Tails and Ties

Abstract.The study of behavioural and social phenomena has experienced a surge of interest over the last decade. One reason for this great attention is the huge amount of high quality data made available by the internet technologies. The many studies spanning concepts and problems belonging to economics, biology, ecology, physics and computer science, clearly indicates increasing interdisciplinary cross-fertilization, commonalities in the different approaches and communication across these disciplines. This issue of The European Physical Journal B is devoted to the interdisciplinary field of Sociophysics. The papers have been selected from the contributions presented at the 5th International Conference on “Applications of Physics in Financial Analysis" (APFA5) held in Torino from June 29th to July 1st 2006 (http://www.polito.it/apfa5). The synergy and richness of results obtained from the investigation of problems belonging to the area of complexity science from different perspectives clearly indicates future directions and research methodologies in this field.

[1]  Cohen,et al.  Resilience of the internet to random breakdowns , 2000, Physical review letters.

[2]  Dietrich Stauffer,et al.  Microscopic and macroscopic simulation of competition between languages , 2005 .

[3]  Yair Amichai-Hamburger,et al.  The Contact Hypothesis Reconsidered: Interacting via the Internet , 2006, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[4]  Duncan J. Watts,et al.  Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks , 1998, Nature.

[5]  Arnab Chatterjee,et al.  Small-world properties of the Indian railway network. , 2003, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[6]  H. Stanley,et al.  The growth of business firms: theoretical framework and empirical evidence. , 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[7]  M. Schroeder.  Sequences from number theory for physics, signal processing, and art , 2003 .

[8]  Clelia M. Bordogna,et al.  Statistical methods applied to the study of opinion formation models: a brief overview and results of a numerical study of a model based on the social impact theory , 2007 .

[9]  H E Stanley,et al.  Analysis of clusters formed by the moving average of a long-range correlated time series. , 2004, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[10]  Bikas K. Chakrabarti,et al.  Statistical mechanics of money: how saving propensity affects its distribution , 2000, cond-mat/0004256.

[11]  Albert,et al.  Emergence of scaling in random networks , 1999, Science.

[12]  Stefan Richter,et al.  Parameterized power domination complexity , 2006, Inf. Process. Lett..

[13]  E. Ben-Naim,et al.  On the structure of competitive societies , 2005, physics/0512144.

[14]  D. Sornette,et al.  Response Functions to Critical Shocks in Social Sciences , 2004, cond-mat/0402408.

[15]  S. N. Dorogovtsev,et al.  Self-organization of collaboration networks. , 2004, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[16]  L. Amaral,et al.  Scaling behaviour in the growth of companies , 1996, Nature.

[17]  V. Latora,et al.  Complex networks: Structure and dynamics , 2006 .

[18]  Walter Willinger,et al.  Scaling phenomena in the Internet: Critically examining criticality , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[19]  F. Slanina.  Inelastically scattering particles and wealth distribution in an open economy. , 2003, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[20]  M. E. Naschie.  Thomas Mann and Heinrich Mann, Dual Brothers and Complimentary Genius Embraced by Complex Reality , 2006 .

[21]  Marcel Ausloos,et al.  Self-citations, co-authorships and keywords: A new approach to scientists’ field mobility? , 2007, Scientometrics.

[22]  Nigel Thrift,et al.  The Place of Complexity , 1999 .

[23]  Middleton,et al.  Self-organization and a dynamical transition in traffic-flow models. , 1992, Physical review. A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

[24]  Charles J. Fornaciari,et al.  Making the quantum leap: Lessons from physics on studying spirituality and religion in organizations , 2001 .

[25]  Damián H. Zanette,et al.  Zipf's law and the creation of musical context , 2004, ArXiv.

[26]  Teemu Leppänen,et al.  Modeling language competition , 2004 .

[27]  Marcel Ausloos,et al.  Statistical dynamics of religions and adherents , 2007 .

