Publications by authors named "Contoyiannis Y"

In this paper, we present a new method for successfully simulating the dynamics of COVID-19, experimentally focusing on the third wave. This method, namely, the Method of Parallel Trajectories (MPT), is based on the recently introduced self-organized diffusion model. According to this method, accurate simulation of the dynamics of the COVID-19 infected population evolution is accomplished by considering not the total data for the infected population, but successive segments of it.

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Recently, it has been successfully shown that the temporal evolution of the fraction of COVID-19 infected people possesses the same dynamics as the ones demonstrated by a self-organizing diffusion model over a lattice, in the frame of universality. In this brief, the relevant emerging dynamics are further investigated. Evidence that this nonlinear model demonstrates critical dynamics is scrutinized within the frame of the physics of critical phenomena.

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In this work we present the statistical and criticality analysis of the very low frequency (VLF) sub-ionospheric propagation data recorded by a VLF/LF radio receiver which has recently been established at the University of West Attica in Athens (Greece). We investigate a very recent, strong (M6.9), and shallow earthquake (EQ) that occurred on 30 October 2020, very close to the northern coast of the island of Samos (Greece).

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The self-organizing mechanism is a universal approach that is widely followed in nature. In this work, a novel self-organizing model describing diffusion over a lattice is introduced. Simulation results for the model's active lattice sites demonstrate an evolution curve that is very close to those describing the evolution of infected European populations by COVID-19.

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The detection of power laws in real data is a demanding task for several reasons. The two most frequently met are that (i) real data possess noise, which affects the power-law tails significantly, and (ii) there is no solid tool for discrimination between a power law, valid in a specific range of scales, and other functional forms like log-normal or stretched exponential distributions. In the present report we demonstrate, employing simulated and real data, that using wavelets it is possible to overcome both of the above-mentioned difficulties and achieve secure detection of a power law and an accurate estimation of the associated exponent.

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This paper reports an attempt to use ultra-low-frequency (ULF) magnetic field data from a space weather monitoring magnetometer array in the study of earthquake (EQ) precursors in Greece. The data from four magnetometer stations of the Hellc eoagnetic rray () have been analyzed in the search for possible precursors to a strong EQ that occurred south of Lesvos Island on 12 June 2017, with magnitude Mw = 6.3 and focal depth = 12 km.

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Evidence that neural circuits are operating near criticality has been provided at various levels of brain organisation with a presumed role in maximising information processing and multiscale activity association. Criticality has been linked to excitation at both the single-cell and network levels, as action potential generation marks an obvious phase transition from a resting to an excitable state. Using in vitro intracellular recordings, we examine irregular, small amplitude membrane potential fluctuations from CA1 pyramidal neurons of Wistar male rats.

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The current fluctuations of a driven resistor-inductor-diode circuit are investigated here looking for signatures of critical behavior monitored by the driving frequency. The experimentally obtained time series of the voltage drop across the resistor (as directly proportional to the current flowing through the circuit) were analyzed by means of the method of critical fluctuations in analogy to thermal critical systems. Intermittent criticality was revealed for a critical frequency band signifying the transition between the normal rectifier phase in the low frequencies and a full-wave conducting, capacitorlike phase in the high frequencies.

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Recently it has been argued that the fluctuations of the order parameter of a system undergoing a second order transition, when considered as a time series, possess characteristic nonstochastic patterns at the critical point. These patterns can be described by a unimodal intermittent map (critical map) and are clearly distinguished from colored noise. In the present work we extend the method introduced in [Y.

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Abrupt transition in a sandpile model.

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys

March 2006

We present a fixed energy sandpile model which, by increasing the initial energy, undergoes, at the level of individual configurations, a discontinuous transition. The model is obtained by modifying the toppling procedure in the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld (BTW) [Phys. Rev.

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Fracture in disordered media is a complex problem for which a definitive physical and theoretical treatment is still lacking. We view earthquakes (EQ's) as large-scale fracture phenomena in the Earth's heterogeneous crust. Our main observational tool is the monitoring of the microfractures, which occur in the prefocal area before the final breakup, by recording their kHz-MHz electromagnetic (EM) emissions, with the MHz radiation appearing earlier than the kHz.

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We investigate the spontaneous contraction generated by the atria of a frog's heart isolated in a physiological solution. In the relaxation phase, the recorded time series for two different sampling rates possesses an intermittent component similar to the dynamics of the order parameter's fluctuations of a thermal critical system belonging to the mean field universality class. This behavior is not visible through conventional analysis in the frequency space due to the presence of Brownian noise dominating the corresponding power spectrum.

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We argue that the fluctuations of the order parameter in a complex system at the critical point can be described in terms of intermittent dynamics of type I. Based on this observation we develop an algorithm to calculate the isothermal critical exponent delta for a "thermal" critical system. We apply successfully our approach to the 3D Ising model.

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Fractal geometry of critical systems.

Phys Rev E Stat Phys Plasmas Fluids Relat Interdiscip Topics

September 2000

We investigate the geometry of a critical system undergoing a second-order thermal phase transition. Using a local description for the dynamics characterizing the system at the critical point T=T(c), we reveal the formation of clusters with fractal geometry, where the term cluster is used to describe regions with a nonvanishing value of the order parameter. We show that, treating the cluster as an open subsystem of the entire system, new instanton-like configurations dominate the statistical mechanics of the cluster.

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