Evolution of economic entities under heterogeneous political/environmental conditions within a Bak-Sneppen-like dynamics

A model for economic behavior, under heterogeneous spatial economic conditions is developed. The role of selection pressure in a Bak-Sneppen-like dynamics with entity diffusion on a lattice is studied by Monte-Carlo simulation taking into account business rule(s), like enterprise - enterprise short range location "interaction"(s), business plan(s) through spin-offs or merging and enterprise survival evolution law(s). It is numerically found that the model leads to a sort of phase transition for the fitness gap as a function of the selection pressure.Comment: 6 figures. to be published in Physica

Maximum Difference Scaling Method in the MaxDiff R Package

In microeconomics, measurement of consumer preferences is one of the most important elements of marketing research. Accurate measurement of preferences allows to gain an understanding of likes and dislikes of consumers. Using some statistical methods (like e.g. conjoint analysis and discrete choice models) it is possible to quantify preferences and answer the questions: What product will a consumer choose? What attribute of the product is most important? Consumer choice models attempt to answer these questions. This article describes the R package MaxDiff for the Maximum Difference Scaling method to assess consumer preferences from consumer choice experiments. Because practical applications of this method depend on the availability of computer software, this paper describes an implementation of the Maximum Difference Scaling method in the R package MaxDiff. Functions of the MaxDiff R package can be used for the measurement of consumer preferences. MaxDiff supports the design of the experiment (e.g. to build a list of features), encode the alternatives, estimate the models, etc. Some functions of the MaxDiff R package are presented with examples of applications in the empirical analysis of consumer preferences

Simple Model for the Dynamics of Correlations in the Evolution of Economic Entities Under Varying Economic Conditions

From some observations on economic behaviors, in particular changing economic conditions with time and space, we develop a very simple model for the evolution of economic entities within a geographical type of framework. We raise a few questions and attempt to investigate whether some of them can be tackled by our model. Several cases of interest are reported. It is found that the model even in its simple forms can lead to a large variety of situations, including: delocalization and cycles, but also pre-chaotic behavior.Comment: Presented at Bali IEC02 symposium, Aug. 2002; submitted to Physica A ; 8 pages, 5 figure

Risk of Population Extinction from Periodic and Abrupt Changes of Environment

A simulation model of a population having internal (genetic) structure is presented. The population is subject to selection pressure coming from the environment which is the same in the whole system but changes in time. Reproduction has a sexual character with recombination and mutation. Two cases are considered - oscillatory changes of the environment and abrupt ones (catastrophes). We show how the survival chance of a population depends on maximum allowed size of the population, the length of the genotypes characterising individuals, selection pressure and the characteristics of the climate changes, either their period of oscillations or the scale of the abrupt shift.Comment: 8 pages, 25 references, 10 figures; preliminary version to be submitted to Physica

Model of Wealth and Goods Dynamics in a Closed Market

A simple computer simulation model of a closed market on a fixed network with free flow of goods and money is introduced. The model contains only two variables : the amount of goods and money beside the size of the system. An initially flat distribution of both variables is presupposed. We show that under completely random rules, i.e. through the choice of interacting agent pairs on the network and of the exchange rules that the market stabilizes in time and shows diversification of money and goods. We also indicate that the difference between poor and rich agents increases for small markets, as well as for systems in which money is steadily deduced from the market through taxation.Comment: 8 figures;23 references; submitted to Physica

Long-range dependencies in heart rate signals- revisited

The RR series extracted from human electrocardiogram signal (ECG) is considered as a fractal stochastic process. The manifestation of long-range dependencies is the presence of power laws in scale dependent process characteristics. Exponents of these laws: $\beta$ - describing power spectrum decay, $\alpha$ - responsible for decay of detrended fluctuations or $H$ related to, so-called, roughness of a signal, are known to differentiate hearts of healthy people from hearts with congestive heart failure. There is a strong expectation that resolution spectrum of exponents, so-called, local exponents in place of global exponents allows to study differences between hearts in details. The arguments are given that local exponents obtained in multifractal analysis by the two methods: wavelet transform modulus maxima (WTMM) and multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MDFA), allow to recognize the following four stages of the heart: healthy and young, healthy and advance in years, subjects with left ventricle systolic dysfunction (NYHA I--III class) and characterized by severe congestive heart failure (NYHA III-IV class).Comment: 24 page

