Entropy is the most used and often abused concept in science, but also in philosophy and society. Further confusions are produced by some attempts to generalize entropy with similar but not the same concepts in other disciplines. The physical meaning of phenomenological, thermodynamic entropy is reasoned and elaborated by generalizing Clausius definition with inclusion of generated heat, since ...

This paper presents a study of the reaction of thin film niobium/selenium multilayers as a function of layer thickness. Diffraction and calorimetry data show a distinct difference in reactions between films with layer thicknesses above and below 60 A. The thicker films are shown to nucleate NbsSe4 heterogeneously at the niobium-selenium interfaces. Thinner films form kinetically stable amorphou...

We have developed InGaAs-based VCSELs operating around 1.1 μm for high-speed optical interconnections. By applying GaAsP barrier layers, temperature characteristics were considerably improved compared to GaAs barrier layers. As a result, 25 Gbps 100◦C error-free operation was achieved. These devices also exhibited high reliability. No degradation was observed over 3,000 hours under operation te...

Conventional wisdom holds that high levels of system support serve as an attitudinal barrier to democratic breakdown. In unconsolidated democracies, however, where democratic norms are regularly violated, the authors hypothesize that a healthy dose of political skepticism toward the political system, neither extreme rejection nor uncritical support of the system, would be associated with greate...

We consider the (reaction-coordinate) viscosity dependence of reaction-rate coefficients for the two-dimensional AgmonKosloff surface. We show that rate coefficients calculated from the Agmon-Hopfield sink-Smoluchowski equation are a lower bound, approaching asymptotically the two-dimensional result for fast reactive-mode diffusion. A modified equation, employing an effective potential in the s...

Tuberculosis (TBC), caused by the bacterium My tuberculosis (Mtb), is a growing international health crisis [1]. TBC is one of the main causes of death produced by infectious illness and is responsible for almost 3 millions deaths every year [2]. In this study, a controlled Expert System (ES) have designed to diagnosis of TBC and truth table have created by considering the probabilities of TBC ...

Thermal buckling response of functionally graded plates is presented in this paper using sinusoidal shear deformation plate theory (SPT). The material properties of the plate are assumed to vary according to a power law form in the thickness direction. Equilibrium and stability equations are derived based on the SPT. The non-linear governing equations are solved for plates subjected to simply s...

The effects of flexoelectricity on thermo-electro-mechanical behavior of a functionally graded electro-piezo-flexoelectric nano-plate are investigated in this paper using flexoelectric modified and the Kirchhoff classic theories. Moreover, using the variation method and the principle of minimum potential energy for the first time, the coupled governing nonlinear differential equations of the na...

In this article, magneto-thermo-elastic stresses and perturbation of magnetic field vector are analyzed for a thick-walled cylinder made from polystyrene, reinforced with functionally graded (FG) single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in radial direction, while subjected to an axial and uniform magnetic field as well as a transient thermal field. Generalized plane strain state is considered in...