Aggregation Behaviors of a Two-Species System with Lose-Lose Interactions

We propose an aggregation evolution model of two-species （A- and B-species） aggregates to study the prevalent aggregation phenomena in social and economic systems. In this model, A- and B-species aggregates perform self-exchange-driven growths with the exchange rate kernels K（k, l） = Kkl and L（k, l） = Lkl, respectively, and the two species aggregates perform self-birth processes with the rate kernels J1（k） = J1 k and J2（ k ） = J2k, and meanwhile the interaction between the aggregates of different species A and B causes a lose-lose scheme with the rate kernel H（k,l） = Hkl. Based on the mean-field theory, we investigated the evolution behaviors of the two species aggregates to study the competitions among above three aggregate evolution schemes on the distinct initial monomer concentrations A0 and B0 of the two species. The results show that the evolution behaviors of A- and B-species are crucially dominated by the competition between the two self-birth processes, and the initial monomer concentrations Ao and Bo play important roles, while the lose-lose scheme play important roles in some special cases.     

Complex spatial organization in a simple model of resource allocation

A dynamical model for the distribution of resources among competing agents is studied. The model is exactly solvable in the case of global competition, which leads to the accumulation of all the resources by the agent with the highest performance. On the other hand, local competition allows for a wider resource distribution, with a much weaker correlation with individual performances. Multiplicative processes give rise to almost-ordered spatial structures, through the enhancement of random fluctuations. Received 17 August 2000 and Received in final form 1st November 2000     

基于养护龄期的煅烧煤矸石细集料砂浆X射线衍射及扫描电镜分析

采用X射线衍射法(XRD)和环境扫描电镜(SEM)分析方法,研究了不同煅烧温度下煤矸石细集料的活性,针对活性最高的700 ℃高温煅烧煤矸石细集料砂浆的水化产物、微观结构和强度进行了探讨,并分析了砂浆强度随养护龄期(3,7,14,28,60和90 d)增长的变化规律。试验研究表明：煤矸石细集料随着煅烧温度的升高,其活性逐步增加,当煅烧温度达到700 ℃左右时,煤矸石细集料的活性达到最高,当煅烧温度继续升高时,活性呈下降趋势。经过700 ℃高温煅烧的煤矸石细集料具有明显的火山灰活性,其活性组分SiO₂和Al₂O₃能与水泥水化产物发生一定程度的二次水化反应,通过对不同养护龄期的活性最高的700 ℃高温煅烧煤矸石细集料砂浆XRD和SEM分析可知,随着养护龄期的增长,二次水化反应将更加充分,而且水化产物的数量也逐步增多,与早龄期的水泥砂浆相比,生成物相更为稳定的水化产物填充在砂浆的微观孔隙中,能够进一步改善砂浆的微观结构,增强砂浆的界面性能,使砂浆内部结构更加均匀,煅烧的煤矸石细集料和水泥砂浆更趋为一个坚固连续的整体,水泥硬化砂浆的后期强度有较大增幅,活性最高的700 ℃高温煅烧煤矸石细集料火山灰效应明显。     

Cooperation in N-person evolutionary snowdrift game in scale-free Barabási-Albert networks

Cooperation in the N-person evolutionary snowdrift game (NESG) is studied in scale-free Barabási-Albert (BA) networks. Due to the inhomogeneity of the network, two versions of NESG are proposed and studied. In a model where the size of the competing group varies from agent to agent, the fraction of cooperators drops as a function of the payoff parameter. The networking effect is studied via the fraction of cooperative agents for nodes with a particular degree. For small payoff parameters, it is found that the small-k agents are dominantly cooperators, while large-k agents are of non-cooperators. Studying the spatial correlation reveals that cooperative agents will avoid to be nearest neighbors and the correlation disappears beyond the next-nearest neighbors. The behavior can be explained in terms of the networking effect and payoffs. In another model with a fixed size of competing groups, the fraction of cooperators could show a non-monotonic behavior in the regime of small payoff parameters. This non-trivial behavior is found to be a combined effect of the many agents with the smallest degree in the BA network and the increasing fraction of cooperators among these agents with the payoff for small payoffs.     

