Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: La fisica della resistenza

Il paper tecnico si trova a 
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/physics/0605035
In soldoni, la conclusione e che tutte le guerre contro guerriglie sono
uguali.
E che, in via di principio, le guerriglie sono invincibili, amenoche
non cambi idea la "base".
http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200611/backpage.cfm
The Mother (Nature) of All Wars?
Modern Wars, Global Terrorism, and Complexity Science
by Neil F. Johnson
It has become hard for us to watch a nightly news bulletin without
hearing phrases such as “thirty dead in Iraq,” “five wounded in
Afghanistan,” “three guerrilla attacks in Colombia,” or “ten
killed in a terrorist bomb in Indonesia.” We are then typically
presented with a number of studio experts who try to explain away the
numbers by drawing on idiosyncratic details of the conflict in
question. Although often unconvincing, their approach is perfectly
defensible given the very different origins, motivations, locations and
durations of these separate conflicts. However recent research by a
multi-disciplinary team of Complexity scientists suggests that all
these sociological, political and strategic experts may have missed
something crucial.
Using techniques from the physics of Complex Systems, the research team
has shown that the dynamics underlying all such modern conflicts,
including global terrorism, are remarkably universal. Furthermore they
have developed a physics-based theory describing the dynamics of
insurgent group formation and attacks, which neatly explains the
universal patterns observed in all modern wars and terrorism. The
implications are quite sobering: Regardless of the origins and
locations of modern conflicts, the insurgent groups in each case are
operating in the same way. In short, it is effectively the same enemy
on all fronts.
There are two reasons why the field of human conflict should be of
interest to a physicist. First, the increased availability of
computerized datasets means that there is a data revolution underway
across the social sciences–just as the field of astronomy recently
caught alight as a result of improved data collection. Human conflict
is as old as mankind itself–however, a lack of reliable time-series
data in the past has kept it out of reach of the quantitative sciences.
This has now changed with the media, governments and non-governmental
organizations all now regularly collecting data on ongoing conflicts.
Admittedly the analysis of their datasets is not always
straightforward–not only do the individual agencies differ in their
numbers, but the way in which the figures are reported can differ quite
markedly. Extensive cross-checks from the various sources must
therefore be carried out prior to any data analysis.
The second reason touches the fascinating aspect of Complexity Science
itself. In particular, modern wars seem to exhibit all the common
characteristics of Complex Systems: (1) There is feedback, both at the
microscopic and macroscopic scale, yielding a system with memory and
non-Markovian dynamics. (2) The time-series of events is
non-stationary. (3) There are many types of “particle,” according
to the various armed actors, and they interact in possibly
time-dependent ways. The war's evolution is then driven by this ecology
of agents. (4) The agents can adapt their behavior and decisions based
on past outcomes. The system is far from equilibrium and can exhibit
extreme behavior–for example, if the strategies of several groups of
agents suddenly coincide. (5) The observed war constitutes a single
realization of the system's possible trajectories. (6) The system is
open, with this coupling to the environment making it hard to
distinguish between exogenous (i.e. outside) and endogenous (i.e.
internal, self-generated) effects.
 have compiled, cross-checked and analyzed event datasets for a wide
variety of ongoing and recent wars, including acts of global terrorism.
In each case, we plotted the histogram of the number of events within a
given war with x or more casualties, versus x, on a log-log plot. What
we found was really quite startling. Although wars are the antithesis
of a ordered system, the datapoints for each war fell neatly on to a
straight line (see the figure). This suggests a power-law behavior,
which we then confirmed statistically. We repeated this exercise for
wars as diverse as Israel, Senegal, Peru, Afghanistan and Colombia. In
each case we obtained a power-law, i.e. the fraction of events with x
casualties varies as x-a. This finding is remarkable given the
different conditions, locations and durations of these separate wars.
For example, the Iraq war is being fought in the desert and cities and
is fairly recent, while the twenty-year old Colombian war is being
fought in mountainous jungle regions against a back-drop of
drug-trafficking and Mafia activity. This power-law finding also has
some very important practical implications in terms of military
planning. It means there is no typical size of event­–unlike the
bell-curve for population heights, for example, which is centered
around an average height. Deadly events with many casualties will
occur–rarely, but they will occur. This is again unlike the case of
heights, where the chances that someone will be taller than ten feet
are truly negligible.
But the surprises don't stop there. Not only did we obtain
straight-line slopes, but these slopes all produced a power-law
exponent α near 2.5. Furthermore Aaron Clauset and co-workers recently
analyzed an extensive database of global terror events, and also
obtained a power-law–with an α value equal to 2.5. By contrast when
we looked at data from older wars–such as the civil wars in the US,
Spain and Russia –we found no statistical evidence for a power-law at
all. Furthermore, the power-law exponent is insensitive to any
