Description: This article discusses criticality and transmission of information in a swarm of cooperative units. Abstract: We show that the intelligence of a swarm of cooperative units (birds) emerges at criticality, as an effect of the joint action of frequent organizational collapses and of spatial correlation as extended as the flock size. The organizational collapses make the birds become independent of one another, thereby allowing the flock to follow the direction of the lookout birds. Long-range correlation violates the principle of locality, making the lookout birds transmit information on either danger or resources with a time delay determined by the time distance between two consecutive collapses.

Description: This article discusses experimental quenching of harmonic stimuli. Abstract: We show that liquid crystals in the weak turbulence electroconvective regime respond to harmonic perturbations with oscillations whose intensity decay with an inverse power law of time. We use the results of this experiment to prove that this effect is the manifestation of a form of linear response theory (LRT) valid in the out-of-equilibrium case, as well as at thermodynamic equilibrium where it reduces to the ordinary LRT. We argue that this theory is a universal property, which is not confined to physical processes such as turbulent or excitable media, and that it holds true in all possible conditions, and for all possible systems, including a complex networks, thereby establishing a bridge between statistical physics and all the fields of research in complexity.

Description: This article discusses AGC kinase genes. Abstract: The AGC protein kinase family (cAMP-dependent protein kinases A, cGMP-dependent protein kinases G, and phospholipid-dependent protein kinases C) have important roles regulating growth and development in animals and fungi. They are activated via lipid second messengers by 3-phosphoinositide-dependent protein kinase coupling lipid signals to phosphorylation of the AGC kinases. These phosphorylate downstream signal transduction protein targets. AGC kiinases are becoming better studied in plants, especially in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), where specific AGC kinases have been shown to have key roles in regulating growth signal pathways. The authors report here the isolation and characterization of the first AGC kinase gene identified in Medicago truncatula, MtIRE. It was cloned by homology with the Arabidopsis INCOMPLETE ROOT HAIR ELONGATION (IRE) gene. Semiquantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analysis shows that, unlike its Arabidopsis counterpart, MtIRE is not expressed in uninoculated roots, but is expressed in root systems that have been inoculated with Sinorhizobium meliloti and are developing root nodules. MtIRE expression is also found in flowers. Expression analysis of a time course of nodule development and of nodulating root systems of many Medicago nodulation mutants shows MtIRE expression correlates with infected cell maturation during nodule development. During ...

Description: This article discusses aging rejuvenation with fractional derivatives. Abstract: We discuss a dynamic procedure that makes a fractional derivatives emerge in the time asymptotic limit of non-Poisson processes. We find that two-state fluctuations, with an inverse power-law distribution of waiting times, finite first moment, and divergent second moment, namely, with the power index μ in the interval 2<μ<3, yield a generalized master equation equivalent to the sum of an ordinary Markov contribution and a fractional derivative term. We show that the order of the fractional derivative depends on the age of the process under study. If the system is infinitely old, the order of the fractional derivative, o, is given by o=3-μ. A brand new system is characterized by the degree o=μ-2. If the system is prepared at time -tₐ<0 and the observation begins at time t=0, we derive the following scenario. For times 0<t«tₐ the system is satisfactorily described by the fractional derivative with o=3-μ. Upon time increase the system undergoes a rejuvenation process that in the time limit t⪢tₐ yields o=μ-2. The intermediate time regime is probably incompatible with a picture based on fractional derivatives, or, at least, with a mono-order fractional derivative.

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 ...