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The paper presents agent-based model for city formation named Technoscape which is both local and nonlocal. Technoscape can, to a certain degree, be also assumed as a model for emergence of global economy. The current version of the model implements very simple way of agents’ behavior and interaction, still the model provides rather interesting spatio-temporal patterns.

Locality and non-locality mean here the spatial features of the way the agents interact with each other and with geographical space upon which the evolution takes place. Technoscape agent is some conventional artisan, family, or а producing and trading firm, while there is no difference between production and trade. Agents are located upon and move through bounded two-dimensional space divided into square cells. The model demonstrates processes of agents’ concentration in a small set of cells, which is interpreted as «city» formation. Agents are immortal, they don’t mutate and evolve, though this is interesting perspective for the evolution of the model itself.

Technoscape provides some distinctively new type of self-organization. Partially, this type of selforganization resembles the behavior of segregation model by Thomas Shelling, still that model has evolution rules substantially different from Technoscape. In Shelling model there exist avalanches still simple equilibria exist if no new agents are added to the game board, while in Technoscape no such equilibria exist. At best, we can observe quasi-equilibrium, slowly changing global states.

One non-trivial phenomenon Technoscape exhibits, which also contrasts to Shelling segregation model, is the ability of agents to concentrate in local cells (interpreted as cities) even explicitly and totally ignoring local interactions, using non-local interactions only.

At the same time, while the agents tend to concentrate in large one-cell cities, large scale of such cities does not guarantee them from decay: there always exists a process of «enticement» of agents and their flow to new cities.

The paper presents a physical and numerical analysis of the dynamics and radiation of explosion products formed during the Russian-American experiment in the ionosphere using an explosive generator based on hexogen (RDX) and trinitrotoluene (TNT). The main attention is paid to the radiation of the perturbed region and the dynamics of the products of explosion (PE). The detailed chemical composition of the explosion products is analyzed and the initial concentrations of the most important molecules capable of emitting in the infrared range of the spectrum are determined, and their radiative constants are given. The initial temperature of the explosion products and the adiabatic exponent are determined. The nature of the interpenetration of atoms and molecules of a highly rarefied ionosphere into a spherically expanding cloud of products is analyzed. An approximate mathematical model of the dynamics of explosion products under conditions of mixing rarefied ionospheric air with them has been developed and the main thermodynamic characteristics of the system have been calculated. It is shown that for a time of 0,3–3 sec there is a significant increase in the temperature of the scattering mixture as a result of its deceleration. In the problem under consideration the explosion products and the background gas are separated by a contact boundary. To solve this two-region gas dynamic problem a numerical algorithm based on the Lagrangian approach was developed. It was necessary to fulfill special conditions at the contact boundary during its movement in a stationary gas. In this case there are certain difficulties in describing the parameters of the explosion products near the contact boundary which is associated with a large difference in the size of the mass cells of the explosion products and the background due to a density difference of 13 orders of magnitude. To reduce the calculation time of this problem an irregular calculation grid was used in the area of explosion products. Calculations were performed with different adiabatic exponents. The most important result is temperature. It is in good agreement with the results obtained by the method that approximately takes into account interpenetration. The time behavior of the IR emission coefficients of active molecules in a wide range of the spectrum is obtained. This behavior is qualitatively consistent with experiments for the IR glow of flying explosion products.