systematic over- or under-reporting of casualties, because the overall
number of casualties is just a normalizing factor. Hence the power-law
signature successfully focuses on the war's internal pattern of events
and hence casualties, as opposed to simply monitoring the aggregate
number.
But why should 2.5 be such a magic number for modern wars and global
terrorism? To answer this, we developed a model of dynamical
group-formation to describe an insurgent force. Our cue came from the
fact that most modern wars, including terrorism, can be characterized
by an asymmetric ‘David-and-Goliath’ structure in which a small,
but agile, insurgent force faces a much stronger, but more rigid,
institutional force such as a state’s army. Because of its less rigid
structure, the insurgent force is able to self-organize itself into a
loosely connected soup of attack units which combine and dissociate
over time in response to their own ad hoc operations, and in response
to the state army's operations. These attack units are shown in the
inset in the figure. The number of dark shadows in each unit is
proportional to the number of casualties that that unit will inflict in
a typical conflict event. Each attack unit comprises a group of people,
weapons, explosives, machines, or even information, which temporarily
organizes itself to act as a single unit. In the case of people, this
means that they are probably connected by a common location, or by some
common communication system. However, an attack unit may also consist
of a combination of people and objects–for example, explosives plus a
few people, such as in the case of suicide bombers. Such an attack
unit, while only containing a few people, could have a high attack
strength. Information could also be a valuable part of an attack unit.
A lone suicide bomber who knows when a certain place will be densely
populated–for example a military canteen at lunchtimes–and who
knows how to get into such a place unnoticed, will also represent an
attack unit with a high attack strength. When a given attack unit
undertakes an attack, it creates a number of casualties proportional to
its strength–hence the distribution of attack-unit strengths will
reflect the distribution of casualties which arise in the war.
When our model is solved analytically, it produces a power-law with α
=2.5. If we then make the group formation-dissociation probabilities
depend on the existing group sizes, this α value can be moved toward
2.0 or 3.0, thereby incorporating all the results for modern wars.
Generalizing the model further to include multiple insurgent groups,
yields a near-perfect fit with the real data over the entire range of
x, including the nonlinear deviations at high and low x. Hence we can
explain the entire range of casualty events in all modern wars and
terrorism using slight variations of the same basic model.
While outside the realm of traditional physics, this new line of
physics research has led to a novel quantitative understanding of
current world conflicts, terrorism and insurgent warfare. In
particular, it suggests that the dynamics of insurgent group formation
are the same across all arenas–from the jungles of Colombia through
to the deserts of Iraq, and including the entire world stage of global
terrorism. In short, the way in which modern wars and terrorism are
being waged has less to do with geography or ideology, and more to do
with the day-to-day mechanics of human insurgency–in other words, it
is simply the way in which insurgent groups of human beings fight when
faced with a much stronger, but more rigid, opponent. As a consequence
of this, it would seem that unless the stronger, but more rigid,
opponent can change its tactics, the same statistical patterns of
casualties will be repeated indefinitely into the future.
What about the future of this research? Having looked at event sizes,
we are now focusing on their timing–not only in ongoing wars, but
also in organized crime activity including homicides, kidnappings and
extortion. With the help of Sean Gourley, Juan Camilo Bohorquez and
Elvira Restrepo at the Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia, we have
successfully created multi-agent models which mimic the decision-making
dynamics of insurgent groups, just as had been done earlier for groups
of financial traders within the so-called Econophysics community (see
Financial Market Complexity (Oxford University Press, 2003)). By
analyzing the size, timing and spatial coordinates of a given event, as
well as the groups involved, we are now able to reconstruct the
possible trails which a particular insurgent group might have followed.
Just as in a multi-species ecological setting within the natural world,
we are interested in determining the behaviors and possible protocols
which arise when a particular group from insurgent army A happens to
cross the path of a particular group from insurgent army B. In
particular, we are trying to deduce whether they decide to fight each
other, collaborate, ignore each other–or even consciously avoid each
other. Going further, we know that wars like the ones in Colombia and
Afghanistan have taken place against the backdrop of an illicit trade
such as drug trafficking. This activity provides an effective nutrient
supply in the form of money for buying supplies and weapons, and
thereby helps feed the war as a whole. So just like a fungus will
thrive in a forest, or a cancer tumour will thrive in a host, these
armed groups are fed by a rich source of nutrients which allows them to
self-organize into a robust structure. Admittedly, just like a jungle
itself, this is all very far from our everyday experiences as
physicists. But the exciting news is that the tools to help answer such
unlikely questions are now beginning to emerge –and they are emerging
from a very unlikely source: Physics.

