crystal data and spectroscopy methods, the importance of tested and reliable methods for answering these questions will continue to expand as well."

The first part of this textbook presents the mathematical background needed to precisely describe the basic problem of continuum thermomechanics. The book then concentrates on developing governing equations for the problem dealing in turn with the kinematics of material continuum, description of the state of stress, discussion of the fundamental conservation laws of underlying physics, formulation of initial-boundary value problems and presenting weak (variational) formulations. In the final part the crucial issue of developing techniques for solving specific problems of thermomechanics is addressed. To this aim the authors present a discretized formulation of the governing equations, discuss the fundamentals of the finite element method and develop some basic algorithms for solving algebraic and ordinary differential equations typical of problems on hand. Theoretical derivations are followed by carefully prepared computational exercises and solutions.

This book presents a new algorithm to calculate fluid flow and heat transfer of laminar mixed convection. It provides step-by-step tutorial help to learn quickly how to set up the theoretical and numerical models of laminar mixed convection, to consider the variable physical properties of fluids, to obtain the system of numerical solutions, to create a series of formalization equations for the convection heat transfer by using a curve-fitting approach combined with theoretical analysis and derivation. It presents the governing ordinary differential equations of laminar mixed convection, equivalently transformed by an innovative similarity transformation with the description of the related transformation process. A system of numerical calculations of the governing ordinary differential equations is presented for the water laminar mixed convection. A polynomial model is induced for convenient and reliable treatment of variable physical properties of liquids. The developed formalization equations of mixed convection heat transfer coefficient have strong theoretical and practical value for heat transfer applications because they are created based on a better consideration of variable physical properties of fluids, accurate numerical solutions and rigorous formalization equations combined with rigorous theoretical derivation. This book is suitable for scientific researchers, engineers, professors, master and PhD students of fluid mechanics and convection heat and mass transfer.

Introduces the concept of combined cycles for next generation nuclear power plants, explaining how recent advances in gas turbines have made these systems increasingly desirable for efficiency gains and cost-of-ownership reduction. Promulgates modelling and analysis techniques to identify opportunities for increased thermodynamic efficiency and decreased water usage over current Light Water Reactor (LWR) systems. Examines all power conversion aspects, from the fluid exiting the reactor to energy releases into the environment, with special focus on heat exchangers and turbo-machinery. Provides examples of small projects to facilitate nuanced understanding of the theories and implementation of combined-cycle nuclear plants. This book explores combined cycle driven efficiency of new nuclear power plants and describes how to model and analyze a nuclear heated multi-turbine power conversion system operating with atmospheric air as the working fluid. The included studies are intended to identify paths for future work on next generation nuclear power plants (GEN-IV), leveraging advances in natural-gas-fired turbines that enable coupling salt-cooled, helium-cooled, and sodium-cooled reactors to a Nuclear Air-Brayton Combined Cycle (NACC). These reactors provide the option of operating base-load nuclear plants with variable electricity output to the grid using natural gas or stored heat to produce peak power. The author describes overall system architecture, components and detailed modelling results of Brayton-Rankine Combined Cycle power conversion systems and Recuperated Brayton Cycle systems, since they offer the highest overall energy conversion efficiencies. With ever-higher temperatures predicted in GEN-IV plants, this book's investigation of potential avenues for thermodynamic efficiency gains will be of great interest to nuclear engineers and researchers, as well as power plant operators and students.

Developing a new treatment of 'Free Convection Film Flows and Heat Transfer' began in Shang's first monograph and is continued in this monograph. The current book displays the recent developments of laminar forced convection and forced film condensation. It is aimed at revealing the true features of heat and mass transfer with forced convection film flows to model the deposition of thin layers. The novel mathematical similarity theory model is developed to simulate temperature- and concentration- dependent physical processes. The following topics are covered in this book: 1. Mathematical methods - advanced similarity analysis method to replace the traditional Falkner-Skan type transformation - a novel system of similarity analysis and transformation models to overcome the difficult issues of forced convection and forced film flows - heat and mass transfer equations based on the advanced similarity analysis models and equations formulated with rigorous key numerical solutions 2. Modeling the influence of physical factors - effect of thermal dissipation on forced convection heat transfer - a system of models of temperature and concentration-dependent variable physical properties based on the advanced temperature-parameter model and rigorous analysis model on vapor-gas mixture physical properties for the rigorous and convenient description of the governing differential equations - an available approach to satisfy interfacial matching conditions for rigorous and reliable solutions - a system of numerical results on velocity, temperature and concentration fields, as well as, key solutions on heat and mass transfer - the effect of non-condensable gas on heat and mass transfer for forced film condensation. This way it is realized to conveniently and reliably predict heat and mass transfer for convection and film flows and to resolve a series of current difficult issues of heat and mass transfer with forced convection film flows. Professionals in this fields as well as graduate students will find this a valuable book for their work.

