We study first-order phase transitions in a two-temperature system, where due to the time-scale separation all the basic thermodynamical quantities (free energy, entropy, etc.) are well defined. The sign of the latent heat is found to be counterintuitive: it is positive when going from the phase where the temperatures and the entropy are higher to the one where these quantities are lower. The effect exists only out of equilibrium and requires conflicting interactions. It is displayed on a lattice gas model of ferromagnetically interacting spin-1/2 particles.

We consider the Kuramoto model of globally coupled phase oscillators subject to Ornstein-Uhlenbeck and non-Gaussian colored noise and investigate the influence of noise on the order parameter of the synchronization process. We use numerical methods to study the dependence of the threshold as well as the maximum degree of synchronization on the correlation time and the strength of the noise, and find that the threshold of synchronization strongly depends on the nature of the noise. It is found to be lower for both the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck and non-Gaussian processes compared to the case of white noise. A finite correlation time also favors the achievement of the full synchronization of the system, in contract to the white noise process, which does not allow that. Finally, we discuss possible applications of the stochastic Kuramoto model to oscillations taking place in biochemical systems.