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Variational principle underlying scale invariant social systems

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Abstract

MaxEnt’s variational principle, in conjunction with Shannon’s logarithmic information measure, yields only exponential functional forms in straightforward fashion. In this communication we show how to overcome this limitation via the incorporation, into the variational process, of suitable dynamical information. As a consequence, we are able to formulate a somewhat generalized Shannonian maximum entropy approach which provides a unifying “thermodynamic-like” explanation for the scale-invariant phenomena observed in social contexts, as city-population distributions. We confirm the MaxEnt predictions by means of numerical experiments with random walkers, and compare them with some empirical data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Collisions, Agrégats, Réactivité, IRSAMC, Université Paul Sabatier, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062, Toulouse Cedex 09, France

    A. Hernando

  2. IFLP-CCT-CONICET, National University La Plata, C.C. 727, 1900, La Plata, Argentina

    A. Plastino

  3. Universitat de les Illes Balears and IFISC-CSIC, 07122, Palma de Mallorca, Spain

    A. Plastino

Authors
  1. A. Hernando
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  2. A. Plastino
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Correspondence to A. Hernando.

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Hernando, A., Plastino, A. Variational principle underlying scale invariant social systems. Eur. Phys. J. B 85, 293 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2012-30313-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2012-30313-x

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