Global ETD Search
Search theses and dissertations gathered from participating repositories worldwide. Every result links back to the library that holds it. No account is needed.
Results
Showing 1 to 20 of 29 for “"second law of thermodynamics"”.
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Primordial imperatives and the evolution of control of endolysosomal trafficking
… solve fundamental obstacles to the evolution of complex life forms. Lysosomes sense and maintain cellular metabolic stores and ensure their judicious use. More importantly, lysosomes respond to changes in osmotic conditions to maintain the membrane, which protects life from the harsh realities …
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The life of quanta : entanglement wormholes and the second law
… in physics. The first is related to the study of the ER = EPR conjecture that relates the entanglement entropy of a collection of black holes to the cross sectional area of Einstein-Rosen (ER) bridges (or wormholes) connecting them. We show that the geometrical entropy of classical ER bridges …
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Investigations Into the Physical Mechanisms That Facilitate Transformation Hysteresis in Shape Memory Alloys
Influences of energy dissipative mechanisms are rationalized using a theoretical approach which combines micro-mechanics and thermodynamics into a thermo-mechanical framework. Models are formulated for the thermal and stress hysteresis based on a thermo-mechanical framework so as to shed light into …
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Rheological properties, stochastic characteristics, and second law violations of atomic fluids in Couette flow
Fluids treated as a discrete collection of particles rather than as a continuum, exhibit exotic properties under shear at sub-continuum scales. For instance, at a critical strain-rate, the fluid becomes non-Newtonian owing to an ordering transition and the thermodynamic entropy production can be …
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Entropy in Two American Road Narratives
Tony Tanner's book City of Words analyzes American literature from 1950-1970; in the chapter entitled "Everything Running Down" the theme of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, is explored and revealed to be a common motif within many works of American literature. Tanner's analysis does not …
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Escape processes far from thermal equilibrium : path integrals and force spectroscopy
… and technical processes and its understanding of paramount importance. For example, single-molecule force spectroscopy experiments, and a number of other physical systems are governed by thermally activated transitions out of a metastable state under the action of a steadily increasing external …
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Constitutive Behavior of Bulk Metallic Glass Composites at Ambient and High Temperatures
… in an increase in ductility and reduction of catastrophic failure. BMG composites fall into two categories: intrinsic (in-situ) and extrinsic (ex-situ). This study develops a three-dimensional constitutive description of (in-situ) BMG composites at room and high temperatures, and different …
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Some theoretical aspects of fibre suspension flows
This thesis is concerned with properties of equations governing fibre suspensions. Of particular interest is the extent to which solutions, and their properties, depend on the type of closure used. For this purpose two closure rules are investigated: the linear and the quadratic closures. We show …
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Defects, thermal phenomena and design in photonic crystal systems
The physics of blackbodies has been an ongoing source of fascination and scientific research for over a hundred years. Kirchhoff's law states that emissivity and absorptivity are equal for an object in thermal equilibrium. Coupled with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, one can show that no object …
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Investigating Random Properties for Deterministic Constants
… pi, e and a comparable pseudo-random number, all of which are deterministic in the sense that they follow a recursive pattern. Despite their deterministic nature, whether these numbers are random or not is an important problem for both science and philosophy. While they are calculable, they remain …
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Development of a quasi-dimensional diesel engine simulation for energy and availability analysis
… heat transfer model are developed for the study of turbocharged diesel engine performance and energy and availability balance. The quasi-dimensional multi-zone combustion model is based on the air and fuel mixing process with a temperature and concentration dependent fuel burning rate. In order …
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Thermo-electrically pumped semiconductor light emitting diodes
… these devices to emit optical power in excess of the electrical power used to drive them, with the remaining power drawn from ambient heat. In the language of semiclassical electron transport, the electrons and holes within the device absorb lattice phonons as they diffuse from their respective …
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Novel Methods of Thermal Management in High‐Performance Induction Motors Using Direct Stator Winding Cooling
… the 10th largest contributor to the production of greenhouse gas emissions with 22% coming from the transportation sector. Consumers are encouraged to transition into electric vehicles as a clean alternative to fossil fuel consumption. However, the initial cost and reliability of current …
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Fluid dynamics in action
… an action principle for the classical equations of motion as well as a systematic approach to thermal and quantum fluctuations around the classical motion of fluids. The dynamical degrees of freedom are Stuckelberg-like fields associated with diffeomorphisms and gauge transformations, and are …
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An investigation of the electromagnetic coupling problem by means of a rational framework and selected experiments
… challenging task since there exists a multitude of different models in the literature and not all of these models are equivalent. This thesis proposes a theoretical framework for the evaluation and comparison of electromagnetic coupling models. This includes the investigation of the interaction …
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Rethinking rubbish
… and degenerative processes. The imposition of these forms in the landscape is exemplified by the industrial area adjacent to the harbour in Cape Town, which was located on the coastline prior to the reclamation of the coastline between 1941 and 1962. These linear and degenerative industrial …
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Existence and stability of solutions to the equations of fibre suspension flows
… in an averaged sense, through the introduction of a second-order orientation tensor A. This variable, together with the velocity and pressure, then constitutes the set of unknown variables for the problem. The governing equations are balance of linear momentum, the incompressibility condition, …
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Transient Electromagnetic Waves in Nonlinear Media
This thesis is concerned with the propagation of transient electromagnetic waves in nonlinear media. It consists of a General Introduction and five scientific papers. The General Introduction gives a broad overview of nonlinear electromagnetic phenomena. The emphasis is on the representation of the …
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Quantum Resource Theories for Thermodynamics, Reference Frames, and Uncertainty
Quantum information science is at the interface of physics and information theory, with applications including quantum computing and communication. Within this science, a resource theory is a detailed study of a particular class of physical processes, under which the possible state transitions are …
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A multiple objective approach to evaluate economic and environmental impacts of agricultural management systems from a sustainable development perspective
… develops a systems theory perspective of the concept of sustainable development, and explores a systematic approach to employ this concept to an economic analysis. An examination of interpretations, foundations and the framework of the concept of sustainable development is conducted; …
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