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We show how the approach to equilibrium in Kirmans ants model can be fully characterized in terms of the spectrum of a Schrodinger equation with a Poschl-Teller ($tan^2$) potential. Among other interesting properties, we have found that in the bimodal phase where ants visit mostly one food site at a time, the switch time between the two sources only depends on the ``spontaneous conversion rate and not on the recruitment rate. More complicated correlation functions can be computed exactly, and involve higher and higher eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the Schrodinger operator, which can be expressed in terms of hypergeometric functions.
We analyse the dynamics of fishing vessels with different home ports in an area where these vessels, in choosing where to fish, are influenced by their own experience in the past and by their current observation of the locations of other vessels in the fleet. Empirical data from the boats near Ancona and Pescara shows stylized statistical properties that are reminiscent of Kirman and Follmers ant recruitment model, although with two ant colonies represented by the two ports. From the point of view of a fisherman, the two fishing areas are not equally attractive, and he tends to prefer the one closer to where he is based. This piece of evidence led us to extend the original ants model to a situation with two asymmetric zones and finite resources. We show that, in the mean-field regime, our model exhibits the same properties as the empirical data. We obtain a phase diagram that separates high and low herding regimes, but also fish population extinction. Our analysis has interesting policy implications for the ecology of fishing areas. It also suggests that herding behaviour here, just as in financial markets, will lead to significant fluctuations in the amount of fish landed, as the boat concentration on one area at a given point in time will diminish the overall catch, such loss not being compensated by the reproduction of fish in the other area. In other terms, individually rational behaviour will not lead to collectively optimal results.
We introduce a basic model for human mobility that accounts for the different dynamics arising from individuals embarking on short trips (and returning to their home locations) and individuals relocating to a new home. The differences between the two modes of motion comes to light on contrasting two recent studies, one tracking the geographical location of dollar bills cite{brockmann}, the other that of mobile cell phones cite{gonzalez}. Trips introduce two characteristic time scales; the time between trips, $theta$, and the duration of each trip, $tau$, and relocations introduces a third time scale, $T$, for the time between relocations. In practice, $Tsim{rm years}$, $thetasim{rm months}$, and $tausim{rm days}$, so the three time scales are widely separated. Traditionally, studies incorporating human motion assume only a single mode, using a generic rate to account for all types of motion.
Industrial symbiosis involves creating integrated cycles of by-products and waste between networks of industrial actors in order to maximize economic value, while at the same time minimizing environmental strain. In such a network, the global environmental strain is no longer equal to the sum of the environmental strain of the individual actors, but it is dependent on how well the network performs as a whole. The development of methods to understand, manage or optimize such networks remains an open issue. In this paper we put forward a simulation model of by-product flow between industrial actors. The goal is to introduce a method for modelling symbiotic exchanges from a macro perspective. The model takes into account the effect of two main mechanisms on a multi-objective optimization of symbiotic processes. First it allows us to study the effect of geographical properties of the economic system, said differently, where actors are divided in space. Second, it allows us to study the effect of clustering complementary actors together as a function of distance, by means of a spatial correlation between the actors by-products. Our simulations unveil patterns that are relevant for macro-level policy. First, our results show that the geographical properties are an important factor for the macro performance of symbiotic processes. Second, spatial correlations, which can be interpreted as planned clusters such as Eco-industrial parks, can lead to a very effective macro performance, but only if these are strictly implemented. Finally, we provide a proof of concept by comparing the model to real world data from the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register database using georeferencing of the companies in the dataset. This work opens up research opportunities in interactive data-driven models and platforms to support real-world implementation of industrial symbiosis.
We analyze the dynamics of a population of independent random walkers on a graph and develop a simple model of epidemic spreading. We assume that each walker visits independently the nodes of a finite ergodic graph in a discrete-time markovian walk governed by his specific transition matrix. With this assumption, we first derive an upper bound for the reproduction numbers. Then we assume that a walker is in one of the states: susceptible, infectious, or recovered. An infectious walker remains infectious during a certain characteristic time. If an infectious walker meets a susceptible one on the same node there is a certain probability for the susceptible walker to get infected. By implementing this hypothesis in computer simulations we study the space-time evolution of the emerging infection patterns. Generally, random walk approaches seem to have a large potential to study epidemic spreading and to identify the pertinent parameters in epidemic dynamics.
Models of disease spreading are critical for predicting infection growth in a population and evaluating public health policies. However, standard models typically represent the dynamics of disease transmission between individuals using macroscopic parameters that do not accurately represent person-to-person variability. To address this issue, we present a dynamic network model that provides a straightforward way to incorporate both disease transmission dynamics at the individual scale as well as the full spatiotemporal history of infection at the population scale. We find that disease spreads through a social network as a traveling wave of infection, followed by a traveling wave of recovery, with the onset and dynamics of spreading determined by the interplay between disease transmission and recovery. We use these insights to develop a scaling theory that predicts the dynamics of infection for diverse diseases and populations. Furthermore, we show how spatial heterogeneities in susceptibility to infection can either exacerbate or quell the spread of disease, depending on its infectivity. Ultimately, our dynamic network approach provides a simple way to model disease spreading that unifies previous findings and can be generalized to diverse diseases, containment strategies, seasonal conditions, and community structures.