8,017 research outputs found
Remote temperature profiling in the troposphere and stratosphere by the radio-acoustic sounding technique
Radar application of the radio-acoustic sounding technique uses the Doppler frequency shift of radar echoes returning from the atmospheric wave structure, in association with a traveling acoustic pulse transmitted from the ground, to determine the speed of sound, and hence the atmospheric temperature, as a function of altitude. Temperature measurement in the troposphere and stratosphere were determined using the radio-acoustic sounding technique with the Radio-Acoustic Sounding System (RASS). Successful experiments were performed in March 1985, and in August 1985
Immunization of networks with community structure
In this study, an efficient method to immunize modular networks (i.e.,
networks with community structure) is proposed. The immunization of networks
aims at fragmenting networks into small parts with a small number of removed
nodes. Its applications include prevention of epidemic spreading, intentional
attacks on networks, and conservation of ecosystems. Although preferential
immunization of hubs is efficient, good immunization strategies for modular
networks have not been established. On the basis of an immunization strategy
based on the eigenvector centrality, we develop an analytical framework for
immunizing modular networks. To this end, we quantify the contribution of each
node to the connectivity in a coarse-grained network among modules. We verify
the effectiveness of the proposed method by applying it to model and real
networks with modular structure.Comment: 3 figures, 1 tabl
Bayesian decision making in human collectives with binary choices
Here we focus on the description of the mechanisms behind the process of
information aggregation and decision making, a basic step to understand
emergent phenomena in society, such as trends, information spreading or the
wisdom of crowds. In many situations, agents choose between discrete options.
We analyze experimental data on binary opinion choices in humans. The data
consists of two separate experiments in which humans answer questions with a
binary response, where one is correct and the other is incorrect. The questions
are answered without and with information on the answers of some previous
participants. We find that a Bayesian approach captures the probability of
choosing one of the answers. The influence of peers is uncorrelated with the
difficulty of the question. The data is inconsistent with Weber's law, which
states that the probability of choosing an option depends on the proportion of
previous answers choosing that option and not on the total number of those
answers. Last, the present Bayesian model fits reasonably well to the data as
compared to some other previously proposed functions although the latter
sometime perform slightly better than the Bayesian model. The asset of the
present model is the simplicity and mechanistic explanation of the behavior.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl
Collective fluctuations in networks of noisy components
Collective dynamics result from interactions among noisy dynamical
components. Examples include heartbeats, circadian rhythms, and various pattern
formations. Because of noise in each component, collective dynamics inevitably
involve fluctuations, which may crucially affect functioning of the system.
However, the relation between the fluctuations in isolated individual
components and those in collective dynamics is unclear. Here we study a linear
dynamical system of networked components subjected to independent Gaussian
noise and analytically show that the connectivity of networks determines the
intensity of fluctuations in the collective dynamics. Remarkably, in general
directed networks including scale-free networks, the fluctuations decrease more
slowly with the system size than the standard law stated by the central limit
theorem. They even remain finite for a large system size when global
directionality of the network exists. Moreover, such nontrivial behavior
appears even in undirected networks when nonlinear dynamical systems are
considered. We demonstrate it with a coupled oscillator system.Comment: 5 figure
Formation of homophily in academic performance: Students change their friends rather than performance
Homophily, the tendency of individuals to associate with others who share similar traits, has been identified as a major driving force in the formation and evolution of social ties. In many cases, it is not clear if homophily is the result of a socialization process, where individuals change their traits according to the dominance of that trait in their local social networks, or if it results from a selection process, in which individuals reshape their social networks so that their traits match those in the new environment. Here we demonstrate the detailed temporal formation of strong homophily in academic achievements of high school and university students. We analyze a unique dataset that contains information about the detailed time evolution of a friendship network of 6,000 students across 42 months. Combining the evolving social network data with the time series of the academic performance (GPA) of individual students, we show that academic homophily is a result of selection: students prefer to gradually reorganize their social networks according to their performance levels, rather than adapting their performance to the level of their local group. We find no signs for a pull effect, where a social environment of good performers motivates bad students to improve their performance. We are able to understand the underlying dynamics of grades and networks with a simple model. The lack of a social pull effect in classical educational settings could have important implications for the understanding of the observed persistence of segregation, inequality and social immobility in societies
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