The dynamics of public attention to COVID-19 epidemic is studied. The level of public attention is described by the daily number of search requests in Google made by users from a given country. In the empirical part of the work, data on the number of requests and the number of infected cases for a number of countries are considered. It is shown that in all cases the maximum of public attention occurs earlier than the maximum daily number of newly infected individuals. Thus, for a certain period of time, the growth of the epidemics occurs in parallel with the decline in public attention to it. It is also shown that the decline in the number of requests is described by an exponential function of time. In order to describe the revealed empirical pattern, a mathematical model is proposed, which is a modification of the model of the decline in attention after a one-time political event. The model develops the approach that considers decision-making by an individual as a member of the society in which the information process takes place. This approach assumes that an individual’s decision about whether or not to make a request on a given day about COVID is based on two factors. One of them is an attitude that reflects the individual’s long-term interest in a given topic and accumulates the individual’s previous experience, cultural preferences, social and economic status. The second is the dynamic factor of public attention to the epidemic, which changes during the process under consideration under the influence of informational stimuli. With regard to the subject under consideration, information stimuli are related to epidemic dynamics. The behavioral hypothesis is that if on some day the sum of the attitude and the dynamic factor exceeds a certain threshold value, then on that day the individual in question makes a search request on the topic of COVID. The general logic is that the higher the rate of infection growth, the higher the information stimulus, the slower decreases public attention to the pandemic. Thus, the constructed model made it possible to correlate the rate of exponential decrease in the number of requests with the rate of growth in the number of cases. The regularity found with the help of the model was tested on empirical data. It was found that the Student’s statistic is 4.56, which allows us to reject the hypothesis of the absence of a correlation with a significance level of 0.01.

The rheological behavior of aqueous suspensions based on nanoscale silicon dioxide particles strongly depends on the dynamic viscosity, which affects directly the use of nanofluids. The purpose of this work is to develop and validate models for predicting dynamic viscosity from independent input parameters: silicon dioxide concentration SiO₂, pH acidity, and shear rate $\gamma$. The influence of the suspension composition on its dynamic viscosity is analyzed. Groups of suspensions with statistically homogeneous composition have been identified, within which the interchangeability of compositions is possible. It is shown that at low shear rates, the rheological properties of suspensions differ significantly from those obtained at higher speeds. Significant positive correlations of the dynamic viscosity of the suspension with SiO₂ concentration and pH acidity were established, and negative correlations with the shear rate $\gamma$. Regression models with regularization of the dependence of the dynamic viscosity $\eta$ on the concentrations of SiO₂, NaOH, H₃PO₄, surfactant (surfactant), EDA (ethylenediamine), shear rate γ were constructed. For more accurate prediction of dynamic viscosity, the models using algorithms of neural network technologies and machine learning (MLP multilayer perceptron, RBF radial basis function network, SVM support vector method, RF random forest method) were trained. The effectiveness of the constructed models was evaluated using various statistical metrics, including the average absolute approximation error (MAE), the average quadratic error (MSE), the coefficient of determination $R^2$, and the average percentage of absolute relative deviation (AARD%). The RF model proved to be the best model in the training and test samples. The contribution of each component to the constructed model is determined. It is shown that the concentration of SiO₂ has the greatest influence on the dynamic viscosity, followed by pH acidity and shear rate γ. The accuracy of the proposed models is compared to the accuracy of models previously published. The results confirm that the developed models can be considered as a practical tool for studying the behavior of nanofluids, which use aqueous suspensions based on nanoscale particles of silicon dioxide.

Simulation model of corruption in hierarchical systems which takes into account individual strategies of elements and collective behavior of large groups is proposed. Evolution of various characteristics like level of corruption or ratio of corrupted elements and their dependence on external parameters are discussed. The effectiveness of various anticorruptional strategies is examined by means of numeric analysis.

We consider “predator – prey” model taking into account the competition of prey, predator for different from the prey resources, and their interaction described by the second type Holling trophic function. An analysis of the attractors is carried out depending on the coefficient of competition of predators. In the deterministic case, this model demonstrates the complex behavior associated with the local (Andronov –Hopf and saddlenode) and global (birth of a cycle from a separatrix loop) bifurcations. An important feature of this model is the disappearance of a stable cycle due to a saddle-node bifurcation. As a result of the presence of competition in both populations, parametric zones of mono- and bistability are observed. In parametric zones of bistability the system has either coexisting two equilibria or a cycle and equilibrium. Here, we investigate the geometrical arrangement of attractors and separatrices, which is the boundary of basins of attraction. Such a study is an important component in understanding of stochastic phenomena. In this model, the combination of the nonlinearity and random perturbations leads to the appearance of new phenomena with no analogues in the deterministic case, such as noise-induced transitions through the separatrix, stochastic excitability, and generation of mixed-mode oscillations. For the parametric study of these phenomena, we use the stochastic sensitivity function technique and the confidence domain method. In the bistability zones, we study the deformations of the equilibrium or oscillation regimes under stochastic perturbation. The geometric criterion for the occurrence of such qualitative changes is the intersection of confidence domains and the separatrix of the deterministic model. In the zone of monostability, we evolve the phenomena of explosive change in the size of population as well as extinction of one or both populations with minor changes in external conditions. With the help of the confidence domains method, we solve the problem of estimating the proximity of a stochastic population to dangerous boundaries, upon reaching which the coexistence of populations is destroyed and their extinction is observed.

