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Widespread occurrence of the inverse square distribution in social sciences and taxonomy

Guido Caldarelli, Cécile Caretta Cartozo, Paolo De Los Rios, and Vito D. P. Servedio
Phys. Rev. E 69, 035101(R) – Published 10 March 2004
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Abstract

The widespread occurrence of an inverse square relation in the hierarchical distribution of subcommunities within communities (or subspecies within species) has been recently invoked as a signature of hierarchical self-organization within social and ecological systems. Here we show that, whether such systems are self-organized or not, this behavior is the consequence of the treelike classification method. Different treelike classifications (both of real and truly random systems) display a similar statistical behavior when considering the sizes of their sub-branches.

  • Received 20 November 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.69.035101

©2004 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Guido Caldarelli1,2, Cécile Caretta Cartozo1, Paolo De Los Rios3, and Vito D. P. Servedio1

  • 1INFM, UdR ROMA 1, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy
  • 2Istituto di Studi e Ricerche “Enrico Fermi” Compendio Viminale, 00184 Roma, Italy
  • 3Laboratoire de Biophysique Statistique, ITP-FSB, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

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Vol. 69, Iss. 3 — March 2004

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