Description: This article discusses cooperation in neural systems. Abstract: Inverse power law distributions are generally interpreted as a manifestation of complexity, and waiting time distributions with power index μ < 2 reflect the occurrence of ergodicity-breaking renewal events. In this paper we show how to combine these properties with the apparently foreign clocklike nature of biological processes. We use a two-dimensional regular network of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, each of which is linked to its four nearest neighbors, to show that both complexity and periodicity are generated by locality breakdown: Links of increasing strength have the effect of turning local interactions into long-range interactions, thereby generating time complexity followed by time periodicity. Increasing the density of neuron firings reduces the influence of periodicity, thus creating a cooperation-induced renewal condition that is distinctly non-Poissonian.

Description: This article discusses correlation function and generalized master equation of arbitrary age. Abstract: We study a two-state statistical process with a non-Poisson distribution of sojourn times. In accordance with earlier work, we find that this process is characterized by aging and we study three different ways to define the correlation function of arbitrary age of the corresponding dichotomous fluctuation. These three methods yield exact expressions, thus coinciding with the recent result by Godrèche and Luck [J. Stat. Phys. 104, 489 (2001)]. Actually, non-Poisson statistics yields infinite memory at the probability level, thereby breaking any form of Markovian approximation, including the one adopted herein, to find an approximated analytical formula. For this reason, we check the accuracy of this approximated formula by comparing it with the numerical treatment of the second of the three exact expressions. We find that, although not exact, a simple analytical expression for the correlation function of arbitrary age is very accurate. We establish a connection between the correlation function and a generalized master equation of the same age. Thus this formalism, related to models used in glassy materials, allows us to illustrate an approach to the statistical treatment of blinking quantum dots, bypassing the limitations fo ...

Description: This article discusses diffusion entropy and waiting time statistics of hard-x-ray solar flares. Abstract: We show at work a technique of scaling detection based on evaluating the Shannon entropy of the diffusion process obtained by converting the time series under study into trajectories. This method, called diffusion entropy, affords information that cannot be derived from the direct evaluation of waiting times. We apply this method to the analysis of the distribution of time distance τ between two nearest-neighbor solar flares. This traditional part of the analysis is based on the direct evaluation of the distribution function ψ(τ), or of the probability ψ(τ), that no time distance smaller than a given τ is found. We adopt the paradigm of the inverse power-law behavior, and the authors focus on the determination of the inverse power index μ, without ruling out different asymptotic properties that might be revealed, at larger scales, with the help of richer statistics. We then use the DE method, with three different walking rules, and the authors focus on the regime of transition to scaling. This regime of transition and the value of the scaling parameter itself, δ, depends on the walking rule adopted, a property of interest to ...

Description: This article discusses direct ionization and electron capture in M-shell x-ray production by fluorine ions. Abstract: Measurements of M-shell x-ray production cross sections are reported for thin solid targets of 79Au, 82Pb, 83Bi, and 92U. Fluorine ions of energies 25, 27, and 35 MeV and charge states of 4,5,6,8, and 9 were used. The microscopic cross sections were determined from measurements made with targets ranging in thickness from ~1 to ~300 μg/cm2. An enhancement in the target M-shell x-ray production cross section was observed for fluorine ions with one or two K-shell vacancies over those without a K-shell vacancy. The sums of cross sections for direct ionization to the target continuum and electron capture to the projectile's L,M,N,... shells are inferred from charge state q=4,5,6 data. The first Born calculations overpredict the cross-section data at all energies. Cross sections for electron capture from the target M shell to the projectile K shell for one (q = 8) and two (q = 9) K-shell vacancies in the projectile are also overpredicted by the first Born approximation for electron capture, i.e., the Oppenheimer-Brinkman-Kramers approximation of Nikolaev. The data are in good agreement with the ECPSSR theory of Brandt and Lapicki, which accounts ...

Description: This article discusses a dynamical approach to Lévy processes.Abstract: We derive the diffusion process generated by a correlated dichotomous fluctuating variable y starting from a Liouville-like equation by means of a projection procedure. This approach makes it possible to derive all statistical properties of the diffusion process from the correlation function of the dichotomous fluctuating variable Φy(t). Of special interest is that the distribution of the times of sojourn in the two states of the fluctuating process is proportional to d²Φy(t)/dt². Furthermore, in the special case where Φy(t) has an inverse power law, with the index β ranging from 0 to 1, thus making it nonintegrable, the authors show analytically that the statistics of the diffusing variable approximate in the long-time limit the α-stable Lévy distributions. The departure of the diffusion process of dynamical origin from the ideal condition of the Lévy statistics is established by means of a simple analytical expression. We note, first of all, that the characteristic function of a genuine Lévy process should be an exponential in time. We evaluate the correction to this exponential and show it to be expressed by a harmonic time oscillation modulated by the correlation function Φy(t). Since the characteristic function ...