The thermodynamic stability limits of specific adsorption at the polarized liquid metal/ electrolyte solution interface are studied. Here the reversible starting and disappearance of the electroadsorption effects at a threshold potential are revealed, which are the result of Gibbs stability violation. The stability limits are determined by the bifurcation manifold of the critical states for which determinant of matrix of a second differential of the surface pressure equals zero. The equations of the critical states are equivalent to the spinodal equations used in the theory of phase transitions. The conception developed beneath will help provide to interpretate the anomalies of electrocapillary effects through the catastrophe theory. Full article

An irreversible cycle model of a Braysson heat engine operating between two heat reservoirs is used to investigate the thermoeconomic performance of the cycle affected by the finite-rate heat transfer between the working fluid and the heat reservoirs, heat leak loss from the heat source to the ambient and the irreversibility within the cycle. The thermoeconomic objective function, defined as the total cost per unit power output, is minimized with respect to the cycle temperatures along with the isobaric temperature ratio for a given set of operating parameters. The objective function is found to be an increasing function of the internal irreversibility parameter, economic parameters and the isobaric temperature ratio. On the other hand, there exist the optimal values of the state point temperatures, power output and thermal efficiency at which the objective function attains its minimum for a typical set of operating parameters. Moreover, the objective function and the corresponding power output are also plotted against the state point temperature and thermal efficiency for a different set of operating parameters. The optimally operating regions of these important parameters in the cycle are also determined. The results obtained here may provide some useful criteria for the optimal design and performance improvements, from the point of view of economics as well as from the point of view of thermodynamics of an irreversible Braysson heat engine cycle and other similar cycles as well. Full article

A continuous map f of the interval is chaotic iff there is an increasing of nonnegative integers T such that the topological sequence entropy of f relative to T, hT(f), is positive [4]. On the other hand, for any increasing sequence of nonnegative integers T there is a chaotic map f of the interval such that hT(f)=0 [7]. We prove that the same results hold for maps of the circle. We also prove some preliminary results concerning statistical convergent topological sequence entropy for maps of general compact metric spaces. Full article