This book extends the development of the thermodynamic theory of specific intermolecular interactions to element-organic and specific organometallic compounds. The fundamentals of an unconventional approach to the theory of H-bonding and specific interactions are formulated, based on a concept of pentacoordinate carbon atoms. Prof. Baev has introduced the theory already in his successful books "Specific Intermolecular Interactions of Organic Compounds" and "Specific Intermolecular Interactions of Nitrogenated and Bioorganic Compounds". In this book he also demonstrates it for element organic and specific organometallic compounds, a class of substances which is of great importance in synthetic chemistry and catalysis. Furthermore, organic compound classes, that have not been treated in the previous books, are included. New types of hydrogen bonds and specific interactions are substantiated and their energies are determined on the basis of the developed methodology. In this way, the influence of the molecular structure on the energy and on intermolecular interactions can be discussed for these particular compound classes.

These proceedings from the 37th International Workshop on Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering (MaxEnt 2017), held in Sao Carlos, Brazil, aim to expand the available research on Bayesian methods and promote their application in the scientific community. They gather research from scholars in many different fields who use inductive statistics methods and focus on the foundations of the Bayesian paradigm, their comparison to objectivistic or frequentist statistics counterparts, and their appropriate applications. Interest in the foundations of inductive statistics has been growing with the increasing availability of Bayesian methodological alternatives, and scientists now face much more difficult choices in finding the optimal methods to apply to their problems. By carefully examining and discussing the relevant foundations, the scientific community can avoid applying Bayesian methods on a merely ad hoc basis. For over 35 years, the MaxEnt workshops have explored the use of Bayesian and Maximum Entropy methods in scientific and engineering application contexts. The workshops welcome contributions on all aspects of probabilistic inference, including novel techniques and applications, and work that sheds new light on the foundations of inference. Areas of application in these workshops include astronomy and astrophysics, chemistry, communications theory, cosmology, climate studies, earth science, fluid mechanics, genetics, geophysics, machine learning, materials science, medical imaging, nanoscience, source separation, thermodynamics (equilibrium and non-equilibrium), particle physics, plasma physics, quantum mechanics, robotics, and the social sciences. Bayesian computational techniques such as Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling are also regular topics, as are approximate inferential methods. Foundational issues involving probability theory and information theory, as well as novel applications of inference to illuminate the foundations of physical theories, are also of keen interest.

This book tells the story of the power generation gas turbine from the perspective of one of the leading companies in the field over a period of nearly 100 years, written by an engineer. Especially in times of imminent global economic crises it appears to be worthwhile to reflect on real economic values based on engineering ingenuity and enduring management of technological leadership. Though the book is primarily designed as a technical history of the BBC/ABB/Alstom power generation gas turbines, its scope is sufficiently broad to cover general development trends, including parallel competitor activities. A special benefit is the historical breakdown to the gas turbine component level, so that the book actually outlines the development of axial compressors from early beginnings, the progress in combustion technology towards extraordinary low emission values and that of axial turbines with special emphasis on early turbine cooling innovations. The sheer length of certain engineering developments over several decades allows interesting historic observations and deductions on inherent business mechanisms, the effects of technology preparations and organisational consequences. A look into the mirror of the past provides revelations on the impact of far-reaching business decisions. 2017 Winner of the Historian Engineer Award of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers

The present volume studies the application of concepts from non-equilibrium thermodynamics to a variety of research topics. Emphasis is on the Maximum Entropy Production (MEP) principle and applications to Geosphere-Biosphere couplings. Written by leading researchers from a wide range of backgrounds, the book presents a first coherent account of an emerging field at the interface of thermodynamics, geophysics and life sciences.