The Potts model was one of the most popular physics models of the twentieth century in an interdisciplinary context. It has been applied to a large variety of problems. Many generalizations exists and a whole range of models were inspired by this statistical physics tool. Here we present how a generic Potts model can be used to study complex data. As a demonstration, we engage our model in the analysis of night light patterns of human settlements observed on space photographs.
Topics: Applications, Physics, Physics and Society, Statistics, Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Source: http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.04229

Specialization and diversification are two major strategies that complex systems might exploit. Given a fixed amount of resources, the question is whether to invest this in elements that respond in a correlated manner to external perturbations, or to build a diversified system with groups of elements that respond in a not necessarily correlated manner. This general dilemma is investigated here using a high dimensional discrete dynamical system subject to an external noise, analyzing the...
Topics: Physics, Nonlinear Sciences, Risk Management, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Methods, Physics...
Source: http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.4756