A dynamic agent model is introduced with an annual random wealth multiplicative process followed by taxes paid according to a linear wealth-dependent tax rate. If poor agents pay higher tax rates than rich agents, eventually all wealth becomes concen
trated in the hands of a single agent. By contrast, if poor agents are subject to lower tax rates, the economic collective process continues forever.
In this work, we present a comparative study of the accuracy provided by the Wang-Landau sampling and the Broad Histogram method to estimate de density of states of the two dimensional Ising ferromagnet. The microcanonical averages used to describe t
he thermodynamic behaviour and to use the Broad Histogram method were obtained using the single spin-flip Wang-Landau sampling, attempting to convergence issues and accuracy improvements. We compare the results provided by both techniques with the exact ones for thermodynamic properties and critical exponents. Our results, within the Wang-Landau sampling, reveal that the Broad Histogram approach provides a better description of the density of states for all cases analysed.
Flow of viscous fluids are not usually discussed in detail in general and basic courses of physics. This is due in part to the fact that the Navier-Stokes equation has analytical solution only for a few restricted cases, while more sophisticated prob
lems can only be solved by numerical methods. In this text, we present a computer simulation of wind tunnel, i.e., we present a set of programs to solve the Navier-Stokes equation for an arbitrary object inserted in a wind tunnel. The tunnel enables us to visualize the formation of vortices behind object, the so-called von Karman vortices, and calculate the drag force on the object. We believe that this numerical wind tunnel can support the teacher and allow a more elaborate discussion of viscous flow. The potential of the tunnel is exemplified by the study of the drag on a simplified model of wing whose angle of attack can be controlled. A link to download the programs that make up the tunnel appears at the end.
In this work we study opinion formation in a population participating of a public debate with two distinct choices. We considered three distinct mechanisms of social interactions and individuals behavior: conformity, nonconformity and inflexibility.
The conformity is ruled by the majority-rule dynamics, whereas the nonconformity is introduced in the population as an independent behavior, implying the failure to attempted group influence. Finally, the inflexible agents are introduced in the population with a given density. These individuals present a singular behavior, in a way that their stubbornness makes them reluctant to change their opinions. We consider these effects separately and all together, with the aim to analyze the critical behavior of the system. We performed numerical simulations in some lattice structures and for distinct population sizes, and our results suggest that the different formulations of the model undergo order-disorder phase transitions in the same universality class of the Ising model. Some of our results are complemented by analytical calculations.
Street demonstrations occur across the world. In Rio de Janeiro, June/July 2013, they reach beyond one million people. A wrathful reader of textit{O Globo}, leading newspaper in the same city, published a letter cite{OGlobo} where many social questio
ns are stated and answered Yes or No. These million people of street demonstrations share opinion consensus about a similar set of social issues. But they did not reach this consensus within such a huge numbered meetings. Earlier, they have met in diverse small groups where some of them could be convinced to change mind by other few fellows. Suddenly, a macroscopic consensus emerges. Many other big manifestations are widespread all over the world in recent times, and are supposed to remain in the future. The interesting questions are: 1) How a binary-option opinion distributed among some population evolves in time, through local changes occurred within small-group meetings? and 2) Is there some natural selection rule acting upon? Here, we address these questions through an agent-based model.
An evolutionary tree is a cascade of bifurcations starting from a single common root, generating a growing set of daughter species as time goes by. Species here is a general denomination for biological species, spoken languages or any other entity ev
olving through heredity. From the N currently alive species within a clade, distances are measured through pairwise comparisons made by geneticists, linguists, etc. The larger is such a distance for a pair of species, the older is their last common ancestor. The aim is to reconstruct the past unknown bifurcations, i.e. the whole clade, from the knowledge of the N(N-1)/2 quoted distances taken for granted. A mechanical method is presented, and its applicability discussed.
In this work we study a modified version of the two-dimensional Sznajd sociophysics model. In particular, we consider the effects of agents reputations in the persuasion rules. In other words, a high-reputation group with a common opinion may convinc
e their neighbors with probability $p$, which induces an increase of the groups reputation. On the other hand, there is always a probability $q=1-p$ of the neighbors to keep their opinions, which induces a decrease of the groups reputation. These rules describe a competition between groups with high reputation and hesitant agents, which makes the full-consensus states (with all spins pointing in one direction) more difficult to be reached. As consequences, the usual phase transition does not occur for $p<p_{c} sim 0.69$ and the system presents realistic democracy-like situations, where the majority of spins are aligned in a certain direction, for a wide range of parameters.
A small and light polystyrene ball is released without initial speed from a certain height above the floor. Then, it falls on air. The main responsible for the friction force against the movement is the wake of successive air vortices which form behi
nd (above) the falling ball, a turbulent phenomenon. After the wake appears, the friction force compensates the Earth gravitational attraction and the ball speed stabilises in a certain limiting value Vl. Before the formation of the turbulent wake, however, the friction force is not strong enough, allowing the initially growing speed to surpass the future final value Vl. Only after the wake finally becomes long enough, the ball speed decreases and reaches the proper Vl.
This paper presents Monte Carlo simulations of language populations and the development of language families, showing how a simple model can lead to distributions similar to the ones observed empirically. The model used combines features of two model
s used in earlier work by phycisists for the simulation of competition among languages: the Viviane model for the migration of people and propagation of languages and the Schulze model, which uses bitstrings as a way of characterising structural features of languages.
We study the genetic behaviour of a population formed by haploid individuals which reproduce asexually. The genetic information for each individual is stored along a bit-string (or chromosome) with L bits, where 0-bits represent the wild-type allele
and 1-bits correspond to harmful mutations. Each newborn inherits this chromosome from its parent with some few random mutations: on average a fixed number m of bits are flipped. Selection is implemented according to the number N of 1-bits counted along the individuals chromosome: the smaller N the higher the probability an individual has to survive a new time step. Such a population evolves, with births and deaths, and its genetic distribution becomes stabilised after many enough generations have passed. The question we pose concerns the procedure of increasing L. The aim is to get the same distribution of relative genetic loads N/L among the equilibrated population, in spite of a larger L. Should we keep the same mutation rate m/L for different values of L? The answer is yes, which intuitively seems to be plausible. However, this conclusion is not trivial, according to our simulational results: the question involves also the population size.
