69 research outputs found
Universality in percolation of arbitrary Uncorrelated Nested Subgraphs
The study of percolation in so-called {\em nested subgraphs} implies a
generalization of the concept of percolation since the results are not linked
to specific graph process. Here the behavior of such graphs at criticallity is
studied for the case where the nesting operation is performed in an
uncorrelated way. Specifically, I provide an analyitic derivation for the
percolation inequality showing that the cluster size distribution under a
generalized process of uncorrelated nesting at criticality follows a power law
with universal exponent . The relevance of the result comes from
the wide variety of processes responsible for the emergence of the giant
component that fall within the category of nesting operations, whose outcome is
a family of nested subgraphs.Comment: 5 pages, no figures. Mistakes found in early manuscript have been
remove
On the origin of ambiguity in efficient communication
This article studies the emergence of ambiguity in communication through the
concept of logical irreversibility and within the framework of Shannon's
information theory. This leads us to a precise and general expression of the
intuition behind Zipf's vocabulary balance in terms of a symmetry equation
between the complexities of the coding and the decoding processes that imposes
an unavoidable amount of logical uncertainty in natural communication.
Accordingly, the emergence of irreversible computations is required if the
complexities of the coding and the decoding processes are balanced in a
symmetric scenario, which means that the emergence of ambiguous codes is a
necessary condition for natural communication to succeed.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figure
Switcher-random-walks: a cognitive-inspired mechanism for network exploration
Semantic memory is the subsystem of human memory that stores knowledge of
concepts or meanings, as opposed to life specific experiences. The organization
of concepts within semantic memory can be understood as a semantic network,
where the concepts (nodes) are associated (linked) to others depending on
perceptions, similarities, etc. Lexical access is the complementary part of
this system and allows the retrieval of such organized knowledge. While
conceptual information is stored under certain underlying organization (and
thus gives rise to a specific topology), it is crucial to have an accurate
access to any of the information units, e.g. the concepts, for efficiently
retrieving semantic information for real-time needings. An example of an
information retrieval process occurs in verbal fluency tasks, and it is known
to involve two different mechanisms: -clustering-, or generating words within a
subcategory, and, when a subcategory is exhausted, -switching- to a new
subcategory. We extended this approach to random-walking on a network
(clustering) in combination to jumping (switching) to any node with certain
probability and derived its analytical expression based on Markov chains.
Results show that this dual mechanism contributes to optimize the exploration
of different network models in terms of the mean first passage time.
Additionally, this cognitive inspired dual mechanism opens a new framework to
better understand and evaluate exploration, propagation and transport phenomena
in other complex systems where switching-like phenomena are feasible.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. Accepted in "International Journal of
Bifurcations and Chaos": Special issue on "Modelling and Computation on
Complex Networks
Emergence of Zipf's Law in the Evolution of Communication
Zipf's law seems to be ubiquitous in human languages and appears to be a
universal property of complex communicating systems. Following the early
proposal made by Zipf concerning the presence of a tension between the efforts
of speaker and hearer in a communication system, we introduce evolution by
means of a variational approach to the problem based on Kullback's Minimum
Discrimination of Information Principle. Therefore, using a formalism fully
embedded in the framework of information theory, we demonstrate that Zipf's law
is the only expected outcome of an evolving, communicative system under a
rigorous definition of the communicative tension described by Zipf.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure
Robustness of the European power grids under intentional attack
The power grid defines one of the most important technological networks of
our times and sustains our complex society. It has evolved for more than a
century into an extremely huge and seemingly robust and well understood system.
But it becomes extremely fragile as well, when unexpected, usually minimal,
failures turn into unknown dynamical behaviours leading, for example, to sudden
and massive blackouts. Here we explore the fragility of the European power grid
under the effect of selective node removal. A mean field analysis of fragility
against attacks is presented together with the observed patterns. Deviations
from the theoretical conditions for network percolation (and fragmentation)
under attacks are analysed and correlated with non topological reliability
measures.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Exploring the randomness of Directed Acyclic Networks
The feed-forward relationship naturally observed in time-dependent processes
and in a diverse number of real systems -such as some food-webs and electronic
and neural wiring- can be described in terms of so-called directed acyclic
graphs (DAGs). An important ingredient of the analysis of such networks is a
proper comparison of their observed architecture against an ensemble of
randomized graphs, thereby quantifying the {\em randomness} of the real systems
with respect to suitable null models. This approximation is particularly
relevant when the finite size and/or large connectivity of real systems make
inadequate a comparison with the predictions obtained from the so-called {\em
configuration model}. In this paper we analyze four methods of DAG
randomization as defined by the desired combination of topological invariants
(directed and undirected degree sequence and component distributions) aimed to
be preserved. A highly ordered DAG, called \textit{snake}-graph and a
Erd\:os-R\'enyi DAG were used to validate the performance of the algorithms.
