The Thermodynamic Nature of Time and Economic Income

This paper discusses today's growing protectionism using a framework for economic growth, trade, and capital flows drawn from the natural sciences. In this framework economic activity is viewed as transformations of energy - both current solar energy and vintage solar energy, stored in the form of natural resources, human capital, physical capital and technology - driven by the laws of thermodynamics. The paper explains why efficient global capital markets and high-speed communications networks accelerate global economic growth. It then uses recent developments in nonequilibrium thermodynamics (NET) to outline the link between rapid growth, accelerating trade and cross-country capital flows, and turbulence, in the form of protectionism. Finally, it discusses an approach for mitigating the harmful impact of unavoidable turbulence and protectionism on the global economy.

The abstract concept of energy transformation is a subject in the natural and social sciences that students frequently find difficult to comprehend. Conventional learning methods are less effective in enabling students to actively engage in the learning process and visualize energy transformation concepts. Consequently, students encounter challenges in comprehending the energy transformation process, the relationship between energy, and examples of objects. The goal of this study is to evaluate how effective problem-based learning, which includes PhET simulations, gamified quizzes, and songs, is in helping fourth-grade students at SD Negeri Losari better understand energy transformation concepts. The quasi-experimental method was employed in this study, with a nonequivalent control-group design. The experimental class IV A consisted of 21 students, while the control class IV B had 20 students. The total number of students in the sample was 41. The total sampling technique was employed in conjunction with nonprobability sampling. Teaching was conducted in the experimental class (IVA) through PhET simulation, gamification, problem-based learning, and melodies. In contrast, the control group (IV B) implemented conventional teaching methods in conjunction with instructional videos. The independent sample t-test and N-Gain test were the methods of statistical analysis. A significant improvement in learning outcomes was confirmed by the independent t-test, which yielded a p-value of less than 0.05. In contrast to the control class, which achieved an average N-Gain score of 0.2678 (low), the experiment class achieved an average N-Gain score of 0.6655 (moderate). This finding suggests that the conceptual comprehension of energy transformation is enhanced through the incorporation of gamified quizzes, songs, PhET simulations, and problem-based learning. Keywords: PhET simulations, problem-based learning, song, quizzez, energy transformation.

Most, if not all, environmental problems of our time have their origin in human economic activity. In order to better understand how environmental problems arise from economic activity and how they may be solved in a sustainable manner, one needs to combine scientific expertise from the natural sciences and from economics. For, it is the domain of the natural sciences to analyze nature', while economics studies the economy'. In this study, I contribute to this interdisciplinary task in a threefold manner: (i) In Part I, I employ concepts and methods from thermodynamics in order to study how this natural science puts constraints on the transformation of energy and matter in the economic process of production. (ii) In Part II, I analyze the problem of biodiversity loss and conservation by combining concepts and methods from ecology and economics to study coupled ecological-economic systems. (iii) An underlying interest throughout this study is the methodological question of how to integrate concepts and methods from the natural sciences, such as thermodynamics or ecology, and the social sciences, such as economics. The approaches in Parts I and II are complementary in that they follow different methodological approaches to interdisciplinary integration of natural science constraints into environmental and resource economics - method-orientation and problem-orientation, respectively.

With the increasingly prominent environmental problems and the decline of fossil fuel reserves, the reduction of energy consumption (EC) has become a common goal in the world. Urea industry is a typical energy-intensive chemical industry. However, studies just focus on the breakthrough of specific production technology or only consider the EC in the production stage. This results in a lack of evaluations of the life cycle of energy consumption (LcEC). In order to provide a systematic, scientific, and practical theoretical basis for the industrial upgrading and the energy transformation, LcEC of urea production and the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated in the process of EC are studied in this paper. The results show that the average LcEC is about 30.1 GJ/t urea. The EC of the materials preparation stage, synthesis stage, and waste-treatment stage (ECRMP, ECPP, ECWD) is about 0.388 GJ/t urea, 24.8 GJ/t urea, and 4.92 GJ/t urea, accounting for 1.3%, 82.4%, and 16.3% of LcEC, respectively. Thus, the synthesis stage is a dominant energy-consumer, in which 15.4 GJ/t urea of energy, accounting for 62.0% of ECpp, supports steam consumption. According to the energy distribution analysis, it can be concluded that coal presents the primary energy in the process of urea production, which supports 94.4% of LcEC. The proportion of coal consumption is significantly higher than that of the average of 59% in China. Besides, the GHG emissions in the synthesis stage are obviously larger than that in the other stage, with an average of 2.18 t eq.CO2/t urea, accounting for 81.3% of the life cycle of GHG (LcGHG) emissions. In detail, CO2 is the dominant factor accounting for 90.0% of LcGHG emissions, followed by CH4, while N2O is negligible. Coal is the primary source of CO2 emissions. The severe high proportion of coal consumption in the life cycle of urea production is responsible for this high CO2 content of GHG emissions. Therefore, for industrial urea upgrading and energy transformation, reducing coal consumption will still be an important task for energy structure transformation. At the same time, the reformation of synthesis technologies, especially for steam energy-consuming technology, will mainly reduce the EC of the urea industry. Furthermore, the application of green energy will be conducive to a win-win situation for both economic and environmental benefits.

