SPIDER · Statistical Physics in Diverse Realisations
FP7 — People (Marie Curie Actions)
- Duration
- 2012-02-01 → 2016-01-31
- EU contribution
- €358,100
- Participants
- 5
- Scheme
- MC-IRSES
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Statistical Physics in Diverse Realisations
SPIDER COLLABORATION The SPIDER collaboration is a consortium funded by the 7th Framework Programme (FP7). SPIDER (Statistical Physics In Diverse Realisations) focusses on a broad set of issues that have proven to be best treated using methods originally developed in the framework of Statistical Physics. These specific problems range from complex behaviour near surfaces, biological membranes and protein functionality further including poly-electrolyte surfactant complexes, and polymer embedded nano-composites. Rather surprisingly the methods of statistical physics may also be applied to problems not usually associated with Physics. Here, we discuss work performed by Prof Ralph Kenna and his then PhD student Padraig Mc Carron. In this work they analysed the networks of characters in Greek, Anglo-Saxon and Irish mythology comparing their mutual relation with those of real life social networks. This study had enormous impact both within the scientific community as evidenced by high downloads of the paper as well as in the wider public as newspapers, magazines and even radio stations took up the story. The paper formed the basis for a 1,000 word-article 'The Social Networks of Myths' – if Achilles used facebook (Sep 9, 2012, Sunday Review, Page 4). The New York Times Sunday Edition with a circulation of over 1,265,839 covered the story. The story was also translated into Portuguese 'Se Aquiles usasse o Facebook'. British Newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Times each with a readership of about 1M took up the story. Another interesting real life application for Statistical Physics lends itself to the theory of networks. As it appears, when relating different items it is often useful to describe these relations in terms of a network. A specific application of the tools governing networks is given for instance by networks of Public Transportation (PT). It may be shown that depending on the size of these PT networks they may show universal behaviour in particular in the case of networks including nodes with high connectivity. Often these networks show high degree nodes (such as large train and/or bus stations with high connectivity). Whilst these nodes will be very useful in terms of the network structure they however also pose a risk as far as failure of a major Hub may lead to a local breakdown of the network which may propagate and impede the functioning of the Public Transport network. The task in this case is to build networks that are resilient against failure as well as possible attacks.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The SPIDER IRSES aims to draw together the complementary knowledge, know-how, methodology and skills of 5 EU teams with 6 carefully selected non-EU groups to tackle problems at the forefront of contemporary research into complex systems. These are in the overlapping themes of complex bio- socio- and materials science.The notion of soft matter subsumes a wide range of systems that traditionally were referred to as chemical and biological objects. These include simple and molecular liquids, electrolyte melts and solutions, polymers, polyelectrolytes, liquid crystals, gels, membranes, various biological systems, amorphous and glass-like materials, and granular matter. The aim of our study is to analyse soft-matter phenomena, in particular polymers and proteins. The second main theme of SPIDER is collective critical phenomena on complex systems and networks. Here we will tackle both physical and sociological systems.In all cases we are interested in how the behaviour of macroscopic systems emerges from agents (fundamental biological, physical or sociological entities) and how the properties of the whole are different to the sums of the properties of component parts. Here we are especially interested in the concept of universality, by which the emergent phenomena are largely independent of many of the microscopic details of the systems. Of particular interest in modern research into emergence of life itself are self-organised systems and their responsive behaviour.Owing to the large number of microscopic agents involved, the methods of statistical physics are ideal to tackle emergent-phenomena problems. Both numerical and analytic (including exact) approaches are envisaged. A complete set of tools (theory and extensive numerical simulations) is equired to solve these problems. Such a set is not available to any of the EU partners individually, and in order to achieve this goal, groups from Argentina, Brazil and Russia have been carefully selected.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- COVENTRY UNIVERSITY · CoventryCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
- ALBERT-LUDWIGS-UNIVERSITAET FREIBURG · FreiburgGermany
- CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisFrance
- TTY-SAATIO · TampereFinland
- UNIVERSIDAD DE EXTREMADURA · BadajozSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union