An Evolution Based on Various Energy Strategies

The simplest model of the evolution of agents with different energy strategies is considered. The model is based on the most general thermodynamic ideas and includes the procedures for selection, inheritance, and variability. The problem of finding a universal strategy (principle) as a selection of possible competing strategies is solved. It is shown that when there is non-equilibrium between the medium and agents, a direction in the evolution of agents arises, but at the same time, depending on the conditions of the evolution, different strategies can be successful. However, for this case, the simulation results reveal that in the presence of significant competition of agents, the strategy that has the maximum total energy dissipation of agents arising as a result of evolution turns out to be successful. Thus, it is not the specific strategy that is universal, but the maximization of dissipation. This result discovers an interesting connection between the basic principles of Darwin–Wallace evolution and the maximum entropy production principle.     

Oscillations in a parametrically excited Bose-Einstein condensate in combined harmonic and optical lattice trap

In this work, we study parametric excitations in an elongated cigar-shaped BEC in a combined harmonic trap and a time dependent optical lattice by using numerical techniques. We show that there exists a relative competition between the harmonic trap which tries to spatially localize the BEC and the time varying optical lattice which tries to delocalize the BEC. This competition gives rise to parametric excitations (oscillations of the BEC width). Regular oscillations disappear when one of the competing factors, i.e. the strength of harmonic trap or the strength of optical lattice, dominates. Parametric instabilities (chaotic dynamics) arise for large variations in the strength of the optical lattice.     

Dynamic peer-to-peer competition

The dynamic behavior of a multiagent system in which the agent size s_i is variable it is studied along a Lotka-Volterra approach. The agent size has hereby the meaning of the fraction of a given market that an agent is able to capture (market share). A Lotka-Volterra system of equations for prey-predator problems is considered, the competition factor being related to the difference in size between the agents in a one-on-one competition. This mechanism introduces a natural self-organized dynamic competition among agents. In the competition factor, a parameter σ is introduced for scaling the intensity of agent size similarity, which varies in each iteration cycle. The fixed points of this system are analytically found and their stability analyzed for small systems (with n=5 agents). We have found that different scenarios are possible, from chaotic to non-chaotic motion with cluster formation as function of the σ parameter and depending on the initial conditions imposed to the system. The present contribution aim is to show how a realistic though minimalist nonlinear dynamics model can be used to describe the market competition (companies, brokers, decision makers) among other opinion maker communities.     

Evolution of an ensemble of fractal aggregates in a colloidal system

A theoretical study is presented of primary-minimum aggregation of colloidal particles, which generally leads to the formation of ramified fractal clusters. The focus is placed on the cooperative effects due to competition between aggregates for particles moving freely in the colloidal suspension. An analysis shows that the competition leads to aggregate density distributions and aggregation kinetics governed by more complicated laws as compared to those established in previous numerical and analytical studies of single-cluster growth.     

Cooperative behavior in evolutionary snowdrift game with bounded rationality

An evolutionary snowdrift game (SG) that incorporates bounded rationality and limited information in the evolutionary process is proposed and studied. Based on SG in a well-mixed population and defining the winning action at a turn to be the one that gets a higher payoff, the most recent m winning actions can be used as a public information based on which the competing agents decide their next actions. This defines a strategy pool from which each agent picks a number of strategies as their tool in adapting to the competing environment. The payoff parameter r in SG serves to set the maximum number of winners per turn. Due to the bounded rationality and limited information, the cooperative frequency shows steps and plateaux as a function of r and these features tend to be smoothed out as m increases. These features are results of an interplay between a restricted subset of m-bit histories that the system can visit at a value of r and the limited capacity that agents can adapt. The standard deviation in the number of agents taking the cooperative action is also studied. For general values of r, our model generates a realization of the binary-agent-resource model. The idea of introducing bounded rationality into a two-person game to realize the minority game or binary-agent-resource model could be a useful tool for future research.     