Finally, three real case studies, namely, the \textit{C. elegans} cell lineage
network, a PhD student-advisor network and the Milgram's citation network were
analyzed using each randomization method. Results show how the interpretation
of degree-degree relations in DAGs respect to their randomized ensembles depend
on the topological invariants imposed. In general, real DAGs provide disordered
values, lower than the expected by chance when the directedness of the links is
not preserved in the randomization process. Conversely, if the direction of the
links is conserved throughout the randomization process, disorder indicators
are close to the obtained from the null-model ensemble, although some
deviations are observed.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures and 5 table
Comparing the hierarchy of keywords in on-line news portals
The tagging of on-line content with informative keywords is a widespread
phenomenon from scientific article repositories through blogs to on-line news
portals. In most of the cases, the tags on a given item are free words chosen
by the authors independently. Therefore, relations among keywords in a
collection of news items is unknown. However, in most cases the topics and
concepts described by these keywords are forming a latent hierarchy, with the
more general topics and categories at the top, and more specialised ones at the
bottom. Here we apply a recent, cooccurrence-based tag hierarchy extraction
method to sets of keywords obtained from four different on-line news portals.
The resulting hierarchies show substantial differences not just in the topics
rendered as important (being at the top of the hierarchy) or of less interest
(categorised low in the hierarchy), but also in the underlying network
structure. This reveals discrepancies between the plausible keyword association
frameworks in the studied news portals
Topological reversibility and causality in feed-forward networks
Systems whose organization displays causal asymmetry constraints, from
evolutionary trees to river basins or transport networks, can be often
described in terms of directed paths (causal flows) on a discrete state space.
Such a set of paths defines a feed-forward, acyclic network. A key problem
associated with these systems involves characterizing their intrinsic degree of
path reversibility: given an end node in the graph, what is the uncertainty of
recovering the process backwards until the origin? Here we propose a novel
concept, \textit{topological reversibility}, which rigorously weigths such
uncertainty in path dependency quantified as the minimum amount of information
required to successfully revert a causal path. Within the proposed framework we
also analytically characterize limit cases for both topologically reversible
and maximally entropic structures. The relevance of these measures within the
context of evolutionary dynamics is highlighted.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Emergence of linguistic laws in human voice
Submitted for publicationSubmitted for publicatio
The Neurokinin 1 Receptor Antagonist, Ezlopitant, Reduces Appetitive Responding for Sucrose and Ethanol
Abstract Background: The current obesity epidemic is thought to be partly driven by over-consumption of sugar-sweetened diets and soft drinks. Loss-of-control over eating and addiction to drugs of abuse share overlapping brain mechanisms including changes in motivational drive, such that stimuli that are often no longer ‘liked’ are still intensely ‘wanted’ [7,8]. The neurokinin 1 (NK1) receptor system has been implicated in both learned appetitive behaviors and addiction to alcohol and opioids; however, its role in natural reward seeking remains unknown. Methodology/Principal Findings: We sought to determine whether the NK1-receptor system plays a role in the reinforcing properties of sucrose using a novel selective and clinically safe NK1-receptor antagonist, ezlopitant (CJ-11,974), in three animal models of sucrose consumption and seeking. Furthermore, we compared the effect of ezlopitant on ethanol consumption and seeking in rodents. The NK1-receptor antagonist, ezlopitant decreased appetitive responding for sucrose more potently than for ethanol using an operant self-administration protocol without affecting general locomotor activity. To further evaluate the selectivity of the NK1-receptor antagonist in decreasing consumption of sweetened solutions, we compared the effects of ezlopitant on water, saccharin-, and sodium chloride (NaCl) solution consumption. Ezlopitant decreased intake of saccharin but had no effect on water or salty solution consumption. Conclusions/Significance: The present study indicates that the NK1-receptor may be a part of a common pathway regulating the self-administration, motivational and reinforcing aspects of sweetened solutions, regardless of caloric value, and those of substances of abuse. Additionally, these results indicate that the NK1-receptor system may serve as a therapeutic target for obesity induced by over-consumption of natural reinforcers
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