[28]  Guido Caldarelli,et al.  Universal scaling relations in food webs , 2003, Nature.

[29]  Thomas C. Schelling,et al.  Dynamic models of segregation , 1971 .

[30]  Roberto Zarama,et al.  Universal patterns underlying ongoing wars and terrorism , 2006 .

[31]  Dirk Helbing,et al.  How Individuals Learn to Take Turns: Emergence of Alternating Cooperation in a Congestion Game and the Prisoner's Dilemma , 2005, Adv. Complex Syst..

[32]  Vittorio Loreto,et al.  Nonequilibrium dynamics of language games on complex networks. , 2006, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[33]  Guillaume Deffuant,et al.  How can extremism prevail? A study based on the relative agreement interaction model , 2002, J. Artif. Soc. Soc. Simul..

[34]  W. Richard Scott,et al.  Reflections on a Half-Century of Organizational Sociology , 2004 .

[35]  M. Ausloos,et al.  Growing network with j-redirection , 2007 .

[36]  R. Mantegna,et al.  Zipf plots and the size distribution of firms , 1995 .

[37]  M. Ausloos,et al.  Time-evolving distribution of time lags between commercial airline disasters , 2006 .

[38]  L. Edelstein-Keshet,et al.  Complexity, pattern, and evolutionary trade-offs in animal aggregation. , 1999, Science.

[39]  Understanding scale invariance in a minimal model of complex relaxation phenomena , 2004, cond-mat/0404477.

[40]  D. Shapero,et al.  A theory of social imitation , 1974 .

[41]  S. Redner,et al.  Voter model on heterogeneous graphs. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[42]  Tang,et al.  Self-Organized Criticality: An Explanation of 1/f Noise , 2011 .

[43]  Lev Muchnik,et al.  Bioinformatics Original Paper Copying Nodes versus Editing Links: the Source of the Difference between Genetic Regulatory Networks and the Www , 2022 .

[44]  Mark E. J. Newman,et al.  Structure and Dynamics of Networks , 2009 .

[45]  Markus Koppenberger,et al.  Topology of music recommendation networks. , 2006, Chaos.

[46]  Stylized facts in minority games with memory: a new challenge , 2004, cond-mat/0401628.

[47]  Didier Sornette,et al.  Endogenous Versus Exogenous Shocks in Complex Networks: An Empirical Test Using Book Sale Rankings , 2003 .

[48]  Shlomo Havlin,et al.  Transport in weighted networks: partition into superhighways and roads. , 2006, Physical review letters.

[49]  Andrzej Pekalski,et al.  Self-organized packs selection in predator-prey ecosystems. , 2006, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[50]  Sorin Solomon,et al.  Power laws in cities population, financial markets and internet sites (scaling in systems with a variable number of components) , 2000 .

[51]  R. Axelrod,et al.  The Further Evolution of Cooperation , 1988, Science.

[52]  William J. Reed,et al.  On the distribution of family names , 2003 .

[53]  E Bonabeau,et al.  Scaling in animal group-size distributions. , 1999, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[54]  Europhysics Letters PREPRINT , 2002 .

[55]  Michael Schreckenberg,et al.  A cellular automaton model for freeway traffic , 1992 .

[56]  Bruce T. Milne,et al.  Nonlinear scaling of space use in human hunter–gatherers , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[57]  Marcel Ausloos,et al.  Evolution of economic entities under heterogeneous political/environmental conditions within a Bak–Sneppen-like dynamics , 2004 .

[58]  K. Kaski,et al.  A Model For Social Networks , 2006, physics/0601114.

[59]  Albert-László Barabási,et al.  Hierarchical organization in complex networks. , 2003, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[60]  Katarzyna Sznajd-Weron,et al.  Who is left, who is right? , 2005 .

[61]  Paul F. Zweifel.  The Mathematical Physics of Music , 2005 .

[62]  G. Theraulaz,et al.  Inspiration for optimization from social insect behaviour , 2000, Nature.