A Maximum Entropy Model of Bounded Rational Decision-Making with Prior Beliefs and Market Feedback

Bounded rationality is an important consideration stemming from the fact that agents often have limits on their processing abilities, making the assumption of perfect rationality inapplicable to many real tasks. We propose an information-theoretic approach to the inference of agent decisions under Smithian competition. The model explicitly captures the boundedness of agents (limited in their information-processing capacity) as the cost of information acquisition for expanding their prior beliefs. The expansion is measured as the Kullblack–Leibler divergence between posterior decisions and prior beliefs. When information acquisition is free, the homo economicus agent is recovered, while in cases when information acquisition becomes costly, agents instead revert to their prior beliefs. The maximum entropy principle is used to infer least biased decisions based upon the notion of Smithian competition formalised within the Quantal Response Statistical Equilibrium framework. The incorporation of prior beliefs into such a framework allowed us to systematically explore the effects of prior beliefs on decision-making in the presence of market feedback, as well as importantly adding a temporal interpretation to the framework. We verified the proposed model using Australian housing market data, showing how the incorporation of prior knowledge alters the resulting agent decisions. Specifically, it allowed for the separation of past beliefs and utility maximisation behaviour of the agent as well as the analysis into the evolution of agent beliefs.     

Influence of the spacing between metal particles on the kinetics of reaction with spillover on the supported metal catalyst

The influence of the spacing between active metal particles placed on the supported metal catalyst on the kinetics of the catalytic reaction with spillover was investigated. The 2A+B₂→2AB reaction, modelling the CO oxidation on Pd/Al₂O₃ catalyst, was studied using Dynamic Monte Carlo simulations. It was shown that there exists an optimal spacing, that provides the maximum reaction rate. It was postulated that this optimum is a consequence of both competition and cooperative effects occurring between metal particles.     

Solvable Catalyzed Birth-Death-Exchange Competition Model of Three Species

A competition model of three species in exchange-driven aggregation growth is proposed. In the model, three distinct aggregates grow by exchange of monomers and in parallel, birth of species A is catalyzed by species B and death of species A is catalyzed by species C. The rates for both catalysis processes are proportional to kj^υ and kj^ω respectively, where υ(ω) is a parameter reflecting the dependence of the catalysis reaction rate of birth (death) on the catalyst aggregate's size. The kinetic evolution behaviors of the three species are investigated by the rate equation approach based on the mean-field theory. The form of the aggregate size distribution ofA-species a_k(t) is found to be dependent crucially on the two catalysis rate kernel parameters. The results show that (i) in case of υ ≤ 0, the form of a_k(t) mainly depends on the competition between self-exchange of species A andspecies-C-catalyzed death of species A; (ii) in case of υ>0, the form of a_k(t) mainly depends on the competition between species-B-catalyzed birth of species A and species-C-catalyzed death of species A.     

Sticky particles in compressible flows: aggregation and Richardson's law

The evolution of the distance r(t) between a pair of passive tracer particles in rough compressible velocity fields is studied. The scaling behavior depends on the stickiness of the particles. Sticky particles start aggregating in moderately compressible flows, which can be realized on the free-slip surface of a turbulent fluid; nonsticky particles can aggregate only in less common strongly compressible flows (even then, the aggregation rate remains lower). Aggregation gives rise to an anomalous scaling law for the mean-square-distance growth rate, slower than Richardson's law. These findings help understand the results of recent experiments.     

