440 research outputs found
Can intrinsic noise induce various resonant peaks?
We theoretically describe how weak signals may be efficiently transmitted
throughout more than one frequency range in noisy excitable media by kind of
stochastic multiresonance. This serves us here to reinterpret recent
experiments in neuroscience, and to suggest that many other systems in nature
might be able to exhibit several resonances. In fact, the observed behavior
happens in our (network) model as a result of competition between (1) changes
in the transmitted signals as if the units were varying their activation
threshold, and (2) adaptive noise realized in the model as rapid
activity-dependent fluctuations of the connection intensities. These two
conditions are indeed known to characterize heterogeneously networked systems
of excitable units, e.g., sets of neurons and synapses in the brain. Our
results may find application also in the design of detector devices.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure
Universality class of the pair contact process with diffusion
The pair contact process with diffusion (PCPD) is studied with a standard
Monte Carlo approach and with simulations at fixed densities. A standard
analysis of the simulation results, based on the particle densities or on the
pair densities, yields inconsistent estimates for the critical exponents.
However, if a well-chosen linear combination of the particle and pair densities
is used, leading corrections can be suppressed, and consistent estimates for
the independent critical exponents delta=0.16(2), beta=0.28(2) and z=1.58 are
obtained. Since these estimates are also consistent with their values in
directed percolation (DP), we conclude that PCPD falls in the same universality
class as DP.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev. E (not yet published
Revisiting the effect of external fields in Axelrod's model of social dynamics
The study of the effects of spatially uniform fields on the steady-state
properties of Axelrod's model has yielded plenty of controversial results. Here
we re-examine the impact of this type of field for a selection of parameters
such that the field-free steady state of the model is heterogeneous or
multicultural. Analyses of both one and two-dimensional versions of Axelrod's
model indicate that, contrary to previous claims in the literature, the steady
state remains heterogeneous regardless of the value of the field strength.
Turning on the field leads to a discontinuous decrease on the number of
cultural domains, which we argue is due to the instability of zero-field
heterogeneous absorbing configurations. We find, however, that spatially
nonuniform fields that implement a consensus rule among the neighborhood of the
agents enforces homogenization. Although the overall effects of the fields are
essentially the same irrespective of the dimensionality of the model, we argue
that the dimensionality has a significant impact on the stability of the
field-free homogeneous steady state
Evolutionary Prisoner's Dilemma game on the Newman-Watts networks
Maintenance of cooperation was studied for a two-strategy evolutionary
Prisoner's Dilemma game where the players are located on a one-dimensional
chain and their payoff comes from games with the nearest and next-nearest
neighbor interactions. The applied host geometry makes possible to study the
impacts of two conflicting topological features. The evolutionary rule involves
some noise affecting the strategy adoptions between the interacting players.
Using Monte Carlo simulations and the extended versions of dynamical mean-field
theory we determined the phase diagram as a function of noise level and a
payoff parameter. The peculiar feature of the diagram is changed significantly
when the connectivity structure is extended by extra links as suggested by
Newman and Watts.Comment: 4 figure
Conservation laws for the voter model in complex networks
We consider the voter model dynamics in random networks with an arbitrary
distribution of the degree of the nodes. We find that for the usual node-update
dynamics the average magnetization is not conserved, while an average
magnetization weighted by the degree of the node is conserved. However, for a
link-update dynamics the average magnetization is still conserved. For the
particular case of a Barabasi-Albert scale-free network the voter model
dynamics leads to a partially ordered metastable state with a finite size
survival time. This characteristic time scales linearly with system size only
when the updating rule respects the conservation law of the average
magnetization. This scaling identifies a universal or generic property of the
voter model dynamics associated with the conservation law of the magnetization.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; for related material please visit
http://www.imedea.uib.e
Statistics of opinion domains of the majority-vote model on a square lattice
The existence of juxtaposed regions of distinct cultures in spite of the fact
that people's beliefs have a tendency to become more similar to each other's as
the individuals interact repeatedly is a puzzling phenomenon in the social
sciences. Here we study an extreme version of the frequency-dependent bias
model of social influence in which an individual adopts the opinion shared by
the majority of the members of its extended neighborhood, which includes the
individual itself. This is a variant of the majority-vote model in which the
individual retains its opinion in case there is a tie among the neighbors'
opinions. We assume that the individuals are fixed in the sites of a square
lattice of linear size and that they interact with their nearest neighbors
only.
Within a mean-field framework, we derive the equations of motion for the
density of individuals adopting a particular opinion in the single-site and
pair approximations. Although the single-site approximation predicts a single
opinion domain that takes over the entire lattice, the pair approximation
yields a qualitatively correct picture with the coexistence of different
opinion domains and a strong dependence on the initial conditions. Extensive
Monte Carlo simulations indicate the existence of a rich distribution of
opinion domains or clusters, the number of which grows with whereas the
size of the largest cluster grows with . The analysis of the sizes of
the opinion domains shows that they obey a power-law distribution for not too
large sizes but that they are exponentially distributed in the limit of very
large clusters. In addition, similarly to other well-known social influence
model -- Axelrod's model -- we found that these opinion domains are unstable to
the effect of a thermal-like noise
Absorbing boundaries in the conserved Manna model
The conserved Manna model with a planar absorbing boundary is studied in
various space dimensions. We present a heuristic argument that allows one to
compute the surface critical exponent in one dimension analytically. Moreover,
we discuss the mean field limit that is expected to be valid in d>4 space
dimensions and demonstrate how the corresponding partial differential equations
can be solved.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures; v1 was changed by replacing the co-authors name
"L\"ubeck" with "Lubeck" (metadata only
Pair Contact Process with Diffusion: Failure of Master Equation Field Theory
We demonstrate that the `microscopic' field theory representation, directly
derived from the corresponding master equation, fails to adequately capture the
continuous nonequilibrium phase transition of the Pair Contact Process with
Diffusion (PCPD). The ensuing renormalization group (RG) flow equations do not
allow for a stable fixed point in the parameter region that is accessible by
the physical initial conditions. There exists a stable RG fixed point outside
this regime, but the resulting scaling exponents, in conjunction with the
predicted particle anticorrelations at the critical point, would be in
contradiction with the positivity of the equal-time mean-square particle number
fluctuations. We conclude that a more coarse-grained effective field theory
approach is required to elucidate the critical properties of the PCPD.Comment: revtex, 8 pages, 1 figure include
Short period attractors and non-ergodic behavior in the deterministic fixed energy sandpile model
We study the asymptotic behaviour of the Bak, Tang, Wiesenfeld sandpile
automata as a closed system with fixed energy.
We explore the full range of energies characterizing the active phase. The
model exhibits strong non-ergodic features by settling into limit-cycles whose
period depends on the energy and initial conditions. The asymptotic activity
(topplings density) shows, as a function of energy density , a
devil's staircase behaviour defining a symmetric energy interval-set over which
also the period lengths remain constant. The properties of -
phase diagram can be traced back to the basic symmetries underlying the model's
dynamics.Comment: EPL-style, 7 pages, 3 eps figures, revised versio
Coupling traffic models on networks and urban dispersion models for simulating sustainable mobility strategies
The aim of the present paper is to investigate the viability of macroscopic traffic models for modeling and testing different traffic scenarios, in order to define the impact on air quality of different strategies for the reduction of traffic emissions. To this aim, we complement a well assessed traffic model on networks (Garavello, Piccoli, 2006) with a strategy for estimating data needed from the model and we couple it with the urban dispersion model Sirane (Soulhac, 2000)
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