Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics and Stochasticity, A Phenomenological   Look on Jarzynki's Equality
  The theory of phenomenological Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics is extended by includimg stochastic processes in order to account for recently derived thermodynamical relations such as the Jarzynski equality. Four phenomenological axioms are postulated resulting in a phenomenological interpretation of Jarzynski's equality. Especially, considering the class of Jarzynski processes Jarzynski's equality follows from the axiom that the statistical average of the exponential work is protocol independent. 
Wolfgang Muschik
nlin.CD cond-mat.stat-mech