Monitoring foam coarsening using a computer optical mouse as a dynamic laser speckle measurement sensor

In this paper, we present an experimental approach to track coarsening process of foam using a computer optical mouse as a dynamic laser speckle measurement sensor. The dynamics of foam coarsening and rearrangement events cause changes in the intensity of laser speckle backscattered from the foam. A strong negative correlation between the average speed of the cursor and the evolution of bubble diameter was found. We used microscopic images to demonstrate that decrease in speed is related to increase in bubble size. The proposed set-up is not very expensive, is highly portable and can be used in laboratory measurements of dynamics in other kinds of opaque materials.     

Analytical Results of a Two-Species Predator-Prey Model

We propose a sequential monomer reaction model for a two-species predator-prey system, in which the aggregates of either species can spontaneously produce or lose one monomer and meanwhile, a type-B aggregate can prey upon one monomer of a type-A aggregate when they meet. Using the mean-field rate equation approach, we analytically investigate the kinetic behavior of the system. The results show that the evolution of the system depends crucially on the details of the rate kernels. The aggregate size distribution of either species approaches the conventional or modified scaling form in most cases. Moreover, the total size of either species grows exponentially with time in some cases and asymptotically retains a constant quantity in other cases, while it decays with time and vanishes finally in the rest cases.     

Importance of metastable states in the free energy landscapes of polypeptide chains

We show that the interplay between excluded volume effects, hydrophobicity, and hydrogen bonding in a tubelike representation of a polypeptide chain gives rise to free energy landscapes that, in addition to a clear global minimum, are characterized by the general presence of a small number of metastable minima, which correspond to common structural motifs observed in proteins. The complexity of the landscape increases only moderately with the length of the chain. Analysis of the temperature dependence of these landscapes reveals that the stability of specific metastable states is maximal at a temperature close to the midpoint of folding. These mestastable states are therefore likely to be of particular significance in determining the generic tendency of proteins to aggregate into potentially pathogenic agents.     

Memory-based evolutionary game on small-world network with tunable heterogeneity

Most papers about evolutionary games on graph assume agents have no memory. Yet, in the real world, interaction history can also affect an agent’s decision. So we introduce a memory-based agent model and investigate the Prisoner’s Dilemma game on a Heterogeneous Newman-Watts small-world network based on a Genetic Algorithm, focusing on heterogeneity’s role in the emergence of cooperative behaviors. In contrast with previous results, we find that a different heterogeneity parameter domain range imposes an entirely different impact on the cooperation fraction. In the parameter range corresponding to networks with extremely high heterogeneity, the decrease in heterogeneity greatly promotes the proportion of cooperation strategy, while in the remaining parameter range, which relates to relatively homogeneous networks, the variation of heterogeneity barely affects the cooperation fraction. Also our study provides a detailed insight into the microscopic factors that contribute to the performance of cooperation frequency.     

The chemical zeno effect in exchange-coupled radical Pairs: 1. Triplet radical pairs

It was shown that spin-selective intracage recombination could influence the limiting triplet-singlet conversion stage and, therefore, the whole chemical dynamics. An increase in the rate constant for intracage recombination w decreases the S-T evolution frequency and changes its character by transforming the oscillating spin conversion mode into “kinetic.” As a result, an increase in w can decrease the yield of intracage recombination products and increase the yields of products formed in competing extracellular radical reaction channels. The chemical Zeno effect and its consequences are an analogue of the quantum Zeno effect (quantum evolution “deceleration” caused by successive measurements), and spin-selective recombination is similar to quantum state measurements.     

Connecting diffusion and dynamical heterogeneities in actively deformed amorphous systems

In this Letter, we explore the relations between tracer diffusion and flow heterogeneities in amorphous materials. On the basis of scaling arguments and an extensive numerical study of an athermal elastoplastic model, we show that there is a direct link between the self-diffusion coefficient and the size of cooperative regions at low strain rates. Both depend strongly on rate and system size. The mean square displacement of passive tracers thus gives information about the microscopic rheology, such as the geometry of cooperative regions and their scaling with strain rate and system size.