Articles: configurational entropy approach to the kinetics of glasses; entropy theory and glass transition: a test by Monte Carlo simulation; entropy and fragility in supercooling liquids; entropy crises in glasses and random heteropolymers; Adams-Gibbs formulation of enthalpy relaxation near the glass transition; evidence for glass and spin-glass phase transitions from the dynamic susceptibility; entropy, free volume, and cooperative relaxation; and confirmational entropy contributions to the glass temperature of blends of miscible polymers. Charts, tables and graphs.

About sixty years ago, the anomalous magnetic response of certain magnetic alloys drew the attention of theoretical physicists. It soon became clear that understanding these systems, now called spin glasses, would give rise to a new branch of statistical physics. As physical materials, spin glasses were found to be as useless as they were exotic. They have nevertheless been recognized as paradigmatic examples of complex systems with applications to problems as diverse as neural networks, amorphous solids, biological molecules, social and economic interactions, information theory and constraint satisfaction problems.This book presents an encyclopaedic overview of the broad range of these applications. More than 30 contributions are compiled, written by many of the leading researchers who have contributed to these developments over the last few decades. Some timely and cutting-edge applications are also discussed. This collection serves well as an introduction and summary of disordered and glassy systems for advanced undergraduates, graduate students and practitioners interested in the topic.

Features twenty-five chapter contributions from an international array of distinguished academics based in Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, and the USA. This multi-author contributed volume provides an up-to-date and authoritative overview of cutting-edge themes involving the thermal analysis, applied solid-state physics, micro- and nano-crystallinity of selected solids and their macro- and microscopic thermal properties. Distinctive chapters featured in the book include, among others, calorimetry time scales from days to microseconds, glass transition phenomena, kinetics of non-isothermal processes, thermal inertia and temperature gradients, thermodynamics of nanomaterials, self-organization, significance of temperature and entropy. Advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers working in the field of thermal analysis, thermophysical measurements and calorimetry will find this contributed volume invaluable. This is the third volume of the triptych volumes on thermal behaviour of materials; the previous two receiving thousand of downloads guaranteeing their worldwide impact.

This book describes the structure-property-composition relationships for silicate glasses and melts of industrial and geological interest. From Antiquity to the 20th century, an introductory chapter presents this subject in a historical perspective. Basic concepts are then discussed in three chapters where attention is paid to the glass transition and its various consequences on melt and glass properties, to the structural and physical differences between amorphous and crystalline silicates, and to the mutual relationships between local order, energetics and physical properties. With pure SiO2 as a starting point, compositions of increasing chemical complexity are successively dealt with in a dozen chapters. The effects of network-modifying cations on structure and properties are first exemplified by alkali and alkaline earth elements. The specific influence of aluminum, iron, titanium, and phosphorus are then reviewed. With water, volatiles in the system COHS, noble gases, and halogens, the effects of volatile components are also described. The last chapter explains how the results obtained on simpler melts can be applied to chemically complex systems. In each chapter, physical and chemical properties are described first and followed by a review of glass and melt structure. When possible, pressure effects are also considered.*From SiO2 to complex silicate compositions, the physical and chemical properties of melts and glasses of geological and industrial interest*Structural characterization of melts and glasses, from ambient to high pressure and temperature*From basic concepts to an advanced level, a consistent description of the structure-property-composition relationships in glasses and melts

Describes and interrelates the following processes: cooperative alpha processes in a cold liquid, structural relaxation in the glass near Tg, the Johari-Goldstein beta process, the Williams-Götze process in a warm liquid, fast nonactivated cage rattling and boson peak, and ultraslow Fischer modes.

An Introduction to Glass Transition opens with a comparison of entropy function of temperature dependence with configurational entropy, which was published by various authors and found almost the same temperature dependence with overlap. From the dependence of the logarithm of configurational entropy vs. the logarithm of temperature, the authors suggest that it is possible to successfully predict the relations between the values of m for different glass formers.Following this, microscopic local dynamics were analyzed by way of atomistic molecular dynamics simulations through the conformational transition behavior across a wide range of temperatures. The glass transition temperature may be predicted through the intersection of separate temperature dependences. Such local dynamics were found to become gradually heterogeneous when the temperature went down close to the glassy state.The closing chapter provides a brief summary of the studies relevant to glass transitions in well-defined lipids systems such as anhydrous and/or water mixed systems. Then, some current problems and future problems are described.