[63]  S V Buldyrev,et al.  Self-organized complexity in economics and finance , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[64]  Alessandro Vespignani,et al.  Explaining the uneven distribution of numbers in nature: the laws of Benford and Zipf , 2001 .

[65]  Bikas K. Chakrabarti,et al.  Econophysics of Wealth Distributions , 2005 .

[66]  May McCreaddie.  You must be joking. , 2008, Nursing standard (Royal College of Nursing (Great Britain) : 1987).

[67]  J. Davies.  The individual success of musicians, like that of physicists, follows a stretched exponential distribution , 2002 .

[68]  A. O. Sousa,et al.  Outward-inward information flux in an opinion formation model on different topologies , 2006 .

[69]  M. San Miguel,et al.  Neighborhood models of minority opinion spreading , 2004, cond-mat/0403339.

[70]  J. Rodenburg.  Physics, economics and Hollywood , 1999 .

[71]  Paul Ormerod,et al.  to be published , 1995 .

[72]  Rosanna E. Guadagno,et al.  Persuade him by email, but see her in person: Online persuasion revisited , 2007, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[73]  Baruch Vilensky,et al.  Can analysis of word frequency distinguish between writings of different authors , 1996 .

[74]  Martin Fishbein,et al.  Tell me more: Sensation seeking and information seeking in evaluating romantic partners , 2006 .

[75]  Michalis Faloutsos.  You must be joking...: should the internet have an ON/OFF switch? , 2006, CCRV.

[76]  W. Weidlich,et al.  THE STATISTICAL DESCRIPTION OF POLARIZATION PHENOMENA IN SOCIETY , 1971 .

[77]  D. Turcotte,et al.  Self-organized criticality , 1999 .

[78]  C. Edwin.  A brief history of physics and religion , 1999 .

[79]  M. Newman,et al.  Nonequilibrium phase transition in the coevolution of networks and opinions. , 2006, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[80]  Andrzej Pekalski,et al.  A short guide to predator-prey lattice models , 2004, Computing in Science & Engineering.

[81]  George J. Stigler,et al.  Public Regulation of the Securities Markets , 1964 .

[82]  M. Sarvary,et al.  A renormalization group theory of cultural evolution , 2003, nlin/0312070.

[83]  J. S. Andrade,et al.  Generalized Zipf's law in proportional voting processes , 2003 .

[84]  Omar Lizardo,et al.  How CCultural TTastes SShape PPersonal NNetworks , 2006 .

[85]  Riccardo Zecchina,et al.  Statistical mechanics of combinatorial auctions. , 2006, Physical review letters.

[86]  Wolfgang Weidlich,et al.  Sociodynamics: a Systematic Approach to Mathematical Modelling in the Social Sciences , 2000 .

[87]  L. Amaral,et al.  The web of human sexual contacts , 2001, Nature.

[88]  Matteo Marsili,et al.  The rise and fall of a networked society: a formal model. , 2004, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[89]  S. Havlin,et al.  Self-similarity of complex networks , 2005, Nature.

[90]  M. Schnegg.  Reciprocity And The Emergence Of Power Laws In Social Networks , 2006, physics/0603005.

[91]  Uta Berger,et al.  Pattern-Oriented Modeling of Agent-Based Complex Systems: Lessons from Ecology , 2005, Science.

[92]  John Urry,et al.  Small Worlds and the New ‘Social Physics’ , 2004 .

[93]  Stefan Bornholdt,et al.  Emergence of a small world from local interactions: modeling acquaintance networks. , 2002, Physical review letters.

[94]  S. Galam,et al.  Sociophysics: A new approach of sociological collective behaviour. I. mean‐behaviour description of a strike , 1982, 2211.07041.

[95]  Michael T. Gastner,et al.  The spatial structure of networks , 2006 .

[96]  G. Caldarelli,et al.  Assortative model for social networks. , 2003, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[97]  R Pastor-Satorras,et al.  Dynamical and correlation properties of the internet. , 2001, Physical review letters.

