9,862 research outputs found
Production networks and failure avalanches
Although standard economics textbooks are seldom interested in production
networks, modern economies are more and more based upon suppliers/customers
interactions. One can consider entire sectors of the economy as generalised
supply chains. We will take this view in the present paper and study under
which conditions local failures to produce or simply to deliver can result in
avalanches of shortage and bankruptcies across the network. We will show that a
large class of models exhibit scale free distributions of production and wealth
among firms and that metastable regions of high production are highly
localised
Solitonic State in Microscopic Dynamic Failures
Onset of permanent deformation in crystalline materials under a sharp
indenter tip is accompanied by nucleation and propagation of defects. By
measuring the spatio-temporal strain field nearthe indenter tip during
indentation tests, we demonstrate that the dynamic strain history at the moment
of a displacement burst carries characteristics of formation and interaction of
local excitations, or solitons. We show that dynamic propagation of multiple
solitons is followed by a short time interval where the propagating fronts can
accelerate suddenly. As a result of such abrupt local accelerations, duration
of the fast-slip phase of a failure event is shortened. Our results show that
formation and annihilation of solitons mediate the microscopic fast weakening
phase, during which extreme acceleration and collision of solitons lead to
non-Newtonian behavior and Lorentz contraction, i.e., shortening of solitons
characteristic length. The results open new horizons for understanding dynamic
material response during failure and, more generally, complexity of earthquake
sources
Modelling potential movement in constrained travel environments using rough space-time prisms
The widespread adoption of location-aware technologies (LATs) has afforded analysts new opportunities for efficiently collecting trajectory data of moving individuals. These technologies enable measuring trajectories as a finite sample set of time-stamped locations. The uncertainty related to both finite sampling and measurement errors makes it often difficult to reconstruct and represent a trajectory followed by an individual in space-time. Time geography offers an interesting framework to deal with the potential path of an individual in between two sample locations. Although this potential path may be easily delineated for travels along networks, this will be less straightforward for more nonnetwork-constrained environments. Current models, however, have mostly concentrated on network environments on the one hand and do not account for the spatiotemporal uncertainties of input data on the other hand. This article simultaneously addresses both issues by developing a novel methodology to capture potential movement between uncertain space-time points in obstacle-constrained travel environments
Atomic fountains and optical clocks at SYRTE: status and perspectives
In this article, we report on the work done with the LNE-SYRTE atomic clock
ensemble during the last 10 years. We cover progress made in atomic fountains
and in their application to timekeeping. We also cover the development of
optical lattice clocks based on strontium and on mercury. We report on tests of
fundamental physical laws made with these highly accurate atomic clocks. We
also report on work relevant to a future possible redefinition of the SI
second
Boolean Delay Equations: A simple way of looking at complex systems
Boolean Delay Equations (BDEs) are semi-discrete dynamical models with
Boolean-valued variables that evolve in continuous time. Systems of BDEs can be
classified into conservative or dissipative, in a manner that parallels the
classification of ordinary or partial differential equations. Solutions to
certain conservative BDEs exhibit growth of complexity in time. They represent
therewith metaphors for biological evolution or human history. Dissipative BDEs
are structurally stable and exhibit multiple equilibria and limit cycles, as
well as more complex, fractal solution sets, such as Devil's staircases and
``fractal sunbursts``. All known solutions of dissipative BDEs have stationary
variance. BDE systems of this type, both free and forced, have been used as
highly idealized models of climate change on interannual, interdecadal and
paleoclimatic time scales. BDEs are also being used as flexible, highly
efficient models of colliding cascades in earthquake modeling and prediction,
as well as in genetics. In this paper we review the theory of systems of BDEs
and illustrate their applications to climatic and solid earth problems. The
former have used small systems of BDEs, while the latter have used large
networks of BDEs. We moreover introduce BDEs with an infinite number of
variables distributed in space (``partial BDEs``) and discuss connections with
other types of dynamical systems, including cellular automata and Boolean
networks. This research-and-review paper concludes with a set of open
questions.Comment: Latex, 67 pages with 15 eps figures. Revised version, in particular
the discussion on partial BDEs is updated and enlarge
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