Thermoelectric power generation is one of the most promising techniques to use the huge amount of waste heat and solar energy. Traditionally, high thermoelectric figure-of-merit, ZT, has been the only parameter pursued for high conversion efficiency. Here, we emphasize that a high power factor (PF) is equivalently important for high power generation, in addition to high efficiency. A new n-type...

This commentary compares the primary energy requirement for apples (cultivar 'Braeburn'), which were either imported or locally-grown in Meckenheim, Germany. Imported apples of the same cultivar were grown in a Southern hemisphere winter in Nelson, Southland, New Zealand, and were picked at the end of March with subsequent 28 d transport by sea for sale in April in Germany. Locally-grown apples...

Energy is a concept of universal importance. In applying it to body weight regulation, the focus has been on energy balance and how this balance is affected by intakes and expenditures. However, energy is an abstract concept without biological equivalent and applying it to explain body weight regulation has led to various misconceptions and created intellectual obstacles in understanding the ob...

For a single enzyme or molecular motor operating in an aqueous solution of non-equilibrated solute concentrations, a thermodynamic description is developed on the level of an individual trajectory of transitions between states. The concept of internal energy, intrinsic entropy and free energy for states follows from a microscopic description using one assumption on time scale separation. A firs...

BACKGROUND Domesticated horses adapt to environmental conditions through seasonal fluctuations in their metabolic rate. The seasonal change of metabolic rates of domesticated horses in pastures is documented. However, there are few investigations on seasonal body weight change of domesticated horses housed in stables, which are provided constant energy intake throughout the year. Both seasonal ...

Gibbs' macroscopic chemical thermodynamics is one of the most important theories in chemistry. Generalizing it to mesoscaled nonequilibrium systems is essential to biophysics. The nonequilibrium stochastic thermodynamics of chemical reaction kinetics suggested a free energy balance equation dF^{(meso)}/dt=E_{in}-e_{p} in which the free energy input rate E_{in} and dissipation rate e_{p} are bot...

A novel method for calculation of the motion and radiation reaction for the two-body problem (body plus particle, the small parameter m/M being the ratio of the masses) is presented. In the background curvature given by the Schwarzschild geometry rippled by gravita-tional waves, the geodesic equations insure the presence of radiation reaction also for high velocities and strong field. The metho...

The worldwide prevalence of obesity is increasing at an alarming rate, with major adverse consequences for human health. This "obesity epidemic" is paralleled by a rapid and substantive increase in our understanding of molecular pathways and physiologic systems underlying the regulation of energy balance. While efforts to address the environmental factors that are responsible for the recent "ep...

[1] Runoff generation in Alpine regions is typically affected by snow processes. Snow accumulation, storage, redistribution, and ablation control the availability of water. In this study, several robust parameterizations describing snow processes in Alpine environments were implemented in a fully distributed, physically based hydrological model. Snow cover development is simulated using differe...

The intensity of water absorption in the region of the solar spectrum plays a dominant role in atmospheric energy balance and hence strongly influences climate. Significant controversy exists over how to model this absorption accurately. We report dipole moment measurements of highly vibrationally excited water, which provide stringent tests of intensities determined by other means. Our measure...