We find the van't Hoff relations between osmotic pressure, freezing point depression, and boiling point elevation provide a clue on how, by using salt solutions, one may lower the cost of extracting power from low-grade heat sources. In particular, the ratio of 7 between the heat of evaporation and the heat of freezing of pure water suggests a chemical system that raises 7-fold the temperature difference between heat source and heat sink, while decreasing by the same factor the heat flux. Heat exchangers dominate the cost of heat engines operating upon low-grade heat. Their area for a fixed power output is inversely proportional to the available temperature differential. Herein lies the potential for a great cost reduction. We show that the simple van der Waals concept of a gas of hard elastic spheres suffices to understand the colligative properties of salt solutions, at least up to the concentration of the eutectic composition. This concept enables us to physically interpret the thermodynamic processes during the concentration of salt solutions by evaporation and during the mixing of ice and solid salt hydrates at their eutectic temperature. These are identical to the thermodynamic processes taking place during the isothermal compression and expansion of gases in pumps and in turbines.

The priorities of reform of primary education is to create conditions for acquisition by students of new knowledge in the process of learning basic academic subjects, in particular knowledge of the educational area "Natural Sciences". The authors study the scientific and conceptual framework of the study and stated that the content of the school subject "natural Science" in elementary school is the system of concepts that are interrelated and evolve in a logical sequence. These concepts are divided into simple, complex, special and sagaminopteron. Simple concepts carry only one item of knowledge (e.g., type of root system of the plant). The content of each concept develops over time, is complicated and it becomes difficult. Complex concepts contain a few simple (for example, in challenging the notion of "stem – vegetative body" containedknowledge of anatomy, physiology, morphology, ecology, etc.). Special science concepts are complicated. They are assimilated by students when studying one section of subject environmental studies. Sagaminopteron concepts are being formed throughout the 4 years study of the subject Natural, as if they are "pass-through". For example: individual development of organisms, metabolism and energy transformation, and the like. This group of concepts is the most important because it is the basis for the formation of the scientific picture of the world. Analyzed various theories for the formation and development of concepts and focused on theory scholar and author of textbooks on natural Sciences Nicholas Versa. The authors believe that this theory has preserved its relevance and significance to today. In the process of learning concepts, the authors identified three stages: preparatory – the observation of facts, combining them into a group, highlighting common features; the main step is to build the definition of a new concept; the next stage of the deepening, enrichment, accumulation of a large number of distinguishing features.

The development of the science of economics is closely linked to the structure of capitalism. Even though ancient and medieval thinkers had already stated a certain number of ideas in this domain, the science of economics, in the modern sense of the word, did not truly begin until the 17th Century and the early 18th Century. At that time the methodology for research in the natural sciences was developed, and the first scientific academies and societies were founded (England, France, Prussia, Russia). The initial step in the development of the science of economics occurred in conjunction with this process. Moreover, the ideas of the first economists were, as a general rule, centered on the practical problems and needs of the State. And in that period the prevalent state structure in Europe was the absolute monarchy. Consequently, the first economists were, for the most part, counsellors to the sovereign, authors of studies and reports containing a variety of proposals regarding economic policy. With regard to a great many distinguished economists of the 17th and 18th Centuries, we can speak of them being “men of proposals”.

Rational use and managing with energy is basic presumption of sustainable development. Economy with energy today is directed to using and promotion of pure technologies, with high energetic efficiency and using of renewable sources, and all in purpose of environmental protection. During the last decade heat pump technology has attracted increasing attention as one of the most promising technologies to save energy. Exactly, heat compressor pumps represent technology with high energetic efficiency. Heat pump is a device for moving heat from a low temperature heat source to a higher temperature heat sink using the power for compressor running. In most cases, electric engine runs the compressor. The efficiency of electric heat pump is defined with Coefficient Of Performance (COP – heating factor). It is defined as the ratio of heat delivered by the heat pump and the electric power for compressor running and auxiliaries. But, COP is not observed from primary energy source, it is observed after fuel energy transformation into electric energy (after primary energy transformation). In this article the electric heat pump running will be compared with the gas heat pump running from primary energy source (PER- primary energy ratio). PER is ratio between useful heating energy and primary energy. Gas heat pump uses a primary energy source without energy transformation and has got a lower CO2 emission. In this article, the major advantage of gas heat pump, the utilization of exhausted heat from gas engine (from cooling water and exhausted gases) will be described. Also, it will be described the two renewable heat sources: air and sea water with advantages and disadvantages.

