Phase transitions are involved in phenomena ranging from the initial stages of the creation of the Universe to the existence of biological objects. It is natural to as whether any phenomena analogous to phase transitions are possible in disordered substances like liquids and glasses. The possibility of such transitions is still very much a matter of debate. Neither the nature nor the features of transformations in liquids and glasses are yet clear, nor is the nature of the order parameters. Investigations in recent years have shown that transformations in liquids and glasses lead to a drastic change of their physical properties and short-range order structure.
The papers collected here contribute to a better understanding of the physics of disordered systems and phase transformations in them. An unambiguous identification of transitions in liquids and glasses requires further high-precision experimental study of the thermodynamic and structural properties in the vicinity of transitions in order to test existing theoretical models and develop new, more accurate ones.

Phase transitions are involved in phenomena ranging from the initial stages of the creation of the Universe to the existence of biological objects. It is natural to as whether any phenomena analogous to phase transitions are possible in disordered substances like liquids and glasses. The possibility of such transitions is still very much a matter of debate. Neither the nature nor the features of transformations in liquids and glasses are yet clear, nor is the nature of the order parameters. Investigations in recent years have shown that transformations in liquids and glasses lead to a drastic change of their physical properties and short-range order structure.
The papers collected here contribute to a better understanding of the physics of disordered systems and phase transformations in them. An unambiguous identification of transitions in liquids and glasses requires further high-precision experimental study of the thermodynamic and structural properties in the vicinity of transitions in order to test existing theoretical models and develop new, more accurate ones.

At the intersection between statistical physics and rigorous econometric analysis, this powerful new framework sheds light on how innovation and competition shape the growth and decline of companies and industries. Analyzing various sources of data including a unique micro level database which collects historic data on the sales of more than 3,000 firms and 50,000 products in 20 countries, the authors introduce and test a model of innovation and proportional growth, which relies on minimal assumptions and accounts for the empirically observed regularities. Through a combination of extensive stochastic simulations and statistical tests, the authors investigate to what extent their simple assumptions are falsified by empirically observable facts. Physicists looking for application of their mathematical and modelling skills to relevant economic problems as well as economists interested in the explorative analysis of extensive data sets and in a physics-orientated way of thinking will find this book a key reference.