810 research outputs found
Emergence of Hierarchy on a Network of Complementary Agents
Complementarity is one of the main features underlying the interactions in
biological and biochemical systems. Inspired by those systems we propose a
model for the dynamical evolution of a system composed by agents that interact
due to their complementary attributes rather than their similarities. Each
agent is represented by a bit-string and has an activity associated to it; the
coupling among complementary peers depends on their activity. The connectivity
of the system changes in time respecting the constraint of complementarity. We
observe the formation of a network of active agents whose stability depends on
the rate at which activity diffuses in the system. The model exhibits a
non-equilibrium phase transition between the ordered phase, where a stable
network is generated, and a disordered phase characterized by the absence of
correlation among the agents. The ordered phase exhibits multi-modal
distributions of connectivity and activity, indicating a hierarchy of
interaction among different populations characterized by different degrees of
activity. This model may be used to study the hierarchy observed in social
organizations as well as in business and other networks.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, submitte
Sharp gene pool transition in a population affected by phenotype-based selective hunting
We use a microscopic model of population dynamics, a modified version of the
well known Penna model, to study some aspects of microevolution. This research
is motivated by recent reports on the effect of selective hunting on the gene
pool of bighorn sheep living in the Ram Mountain region, in Canada. Our model
finds a sharp transition in the structure of the gene pool as some threshold
for the number of animals hunted is reached.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Complex networks generated by the Penna bit-string model: emergence of small-world and assortative mixing
The Penna bit-string model successfully encompasses many phenomena of population evolution, including inheritance, mutation, evolution, and aging. If we consider social interactions among individuals in the Penna model, the population will form a complex network. In this paper, we first modify the Verhulst factor to control only the birth rate, and introduce activity-based preferential reproduction of offspring in the Penna model. The social interactions among individuals are generated by both inheritance and activity-based preferential increase. Then we study the properties of the complex network generated by the modified Penna model. We find that the resulting complex network has a small-world effect and the assortative mixing property
Simulation of Demographic Change in Palestinian Territories
Mortality, birth rates and retirement play a major role in demographic
changes. In most cases, mortality rates decreased in the past century without
noticeable decrease in fertility rates, this leads to a significant increase in
population growth. In many poor countries like Palestinian territories the
number of births has fallen and the life expectancy increased.
In this article we concentrate on measuring, analyzing and extrapolating the
age structure in Palestine a few decades ago into future. A Fortran program has
been designed and used for the simulation and analysis of our statistical data.
This study of demographic change in Palestine has shown that Palestinians will
have in future problems as the strongest age cohorts are the above-60-year
olds. We therefore recommend the increase of both the retirement age and women
employment.Comment: For Int. J. Mod. Phys. C 18, issue 11; 9 pages including figures and
progra
Simulated ecology-driven sympatric speciation
We introduce a multi-locus genetically acquired phenotype, submitted to
mutations and with selective value, in an age-structured model for biological
aging. This phenotype describes a single-trait effect of the environment on an
individual, and we study the resulting distribution of this trait among the
population. In particular, our simulations show that the appearance of a double
phenotypic attractor in the ecology induces the emergence of a stable
polymorphism, as observed in the Galapagos finches. In the presence of this
polymorphism, the simulations generate short-term speciation, when mating
preferences are also allowed to suffer mutations and acquire selective value.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, uses package RevTe
Simulations of a mortality plateau in the sexual Penna model for biological ageing
The Penna model is a strategy to simulate the genetic dynamics of
age-structured populations, in which the individuals genomes are represented by
bit-strings. It provides a simple metaphor for the evolutionary process in
terms of the mutation accumulation theory. In its original version, an
individual dies due to inherited diseases when its current number of
accumulated mutations, n, reaches a threshold value, T. Since the number of
accumulated diseases increases with age, the probability to die is zero for
very young ages (n = T). Here, instead
of using a step function to determine the genetic death age, we test several
other functions that may or may not slightly increase the death probability at
young ages (n < T), but that decreases this probability at old ones. Our
purpose is to study the oldest old effect, that is, a plateau in the mortality
curves at advanced ages. Imposing certain conditions, it has been possible to
obtain a clear plateau using the Penna model. However, a more realistic one
appears when a modified version, that keeps the population size fixed without
fluctuations, is used. We also find a relation between the birth rate, the
age-structure of the population and the death probability.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.
Lattice Simulation of Nuclear Multifragmentation
Motivated by the decade-long debate over the issue of criticality supposedly
observed in nuclear multifragmentation, we propose a dynamical lattice model to
simulate the phenomenon. Its Ising Hamiltonian mimics a short range attractive
interaction which competes with a thermal-like dissipative process. The results
here presented, generated through an event-by-event analysis, are in agreement
with both experiment and those produced by a percolative (non-dynamical) model.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure
Absorbing-state phase transitions with extremal dynamics
Extremal dynamics represents a path to self-organized criticality in which
the order parameter is tuned to a value of zero. The order parameter is
associated with a phase transition to an absorbing state. Given a process that
exhibits a phase transition to an absorbing state, we define an ``extremal
absorbing" process, providing the link to the associated extremal
(nonabsorbing) process. Stationary properties of the latter correspond to those
at the absorbing-state phase transition in the former. Studying the absorbing
version of an extremal dynamics model allows to determine certain critical
exponents that are not otherwise accessible. In the case of the Bak-Sneppen
(BS) model, the absorbing version is closely related to the "-avalanche"
introduced by Paczuski, Maslov and Bak [Phys. Rev. E {\bf 53}, 414 (1996)], or,
in spreading simulations to the "BS branching process" also studied by these
authors. The corresponding nonextremal process belongs to the directed
percolation universality class. We revisit the absorbing BS model, obtaining
refined estimates for the threshold and critical exponents in one dimension. We
also study an extremal version of the usual contact process, using mean-field
theory and simulation. The extremal condition slows the spread of activity and
modifies the critical behavior radically, defining an ``extremal directed
percolation" universality class of absorbing-state phase transitions.
Asymmetric updating is a relevant perturbation for this class, even though it
is irrelevant for the corresponding nonextremal class.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure
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