  We consider heat exchange processes between non-equilibrium aging systems (in
their activated regime) and the thermal bath in contact. We discuss a scenario
where two different heat exchange processes concur in the overall heat
dissipation: a stimulated fast process determined by the temperature of the
bath and a spontaneous intermittent process determined by the fact that the
system has been prepared in a non-equilibrium state. The latter is described by
a probability distribution function (PDF) that has an exponential tail of width
given by a parameter $\lambda$, and satisfies a fluctuation theorem (FT)
governed by that parameter. The value of $\lambda$ is proportional to the
so-called effective temperature, thereby providing a practical way to
experimentally measure it by analyzing the PDF of intermittent events.