[98]  Vittorio Loreto,et al.  Semiotic dynamics and collaborative tagging , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[99]  Gábor Csárdi,et al.  Dynamics of Citation Networks , 2006, ICANN.

[100]  Eric Bonabeau,et al.  Decision Spread in the Corporate Board Network , 2003, Adv. Complex Syst..

[101]  M. E. J. Newman,et al.  Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf's law , 2005 .

[102]  Kenneth Falconer,et al.  Fractal Geometry: Mathematical Foundations and Applications , 1990 .

[103]  Andrei Z. Broder,et al.  Graph structure in the Web , 2000, Comput. Networks.

[104]  F. Schweitzer,et al.  Modelling collective opinion formation by means of active Brownian particles , 1999, adap-org/9911005.

[105]  In search for the optimal strategy in population dynamics , 2002 .

[106]  Igor Mandel,et al.  Statistical physics of media processes: Mediaphysics , 2007 .

[107]  M. Fossett,et al.  Ethnic Preferences, Social Distance Dynamics, and Residential Segregation: Theoretical Explorations Using Simulation Analysis* , 2006 .

[108]  R. May,et al.  Infectious disease dynamics: What characterizes a successful invader? , 2001, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[109]  Rainer Hegselmann,et al.  Opinion dynamics and bounded confidence: models, analysis and simulation , 2002, J. Artif. Soc. Soc. Simul..

[110]  M Ausloos,et al.  Uncovering collective listening habits and music genres in bipartite networks. , 2005, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[111]  Jose Roberto Iglesias,et al.  Living in an irrational society: Wealth distribution with correlations between risk and expected profits , 2006 .

[112]  Avishalom Tor,et al.  Ranks and Rivals: A Theory of Competition , 2006, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[113]  Francisco C. Santos,et al.  Cooperation Prevails When Individuals Adjust Their Social Ties , 2006, PLoS Comput. Biol..

[114]  Alan Kirman,et al.  Economics and Complexity , 2004, Adv. Complex Syst..

[115]  Laxmidhar Behera,et al.  On Spatial Consensus Formation: Is The Sznajd Model Different From A Voter Model? , 2003 .

[116]  D. Stauffer,et al.  Persistence of opinion in the Sznajd consensus model: computer simulation , 2002 .

[117]  Ramon Ferrer i Cancho,et al.  The small world of human language , 2001, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[118]  C. Şuţeanu,et al.  Complexity, Science and the Public , 2005 .

[119]  H. Wio,et al.  Van Kampen's expansion approach in an opinion formation model , 2006, physics/0603047.

[120]  S. N. Dorogovtsev,et al.  Pseudofractal scale-free web. , 2001, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[121]  Raúl Toral,et al.  Role of dimensionality in Axelrod's model for the dissemination of culture , 2003 .

[122]  M. Morris,et al.  Telling tails explain the discrepancy in sexual partner reports , 1993, Nature.

[123]  Steven F. Railsback,et al.  Agent-Based Models in Ecology: Patterns and Alternative Theories of Adaptive Behaviour , 2006 .

[124]  Alison Abbott.  Fractals and art: In the hands of a master , 2006, Nature.

[125]  D. Watts.  A twenty-first century science , 2007, Nature.

[126]  Michael Batty,et al.  Agents, Cells, and Cities: New Representational Models for Simulating Multiscale Urban Dynamics , 2005 .

[127]  Patrick Thiran,et al.  Layered complex networks. , 2006, Physical review letters.

[128]  A. O. Sousa,et al.  Renormalizing Sznajd model on complex networks taking into account the effects of growth mechanisms , 2006 .

[129]  D. Stauffer,et al.  Evolutionary ecologyin silico: Does mathematical modelling help in understanding ‘generic’ trends? , 2005, Journal of Biosciences.

