Scaling laws and universality in the choice of election candidates

Nowadays there is an increasing interest of physicists in finding regularities related to social phenomena. This interest is clearly motivated by applications that a statistical mechanical description of the human behavior may have in our society. By using this framework, we address this work to cover an open question related to elections: the choice of elections candidates (candidature process). Our analysis reveals that, apart from the social motivations, this system displays features of traditional out-of-equilibrium physical phenomena such as scale-free statistics and universality. Basically, we found a non-linear (power law) mean correspondence between the number of candidates and the size of the electorate (number of voters), and also that this choice has a multiplicative underlying process (lognormal behavior). The universality of our findings is supported by data from 16 elections from 5 countries. In addition, we show that aspects of network scale-free can be connected to this universal behavior.Comment: Accepted for publication in EP

Comportamento produtivo de oito clones de cajueiro-anão-precoce em cultivo de terceiro ano sob regime de sequeiro.

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Avaliação de clones de cajueiro-anão-precoce em cultivo de terceiro ano no semi-árido piauiense.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o desempenho produtivo de oito clones de cajueiro anão precoce no semi-árido piauiense, visando identificar os mais promissores para a produção de castanha e caju para mesa..

Avaliação de clones de cajueiro-anão-precoce no cerrado do sul maranhense.

Avaliação de Clones de Cajueiro-Anão-Precoce no Cerrado do Sul Maranhense; Introdução; Desenvolvimento; Biometria; Produtividade; Características do fruto; Aptidão comercial; Distribuição média mensal da produção de castanha; Características agroeconômicas; Comercialização da produção; Comparativos econômicos.bitstream/item/37219/1/Doc145.pd

Desempenho econômico de clones de cajueiro-anão-precoce em cultivo de quarto ano de produção no município de Picos, PI.

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Avaliação de clones de cajueiro-anão precoce no município de Picos, PI, no período de 2000 a 2004.

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Vacuum fluctuations of a scalar field near a reflecting boundary and their effects on the motion of a test particle

The contribution from quantum vacuum fluctuations of a real massless scalar field to the motion of a test particle that interacts with the field in the presence of a perfectly reflecting flat boundary is here investigated. There is no quantum induced dispersions on the motion of the particle when it is alone in the empty space. However, when a reflecting wall is introduced, dispersions occur with magnitude dependent on how fast the system evolves between the two scenarios. A possible way of implementing this process would be by means of an idealized sudden switching, for which the transition occurs instantaneously. Although the sudden process is a simple and mathematically convenient idealization it brings some divergences to the results, particularly at a time corresponding to a round trip of a light signal between the particle and the wall. It is shown that the use of smooth switching functions, besides regularizing such divergences, enables us to better understand the behavior of the quantum dispersions induced on the motion of the particle. Furthermore, the action of modifying the vacuum state of the system leads to a change in the particle energy that depends on how fast the transition between these states is implemented. Possible implications of these results to the similar case of an electric charge near a perfectly conducting wall are discussed.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure