430 research outputs found
World steel production: a new monthly indicator of global real economic activity
In this paper we propose a new indicator of monthly global real economic activity, named
world steel production. We use world steel production, OECD industrial production index
and Kilian’s rea index to forecast world real GDP, and key commodity prices. We find that
world steel production generates large statistically significant gains in forecasting world real
GDP and oil prices, relative to an autoregressive benchmark. A forecast combination of the
three indices produces statistically significant gains in forecasting world real GDP, oil,
natural gas, gold and fertilizer prices, relative to an autoregressive benchmark
Exact solution of diffusion limited aggregation in a narrow cylindrical geometry
The diffusion limited aggregation model (DLA) and the more general dielectric
breakdown model (DBM) are solved exactly in a two dimensional cylindrical
geometry with periodic boundary conditions of width 2. Our approach follows the
exact evolution of the growing interface, using the evolution matrix E, which
is a temporal transfer matrix. The eigenvector of this matrix with an
eigenvalue of one represents the system's steady state. This yields an estimate
of the fractal dimension for DLA, which is in good agreement with simulations.
The same technique is used to calculate the fractal dimension for various
values of eta in the more general DBM model. Our exact results are very close
to the approximate results found by the fixed scale transformation approach.Comment: 18 pages RevTex, 6 eps figure
Comment on ``Self-organized criticality and absorbing states: Lessons from the Ising model"
According to Pruessner and Peters [Phys. Rev. E {\bf 73}, 025106(R) (2006)],
the finite size scaling exponents of the order parameter in sandpile models
depend on the tuning of driving and dissipation rates with system size. We
point out that the same is not true for {\em avalanches} in the slow driving
limit.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Dynamically Driven Renormalization Group Applied to Sandpile Models
The general framework for the renormalization group analysis of
self-organized critical sandpile models is formulated. The usual real space
renormalization scheme for lattice models when applied to nonequilibrium
dynamical models must be supplemented by feedback relations coming from the
stationarity conditions. On the basis of these ideas the Dynamically Driven
Renormalization Group is applied to describe the boundary and bulk critical
behavior of sandpile models. A detailed description of the branching nature of
sandpile avalanches is given in terms of the generating functions of the
underlying branching process.Comment: 18 RevTeX pages, 5 figure
Renormalization group of probabilistic cellular automata with one absorbing state
We apply a recently proposed dynamically driven renormalization group scheme
to probabilistic cellular automata having one absorbing state. We have found
just one unstable fixed point with one relevant direction. In the limit of
small transition probability one of the cellular automata reduces to the
contact process revealing that the cellular automata are in the same
universality class as that process, as expected. Better numerical results are
obtained as the approximations for the stationary distribution are improved.Comment: Errors in some formulas have been corrected. Additional material
available at http://mestre.if.usp.br/~javie
Roughness of Sandpile Surfaces
We study the surface roughness of prototype models displaying self-organized
criticality (SOC) and their noncritical variants in one dimension. For SOC
systems, we find that two seemingly equivalent definitions of surface roughness
yields different asymptotic scaling exponents. Using approximate analytical
arguments and extensive numerical studies we conclude that this ambiguity is
due to the special scaling properties of the nonlinear steady state surface. We
also find that there is no such ambiguity for non-SOC models, although there
may be intermediate crossovers to different roughness values. Such crossovers
need to be distinguished from the true asymptotic behaviour, as in the case of
a noncritical disordered sandpile model studied in [10].Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Sandpiles with height restrictions
We study stochastic sandpile models with a height restriction in one and two
dimensions. A site can topple if it has a height of two, as in Manna's model,
but, in contrast to previously studied sandpiles, here the height (or number of
particles per site), cannot exceed two. This yields a considerable
simplification over the unrestricted case, in which the number of states per
site is unbounded. Two toppling rules are considered: in one, the particles are
redistributed independently, while the other involves some cooperativity. We
study the fixed-energy system (no input or loss of particles) using cluster
approximations and extensive simulations, and find that it exhibits a
continuous phase transition to an absorbing state at a critical value zeta_c of
the particle density. The critical exponents agree with those of the
unrestricted Manna sandpile.Comment: 10 pages, 14 figure
Fluctuations and correlations in sandpile models
We perform numerical simulations of the sandpile model for non-vanishing
driving fields and dissipation rates . Unlike simulations
performed in the slow driving limit, the unique time scale present in our
system allows us to measure unambiguously response and correlation functions.
We discuss the dynamic scaling of the model and show that
fluctuation-dissipation relations are not obeyed in this system.Comment: 5 pages, latex, 4 postscript figure
Video Pandemics: Worldwide Viral Spreading of Psy's Gangnam Style Video
Viral videos can reach global penetration traveling through international
channels of communication similarly to real diseases starting from a
well-localized source. In past centuries, disease fronts propagated in a
concentric spatial fashion from the the source of the outbreak via the short
range human contact network. The emergence of long-distance air-travel changed
these ancient patterns. However, recently, Brockmann and Helbing have shown
that concentric propagation waves can be reinstated if propagation time and
distance is measured in the flight-time and travel volume weighted underlying
air-travel network. Here, we adopt this method for the analysis of viral meme
propagation in Twitter messages, and define a similar weighted network distance
in the communication network connecting countries and states of the World. We
recover a wave-like behavior on average and assess the randomizing effect of
non-locality of spreading. We show that similar result can be recovered from
Google Trends data as well.Comment: 10 page
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