Nonequilibrium approaches experimental applications

In this chapter, we will examine in depth the characteristic errors of two free energy techniques and present improved methods based on a better understanding of their behavior. The two techniques examined are free energy perturbation (FEP) [2] and nonequilibrium work (NEW) based on Jarzynski s equality [3-6]. These techniques are discussed in Chaps. 2 and 5. The FEP method is one of the most popular approaches for computing free energy differences in molecular simulation see, e.g., [1, 7-10]. The recently developed NEW method, which is closely related to FEP, is gaining popularity in both simulation [11-18] and experimental applications [19-21],... 

The set of Eq. (10.85) is related to various classical studies of electrokinetic phenomena, since the equations describe the coupled processes and yield naturally a number of symmetry relationships, which have been observed experimentally. Therefore, they provide a practical application of the linear nonequilibrium thermodynamic approach. For example, we may consider studies with identical solutions at each surface of the membrane, so that An = Ans = 0. Then the system has only two degrees of freedom, and we have... 

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