A covariant formalism for Chern-Simons gravity

Chern--Simons type Lagrangians in $d=3$ dimensions are analyzed from the point of view of their covariance and globality. We use the transgression formula to find out a new fully covariant and global Lagrangian for Chern--Simons gravity: the price for establishing globality is hidden in a bimetric (or biconnection) structure. Such a formulation allows to calculate from a global and simpler viewpoint the energy-momentum complex and the superpotential both for Yang--Mills and gravitational examples.Comment: 12 pages,LaTeX, to appear in Journal of Physics

FLEXNET: Flexible Networks for IoT based services

Internet of Things is becoming one of the main triggers in designing and deploying new services aiming at fulfilling the wide demand imposed by end-users. Usually, concrete solutions addressing the optimization of the wireless segment are found in the literature. However, it is much less frequent to find end-to-end solutions to be easily adopted by the corresponding stakeholders. It is in this context that FLEXNET brings an integrated solution, relying on cutting-edge technologies, dealing with a wide set of technical requirements imposed by the different applications and services.This work was supported by FLEXNET Project: "Flexible IoT Networks for Value Creators" (Celtic 2016/3), in the Eureka Celtic-Next Cluster

Correlation functions of three heavy operators - the AdS contribution

We consider operators in N=4 SYM theory which are dual, at strong coupling, to classical strings rotating in S^5. Three point correlation functions of such operators factorize into a universal contribution coming from the AdS part of the string sigma model and a state-dependent S^5 contribution. Consequently a similar factorization arises for the OPE coefficients. In this paper we evaluate the AdS universal factor of the OPE coefficients which is explicitly expressed just in terms of the anomalous dimensions of the three operators.Comment: 49 pages, 3 figures; v.2 references corrected; v3: corrected discussion in section 5, results unchange

Towards Arginase Inhibition: Hybrid SAR Protocol for Property Mapping of Chlorinated N-arylcinnamamides

peer reviewedA series of seventeen 4-chlorocinnamanilides and seventeen 3,4-dichlorocinnamanilides were characterized for their antiplasmodial activity. In vitro screening on a chloroquine-sensitive strain of Plasmodium falciparum 3D7/MRA-102 highlighted that 23 compounds possessed IC50 < 30 µM. Typically, 3,4-dichlorocinnamanilides showed a broader range of activity compared to 4-chlorocinnamanilides. (2E)-N-[3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]-3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)prop-2-en-amide with IC50 = 1.6 µM was the most effective agent, while the other eight most active derivatives showed IC50 in the range from 1.8 to 4.6 µM. A good correlation between the experimental logk and the estimated clogP was recorded for the whole ensemble of the lipophilicity generators. Moreover, the SAR-mediated similarity assessment of the novel (di)chlorinated N-arylcinnamamides was conducted using the collaborative (hybrid) ligand-based and structure-related protocols. In consequence, an ‘averaged’ selection-driven interaction pattern was produced based in namely ‘pseudo–consensus’ 3D pharmacophore mapping. The molecular docking approach was engaged for the most potent antiplasmodial agents in order to gain an insight into the arginase-inhibitor binding mode. The docking study revealed that (di)chlorinated aromatic (C-phenyl) rings are oriented towards the binuclear manganese cluster in the energetically favorable poses of the chloroquine and the most potent arginase inhibitors. Additionally, the water-mediated hydrogen bonds were formed via carbonyl function present in the new N-arylcinnamamides and the fluorine substituent (alone or in trifluoromethyl group) of N-phenyl ring seems to play a key role in forming the halogen bonds