[130]  S. Galam.  Application of statistical physics to politics , 1999, cond-mat/0004306.

[131]  Tian Zheng,et al.  How Many People Do You Know in Prison? , 2006 .

[132]  H. Markowitz,et al.  Investment rules, margin, and market volatility , 1989 .

[133]  Paul Ormerod,et al.  The Medieval inquisition: scale-free networks and the suppression of heresy , 2004 .

[134]  A. O. Sousa.  Consensus formation on a triad scale-free network , 2005 .

[135]  X. Gabaix.  Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation , 1999 .

[136]  Scott Kirkpatrick,et al.  Selfish vs. Unselfish Optimization of Network Creation , 2005, ArXiv.

[137]  Efficiency and persistence in models of adaptation , 2001, cond-mat/0105189.

[138]  Damián H. Zanette,et al.  Opinion spreading and agent segregation on evolving networks , 2006 .

[139]  Serge Galam,et al.  Local dynamics vs. social mechanisms: A unifying frame , 2005 .

[140]  S. Galam.  Minority opinion spreading in random geometry , 2002, cond-mat/0203553.

[141]  Guy Theraulaz,et al.  Phase diagram of a model of self-organizing hierarchies , 1995 .

[142]  Ted Fuller,et al.  Entrepreneurship as foresight: a complex social network perspective on organisational foresight , 2006 .

[143]  Henrik Jeldtoft Jensen,et al.  Self-Organized Criticality: Emergent Complex Behavior in Physical and Biological Systems , 1998 .

[144]  Nick Yee,et al.  The Demographics, Motivations, and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively Multi-User Online Graphical Environments , 2006, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[145]  Eric Bonabeau,et al.  Agent-based modeling: Methods and techniques for simulating human systems , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[146]  J. Potterat,et al.  Social networks and infectious disease: the Colorado Springs Study. , 1994, Social science & medicine.

[147]  Youngki Lee,et al.  Power-law distribution of family names in Japanese societies , 1999, cond-mat/9912035.

[148]  C. Lee Giles,et al.  Accessibility of information on the web , 1999, Nature.

[149]  David O'Sullivan.  Complexity science and human geography , 2004 .

[150]  Debra R. Comer,et al.  Self-Organization in Small Groups: A Study of Group Effectiveness Within Non-Equilibrium Conditions , 1994 .

[151]  Lada A. Adamic,et al.  Friends and neighbors on the Web , 2003, Soc. Networks.

[152]  Kanter,et al.  Markov processes: Linguistics and Zipf's law. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[153]  Strategies for the evolution of sex. , 2001, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[154]  J. Curry,et al.  Stochastic aspects of one-dimensional discrete dynamical systems: Benford's law. , 2001, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[155]  Peter W. Liesch,et al.  The Contagion of International Terrorism and its Effects on the Firm in an Interconnected World , 2006 .

[156]  G. Caldarelli,et al.  The fractal properties of Internet , 2000, cond-mat/0009178.

[157]  H. Russell Bernard,et al.  Investigating the Variation of Personal Network Size Under Unknown Error Conditions , 2006 .

[158]  Marcel Ausloos,et al.  On the genre-fication of music: a percolation approach , 2005, ArXiv.

[159]  Vittorio Loreto,et al.  Collaborative Tagging and Semiotic Dynamics , 2006, ArXiv.

[160]  R. Boudon.  Beyond Rational Choice Theory , 2003 .

[161]  Philip Clayton.  EMERGENCE FROM PHYSICS TO THEOLOGY: TOWARD A PANORAMIC VIEW , 2006 .

[162]  L. Pries.  Configurations of geographic and societal spaces: a sociological proposal between ‘methodological nationalism’ and the ‘spaces of flows’ , 2005 .

[163]  Michael Batty,et al.  Environment and Planning B , 1982 .

[164]  M. Birnbaum.  Human research and data collection via the internet. , 2004, Annual review of psychology.