In our research, we focus on the problem of classification for silent speech recognition to develop a brain– computer interface (BCI) based on electroencephalographic (EEG) data, which will be capable of assisting people with mental and physical disabilities and expanding human capabilities in everyday life. Our previous research has shown that the silent pronouncing of some words results in almost identical distributions of electroencephalographic signal data. Such a phenomenon has a suppressive impact on the quality of neural network model behavior. This paper proposes a data processing technique that distinguishes between statistically remote and inseparable classes in the dataset. Applying the proposed approach helps us reach the goal of maximizing the semantic load of the dictionary used in BCI.

Furthermore, we propose the existence of a statistical predictive criterion for the accuracy of binary classification of the words in a dictionary. Such a criterion aims to estimate the lower and the upper bounds of classifiers’ behavior only by measuring quantitative statistical properties of the data (in particular, using the Kolmogorov – Smirnov method). We show that higher levels of classification accuracy can be achieved by means of applying the proposed predictive criterion, making it possible to form an optimized dictionary in terms of semantic load for the EEG-based BCIs. Furthermore, using such a dictionary as a training dataset for classification problems grants the statistical remoteness of the classes by taking into account the semantic and phonetic properties of the corresponding words and improves the classification behavior of silent speech recognition models.

Industrial robots have made it possible for robotics to become a worldwide discipline both in economy and in science. However, their capabilities are limited, especially regarding contact tasks where it is required to regulate or at least limit contact forces. At one point, it was noticed that elasticity in the joint transmission, which was treated as a drawback previously, is actually helpful in this regard. This observation led to the introduction of elastic joint robots that are well-suited to contact tasks and cooperative behavior in particular, so they become more and more widespread nowadays. Many researchers try to implement such devices not with trivial series elastic actuators (SEA) but with more sophisticated variable stiffness actuators (VSA) that can regulate their own mechanical stiffness. All elastic actuators demonstrate shock robustness and safe interaction with external objects to some extent, but when stiffness may be varied, it provides additional benefits, e. g., in terms of energy efficiency and task adaptability. Here, we present a novel variable stiffness actuator with a magnetic coupler as an elastic element. Magnetic transmission is contactless and thus advantageous in terms of robustness to misalignment. In addition, the friction model of the transmission becomes less complex. It also has milder stiffness characteristic than typical mechanical nonlinear springs, moreover, the stiffness curve has a maximum after which it descends. Therefore, when this maximum torque is achieved, the coupler slips, and a new pair of poles defines the equilibrium position. As a result, the risk of damage is smaller for this design solution. The design of the joint is thoroughly described, along with its mathematical model. Finally, the control system is also proposed, and simulation tests confirm the design ideas.

A model of the behavior of the active neuron, which was the development of the model described in Shamis A.L. [Shamis, 2006], is designed. Proposed topology is locally connected matrix of the active neural network and the structure integration of information from different sources. An example of the script behavior robot controlled by this neural network is described. The results of experiments with the software implementation of a neural network are presented.

The collective behavior of crowd leaving a room is modeled. The model is based on molecular dynamics approach with a mixture of socio-psychological and physical forces. The new algorithm for complicatedly branched space is proposed. It suggests that each individual develops its own plan of escape, which is stochastically transformed during the evolution. The algorithm includes also the separation of original space into rooms with possible exits selected by individuals according to their probability distribution. The model is calibrated on the base of empirical data provided by fire case in the nightclub “Lame Horse” (Perm, 2009). The algorithm is realized as an end-user Java software. It is assumed that this tool could help to test the buildings for their safety for humans.