Epidemic spreading induced by diversity of agents' mobility

In this paper, we study into the impact of the preference of an individual for public transport on the spread of infectious disease, through a quantity known as the public mobility. Our theoretical and numerical results based on a constructed model reveal that if the average public mobility of the agents is fixed, an increase in the diversity of the agents' public mobility reduces the epidemic threshold, beyond which an enhancement in the rate of infection is observed. Our findings provide an approach to improve the resistance of a society against infectious disease, while preserving the utilization rate of the public transportation system.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Surface diffuseness correction in global mass formula

By taking into account the surface diffuseness correction for unstable nuclei, the accuracy of the macroscopic-microscopic mass formula is further improved. The rms deviation with respect to essentially all the available mass data falls to 298 keV, crossing the 0.3 MeV accuracy threshold for the first time within the mean-field framework. Considering the surface effect of the symmetry potential which plays an important role in the evolution of the "neutron skin" toward the "neutron halo" of nuclei approaching the neutron drip line, we obtain an optimal value of the symmetry energy coefficient J=30.16 MeV. With an accuracy of 258 keV for all the available neutron separation energies and of 237 keV for the alpha-decay Q-values of super-heavy nuclei, the proposed mass formula is particularly important not only for the reliable description of the r-process of nucleosynthesis but also for the study of the synthesis of super-heavy nuclei.Comment: 2 figures, 2 tables, to appear in Phys. Lett.