[165]  H. Föllmer.  Random economies with many interacting agents , 1974 .

[166]  Harsh Mathur,et al.  Fractal Analysis: Revisiting Pollock's drip paintings , 2006, Nature.

[167]  Rob Heylen,et al.  Adaptive Thresholds for Layered Neural Networks with Synaptic Noise , 2006, ICANN.

[168]  F. Jones,et al.  Simulation Models of Group Segregation , 1985 .

[169]  Reuven Cohen,et al.  Optimal path in random networks with disorder: A mini review , 2005 .

[170]  J. Álvarez-Ramírez,et al.  Scale invariance in the 2003–2005 Iraq conflict☆ , 2007 .

[171]  Nick Crossley.  Book Reviews: Review article: The New Social Physics and the Science of Small World Networks , 2005 .

[172]  Moshe Levy,et al.  The Forbes 400 and the Pareto wealth distribution , 2006 .

[173]  Albert-László Barabási,et al.  Error and attack tolerance of complex networks , 2000, Nature.

[174]  Xinping Xu,et al.  Scaling and correlations in three bus-transport networks of China , 2007, 0708.2606.

[175]  Adrian Furnham,et al.  The Positive Net , 2007, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[176]  Marcel Ausloos,et al.  AN ATTEMPT TO OBSERVE ECONOMY GLOBALIZATION: THE CROSS CORRELATION DISTANCE EVOLUTION OF THE TOP 19 GDP'S , 2006 .

[177]  D. Stauffer,et al.  Non-equilibrium and irreversible simulation of competition among languages , 2006, physics/0601160.

[178]  P. Ivanov,et al.  Variance fluctuations in nonstationary time series: a comparative study of music genres , 2003, cond-mat/0312380.

[179]  S. Bornholdt,et al.  Scale-free topology of e-mail networks. , 2002, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[180]  S. Havlin.  The distance between Zipf plots , 1995 .

[181]  M. Newman,et al.  The structure of scientific collaboration networks. , 2000, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[182]  H E Stanley,et al.  Linguistic features of noncoding DNA sequences. , 1994, Physical review letters.

[183]  D. Helbing.  Traffic and related self-driven many-particle systems , 2000, cond-mat/0012229.

[184]  L. Peliti,et al.  Opinion dynamics in a three-choice system , 2005, cond-mat/0504254.

[185]  D S Callaway,et al.  Network robustness and fragility: percolation on random graphs. , 2000, Physical review letters.

[186]  S H Strogatz,et al.  Random graph models of social networks , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[187]  B. Kogut,et al.  The Small World of Germany and the Durability of National Networks , 2001, American Sociological Review.

[188]  J. McCauley.  Making dynamic modeling effective in economics , 2005 .

[189]  George Kingsley Zipf,et al.  Human behavior and the principle of least effort , 1949 .

[190]  S. Strogatz,et al.  Linguistics: Modelling the dynamics of language death , 2003, Nature.

[191]  L. Kirkpatrick.  Toward an evolutionary psychology of religion and personality , 1999 .

[192]  Andrea Capocci,et al.  Sex-oriented stable matchings of the marriage problem with correlated and incomplete information , 2001 .

[193]  A. Carbone,et al.  Second-order moving average and scaling of stochastic time series , 2002 .

[194]  Raymond A. K. Cox,et al.  Patterns of Productivity in the Finance Literature: A Study of the Bibliometric Distributions , 1990 .

[195]  Yamir Moreno,et al.  Theory of Rumour Spreading in Complex Social Networks , 2007, ArXiv.

[196]  Alessandro Vespignani,et al.  Epidemic spreading in scale-free networks. , 2000, Physical review letters.

[197]  Richard Taylor.  Science in culture , 2001, Nature.

[198]  Gerard Weisbuch.  Bounded confidence and social networks , 2004 .

[199]  S. Redner.  How popular is your paper? An empirical study of the citation distribution , 1998, cond-mat/9804163.