Kicking the Oil Addiction

A THEORY of human capital is in the process of formulation. The primary question is "What is the contribution of changes in the quality of people to economic growth?" The academic economists first raised the question after their research showed that production in developed economies had been increasing much faster than could be explained by inputs of physical capital and additions to the labor force. But the wide interest which the question has aroused indicates much more than academic curiosity. It reflects the desires and aspirations of people throughout the world-people anxious to add weight to their demands for action against disease and illiteracy by showing that such action is not only humanitarian, but will make a major contribution to economic growth as well. Though research on the return to investment in people is barely getting started, even the most tentative conclusions have been widely quoted. Preliminary indications that the rate of return on investment in people is high have been seized upon in a growing number of countries as justification for in-

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The long run trade orientation of an economy is measured in this article by an index which measures the extent to which the real exchange rate is distorted away from its free trade level by the trade regime. The technique for estimating a cross country index of real exchange rate distortion uses the international comparison of prices prepared by Robert Summers and Alan Heston. Resource endowment constitutes the norm and real overvaluation or undervaluation relative to this norm reveals whether incentives are directed to the domestic or international market. The index is constructed based on data for GDP/capita average price level in US dollars 1976-85 and GDP growth rate/capita 1976-85. Other sections are devoted the comparison of the procedure for 117 countries between 1976-85 and an examination of the empirical relationship between outward orientation and economic growth and sensitivity analysis. The results indicate that Latin America generally was overvalued by 33% relative to Asia and Africa was overvalued by 86%. The real exchange rate distortion index supports the view that Asian countries are more outward oriented. Asian economies have lower price levels which reflect relatively modest protection and incentives oriented to external markets. Latin American countries with moderately high price level and African countries with very high price levels reflect strong protection and incentives directed to production for the domestic market. An alternative specification which eliminates the dummy variables for Africa yields similar results with slightly lower magnitude; i.e. overvaluation is 60% instead of 86% for Africa and Latin America is overvalued by 39% instead of 33% over Asia. A table is provided which indicates by country the distortion and variability of the real exchange rate the GDP growth the 1976 GDP/capita and the investment rate. Another finding was that there is a significant negative relationship between distortion of the real exchange rate and growth of GDP/capita after controlling for the effects of real exchange rate variability and investment level with both the original specification and the alternative. The growth rate/capita of Latin American and African countries would increase 1.5-2.1% with a shift to move outward oriented trade policies. This gain as well as devaluation of the real exchange reate trade liberalization and maintenance of a stable real exchange rate would contribute to positive growth rates. In the analysis of the poorest 24 countries the result was that only rate distortion and not variability and investment rate explained the growth rate. The gain for Ghana for example of adopting the trade policies and exchange rate of Bangladesh would be 5% to its growth.

Chapter 1 - Some philosophical aspects of scientific research

The World Oceans covers the greater part of the earth’s surface and is 2.5 times as large as the area of land. Nearly 84 percent of the southern hemisphere is blanketed by the oceanic waters. The continents can be thought of as huge islands in the ocean. Therefore, the oceanic processes of matter and energy transformation are of global significance. Originally presented as a series of lectures by Alexander P. Lisitzin.

In this study, the time-domain model of a magnetostrictive electro-hydrostatic actuator (MEHA) is built from the viewpoint of energy conversion, which consists of four energy transformation stages: electrical–magnetic, magneto-elastic, elastic-hydraulic and hydraulic-mechanical energy transformation. Accordingly, a Jiles–Atherton hysteresis model with the dynamic eddy current effect has been incorporated into the MEHA model, and a magneto-elastic energy transformation model has been established to depict not only the relationship between the magnetostriction and magnetization of a giant magnetostrictive material (GMM) rod, but also that between the magnetostriction and pre-stress of the GMM rod. Based on Boyle’s law, an effective fluid bulk modulus equation is deduced to show a nonlinear functional relationship with fluid pressure. A pump chamber pressure model, a reed valve port flow equation model, a reed valve vibration model, a fluid pressure model in the high-pressure side cylinder, and a fluid motion model are later built sequentially to depict the complicated elastic-hydraulic transformation process. Finally, experiments show that the motion of the cylinder piston, as well as the pump flow rate, agreed well with the established model results under varying loads.