scholarly journals Truncated power-law distribution of group sizes in antelope

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pranav Minasandra ◽  
Kavita Isvaran

SummaryGroup size distributions are instrumental in understanding group behaviour in animal populations. We analysed group size data of the blackbuck, Antilope cervicapra, from six different field sites to estimate the group size distribution of this antelope. We show that an exponentially truncated power law (called the polylog distribution in this paper) is the best fitting distribution, against the simple power law and lognormal distributions as other contenders, and the exponential distribution as a control. To show this, we use two likelihood based methods (AICs and likelihood ratios). Finally, we show that polylog distribution parameters can be used to better understand group dynamics, by using them to explore how habitat openness affects group behaviour.

Behaviour ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 157 (6) ◽  
pp. 541-558
Author(s):  
Pranav Minasandra ◽  
Kavita Isvaran

Abstract Quantifying and understanding group size distributions can be useful for understanding group behaviour in animal populations. We analysed group size data of the blackbuck, Antilope cervicapra, from six different field sites to estimate the group size distribution of this antelope. We used likelihood based methods (AICs and likelihood ratios) to show that an exponentially truncated power law is the distribution that best describes blackbuck group data, outperforming a simple power-law, an exponential distribution, and a lognormal distribution. Our results show that distribution parameters can be used to draw novel insights regarding group dynamics, and we demonstrate this by investigating how habitat openness affects group size distributions.


Fractals ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 139-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. K. SHIN ◽  
G. S. SHIN

An agent-based model is employed for the study of the group size distributions. A fixed number of homogeneous agents are distributed on a two-dimensional lattice system. The dynamics of the agents is described in terms of the inverse distance potential and the friction factor. From a random initial distribution, the agents move forming groups until all the agents come to a stationary position. For a squared system with L × L cells, the group size distribution showed a well defined power-law behavior up to the cut-off size. But when the system changed to an L × H non-squared one, a "geometric aging effect" emerged. Together with the phase transition, the geometric aging effect is considered to be a generic mechanism of the deviated power-law distributions, such as the "fall-off" and the three-bent-line distributions. The results are discussed in relation to the well-known physical or social phenomena such as the King Effect in the city size distributions, the fall-off distribution of the fish schools, the three-bent-line distributions of the Earth-crossing asteroids and 2D percolation problem.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghislain Romaric Meleu ◽  
Paulin Yonta Melatagia

AbstractUsing the headers of scientific papers, we have built multilayer networks of entities involved in research namely: authors, laboratories, and institutions. We have analyzed some properties of such networks built from data extracted from the HAL archives and found that the network at each layer is a small-world network with power law distribution. In order to simulate such co-publication network, we propose a multilayer network generation model based on the formation of cliques at each layer and the affiliation of each new node to the higher layers. The clique is built from new and existing nodes selected using preferential attachment. We also show that, the degree distribution of generated layers follows a power law. From the simulations of our model, we show that the generated multilayer networks reproduce the studied properties of co-publication networks.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A Garcia ◽  
Gregory Fettweis ◽  
Diego M Presman ◽  
Ville Paakinaho ◽  
Christopher Jarzynski ◽  
...  

Abstract Single-molecule tracking (SMT) allows the study of transcription factor (TF) dynamics in the nucleus, giving important information regarding the diffusion and binding behavior of these proteins in the nuclear environment. Dwell time distributions obtained by SMT for most TFs appear to follow bi-exponential behavior. This has been ascribed to two discrete populations of TFs—one non-specifically bound to chromatin and another specifically bound to target sites, as implied by decades of biochemical studies. However, emerging studies suggest alternate models for dwell-time distributions, indicating the existence of more than two populations of TFs (multi-exponential distribution), or even the absence of discrete states altogether (power-law distribution). Here, we present an analytical pipeline to evaluate which model best explains SMT data. We find that a broad spectrum of TFs (including glucocorticoid receptor, oestrogen receptor, FOXA1, CTCF) follow a power-law distribution of dwell-times, blurring the temporal line between non-specific and specific binding, suggesting that productive binding may involve longer binding events than previously believed. From these observations, we propose a continuum of affinities model to explain TF dynamics, that is consistent with complex interactions of TFs with multiple nuclear domains as well as binding and searching on the chromatin template.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Zhao ◽  
Mirco Musolesi ◽  
Pan Hui ◽  
Weixiong Rao ◽  
Sasu Tarkoma

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (07) ◽  
pp. 1345-1349 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSÉ A. S. LIMA ◽  
LUCIO MARASSI

A generalization of the Press–Schechter (PS) formalism yielding the mass function of bound structures in the Universe is given. The extended formula is based on a power law distribution which encompasses the Gaussian PS formula as a special case. The new method keeps the original analytical simplicity of the PS approach and also solves naturally its main difficult (the missing factor 2) for a given value of the free parameter.


2011 ◽  
Vol 116 (A10) ◽  
pp. n/a-n/a ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew B. Collier ◽  
Thomas Gjesteland ◽  
Nikolai Østgaard

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (S247) ◽  
pp. 279-287
Author(s):  
Patrick Antolin ◽  
Kazunari Shibata ◽  
Takahiro Kudoh ◽  
Daiko Shiota ◽  
David Brooks

AbstractAlfvén waves can dissipate their energy by means of nonlinear mechanisms, and constitute good candidates to heat and maintain the solar corona to the observed few million degrees. Another appealing candidate is the nanoflare-reconnection heating, in which energy is released through many small magnetic reconnection events. Distinguishing the observational features of each mechanism is an extremely difficult task. On the other hand, observations have shown that energy release processes in the corona follow a power law distribution in frequency whose index may tell us whether small heating events contribute substantially to the heating or not. In this work we show a link between the power law index and the operating heating mechanism in a loop. We set up two coronal loop models: in the first model Alfvén waves created by footpoint shuffling nonlinearly convert to longitudinal modes which dissipate their energy through shocks; in the second model numerous heating events with nanoflare-like energies are input randomly along the loop, either distributed uniformly or concentrated at the footpoints. Both models are based on a 1.5-D MHD code. The obtained coronae differ in many aspects, for instance, in the simulated intensity profile that Hinode/XRT would observe. The intensity histograms display power law distributions whose indexes differ considerably. This number is found to be related to the distribution of the shocks along the loop. We thus test the observational signatures of the power law index as a diagnostic tool for the above heating mechanisms and the influence of the location of nanoflares.


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