934 research outputs found
Boundary information inflow enhances correlation in flocking
The most conspicuous trait of collective animal behaviour is the emergence of
highly ordered structures. Less obvious to the eye, but perhaps more profound a
signature of self-organization, is the presence of long-range spatial
correlations. Experimental data on starling flocks in 3d show that the exponent
ruling the decay of the velocity correlation function, C(r) ~ 1/r^\gamma, is
extremely small, \gamma << 1. This result can neither be explained by
equilibrium field theory, nor by off-equilibrium theories and simulations of
active systems. Here, by means of numerical simulations and theoretical
calculations, we show that a dynamical field applied to the boundary of a set
of Heisemberg spins on a 3d lattice, gives rise to a vanishing exponent \gamma,
as in starling flocks. The effect of the dynamical field is to create an
information inflow from border to bulk that triggers long range spin wave
modes, thus giving rise to an anomalously long-ranged correlation. The
biological origin of this phenomenon can be either exogenous - information
produced by environmental perturbations is transferred from boundary to bulk of
the flock - or endogenous - the flock keeps itself in a constant state of
dynamical excitation that is beneficial to correlation and collective response
Dynamics of the Time Horizon Minority Game
We present exact analytic results for a new version of the Minority Game (MG)
in which strategy performance is recorded over a finite time horizon. The
dynamics of this Time Horizon Minority Game (THMG) exhibit many distinct
features from the MG and depend strongly on whether the participants are fed
real, or random, history strings. The THMG equations are equivalent to a Markov
Chain, and yield exact analytic results for the volatility given a specific
realization for the quenched strategy disorder.Comment: Latex file, 11 pages, 6 figure
On the stationary points of the TAP free energy
In the context of the p-spin spherical model, we introduce a method for the
computation of the number of stationary points of any nature (minima, saddles,
etc.) of the TAP free energy. In doing this we clarify the ambiguities related
to the approximations usually adopted in the standard calculations of the
number of states in mean field spin glass models.Comment: 11 pages, 1 Postscript figure, plain Te
The Emerging Role of Biotechnological Drugs in the Treatment of Gout
One of the most important therapeutic advances obtained in the field of rheumatology is the availability of the so-called bio(techno)logical drugs, which have deeply changed treatment perspectives in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. According to the steadily increasing attention on gout, due to well-established prognostic and epidemiology implications, in the last 5 years, the same change of perspective has been observed also for this disease. In fact, several bio(techno)logical agents have been investigated both for the management of the articular gout symptoms, targeting mainly interleukin-1β, as well as urate-lowering therapies such as recombinant uricases. Among the IL-1β inhibitors, the majority of studies involve drugs such as anakinra, canakinumab, and rilonacept, but other compounds are under development. Moreover, other potential targets have been suggested, as, for example, the TNF alpha and IL-6, even if data obtained are less robust than those of IL-1β inhibitors. Regarding urate-lowering therapies, the recombinant uricases pegloticase and rasburicase clearly showed their effectiveness in gout patients. Also in this case, new compounds are under development. The aim of this review is to focus on the various aspects of different bio(techno)logical drugs in gouty patients
Geometric approach to the dynamic glass transition
We numerically study the potential energy landscape of a fragile glassy
system and find that the dynamic crossover corresponding to the glass
transition is actually the effect of an underlying geometric transition caused
by a qualitative change in the topological properties of the landscape.
Furthermore, we show that the potential energy barriers connecting local glassy
minima increase with decreasing energy of the minima, and we relate this
behaviour to the fragility of the system. Finally, we analyze the real space
structure of activated processes by studying the distribution of particle
displacements for local minima connected by simple saddles
Topological Signature of First Order Phase Transitions
We show that the presence and the location of first order phase transitions
in a thermodynamic system can be deduced by the study of the topology of the
potential energy function, V(q), without introducing any thermodynamic measure.
In particular, we present the thermodynamics of an analytically solvable
mean-field model with a k-body interaction which -depending on the value of k-
displays no transition (k=1), second order (k=2) or first order (k>2) phase
transition. This rich behavior is quantitatively retrieved by the investigation
of a topological invariant, the Euler characteristic, of some submanifolds of
the configuration space. Finally, we conjecture a direct link between the Euler
characteristic and the thermodynamic entropy.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure
Coexistence of supersymmetric and supersymmetry-breaking states in spherical spin-glasses
The structure of states of the perturbed p-spin spherical spin-glass is
analyzed. At low enough free energy metastable states have a supersymmetric
structure, while at higher free energies the supersymmetry is broken. The
transition between the supersymmetric and the supersymmetry-breaking phase is
triggered by a change in the stability of states
Detecting the traders' strategies in Minority-Majority games and real stock-prices
Price dynamics is analyzed in terms of a model which includes the possibility
of effective forces due to trend followers or trend adverse strategies. The
method is tested on the data of a minority-majority model and indeed it is
capable of reconstructing the prevailing traders' strategies in a given time
interval. Then we also analyze real (NYSE) stock-prices dynamics and it is
possible to derive an indication for the the ``sentiment'' of the market for
time intervals of at least one day.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure
Finite-size scaling as a way to probe near-criticality in natural swarms
Collective behaviour in biological systems is often accompanied by strong
correlations. The question has therefore arisen of whether correlation is
amplified by the vicinity to some critical point in the parameters space.
Biological systems, though, are typically quite far from the thermodynamic
limit, so that the value of the control parameter at which correlation and
susceptibility peak depend on size. Hence, a system would need to readjust its
control parameter according to its size in order to be maximally correlated.
This readjustment, though, has never been observed experimentally. By gathering
three-dimensional data on swarms of midges in the field we find that swarms
tune their control parameter and size so as to maintain a scaling behaviour of
the correlation function. As a consequence, correlation length and
susceptibility scale with the system's size and swarms exhibit a near-maximal
degree of correlation at all sizes.Comment: Selected for Viewpoint in Physics; PRL Editor's Suggestio
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