Bilinear effect in complex systems

The distribution of the lifetime of Chinese dynasties (as well as that of the British Isles and Japan) in a linear Zipf plot is found to consist of two straight lines intersecting at a transition point. This two-section piecewise-linear distribution is different from the power law or the stretched e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEurophysics letters Vol. 91; no. 6; pp. 68004 - 68008
Main Authors Lam, Lui, Bellavia, David C, Han, Xiao-Pu, Alston Liu, Chih-Hui, Shu, Chang-Qing, Wei, Zhengjin, Zhou, Tao, Zhu, Jichen
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published IOP Publishing 01.09.2010
EPS, SIF, EDP Sciences and IOP Publishing
Subjects
89.75.-k
89.75.Fb
89.75.Hc
British
Complex systems
Construction
Mathematical models
Networks
Power law
Straight lines
Transition points
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Summary:The distribution of the lifetime of Chinese dynasties (as well as that of the British Isles and Japan) in a linear Zipf plot is found to consist of two straight lines intersecting at a transition point. This two-section piecewise-linear distribution is different from the power law or the stretched exponent distribution, and is called the Bilinear Effect for short. With assumptions mimicking the organization of ancient Chinese regimes, a 3-layer network model is constructed. Numerical results of this model show the bilinear effect, providing a plausible explanation of the historical data. The bilinear effect in two other social systems is presented, indicating that such a piecewise-linear effect is widespread in social systems.
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ISSN:0295-5075
1286-4854
DOI:10.1209/0295-5075/91/68004