On 2 Jan 2007 12:40:21 -0800, 
luno...@gmail.com
 wrote:
[cut]
Non ce ne frega un cazzo.
Ah no scusa giorgino, per la tua "cifra"  inizio a confonderti con la
sora cencioni.
MMAX
-- 
http://bloggoanchio.splinder.com

luno...@gmail.com
 ha scritto:
[cut]
Spiegaci la fisica delle patatine, piuttosto, che detta da Tb non l'ho
capita.
Ciao
R.

Magister P.N. wrote:

Certe cose, nessuno sa spiegarle come un meccanico quantistico.
Tb
-- 
[Tb] :
Il dovere di un comunista sarebbe quello di formare un cordone sanitario
attorno alla feccia nazi
[.sergio.]
No [...] se posta articoli che condivido      |     
http://snipurl.com/11s9a
--------------------------------------------------
Il mio blog: 
www.tonibaruch.blogspot.com

 Spiegaci 
spiegaCi ? per conto di chi parli fesso?

.sergio. ha scritto:

Per conto di chi e' interessato.
Ciao
R.

Magister P.N. ha scritto:

chiedi a lui 
http://blogs.dotnethell.it/filestore/942_roccochips.jpg

 by Neil F. Johnson
il paper e' molto interessante, tra l'altro ieri scrissi un post sul
tema se sia possibile o meno paragonare l'Iraq al Vietnam
che pero' non vedo su google - mi scarichero' per intero il pdf
e dopo che lo ho letto riposto i miei commennti alla luce di
questo lavoro.
devo comunque muoverti il rilievo che trai una conclusione non
supportata dai dati quando affermi che "le guerriglie sono
invincibili".
in linea teorica nulla avrebbe impedito - ad esempio - agli US di
radere al suolo l'intero Vietnam e cosi' "vincere" la guerra,
vi e' pero' il limite dovuto alla opinione pubblica interna.
un buon esempio di assenza di limite e' la guerra boera - gli Inglesi -
inventori del
campo di concentramento tra le altre cose, non essendo
limitati da una opinione pubblica contraria hanno potuto effettivamente
vincerla. Un altro esempio direi che sono i Belgi in Congo.
A questo proposito mi viene da pensare - ma leggero' meglio il paper
citato - che i conflitti possono essere considerati comparabili se
ambedue le parti in causa hanno accesso ad un armamento similare
(quanto meno a livello di scontro di fanteria)
Comunque leggo e poi commento.
A  proposito di comportamento degli aggregati di persone,
qualcuno ha postato delle cifre (la soglia dei 3,000 e' stata passata)
sulle perdite in Iraq - le reazioni sono state simili a questo post,
tutte OT si e' passati a discutere di - mi sembra - masturbazione.
Evidentemente alcuni "agenti del sistema newsgroup" manifestano
un comportamento simile qualora confrontati con semplici numeri,
meglio dell'aglio con i vampiri :-)

un comportamento simile qualora confrontati con semplici numeri,
Un po' come "semplici numeri" erano quelli tatuati sugli ebrei dei campi
di concentramento?
O come "semplici numeri" erano le tombe di tanti morti?
O come "semplici numeri" sono la quantita' di tasse che i cittadini
devono pagare?
Oppure sei soltanto uno dei tanti "agenti del sistema newsgroup" che
dalla vita non ha mai capito 'na sega?
-Stefano

 ..sergio. ha scritto:


no, secondo me parli perche' al plurale ti senti parte di qualche branco.
Un bel po' meschino da parte tua. Anche se cio' non mi soprende affatto.
-- 
Qultura politica di Tonibaruch su It.Politica.Internazionale :
"Oltre al cumswapping e al cumdodging, fai anche il creampie, 
porno-razzi-catto-somarello?" 
http://groups.google.it/group/it.politica.internazionale/msg/1db9ef6abb0f7604?dmode=source&hl=it
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 ih-oh! ih-oh! ih-oh!
Scusami, ma non capisco la tua lingua
Ciao
R.

 Scusami, ma non capisco la tua lingua
stai scendendo in basso Magister.

 stai scendendo in basso Magister.
Mi sono semplicemente messo al suo livello.
Ciao
R.


sta scavano da tempo, pare una talpa, pero' senza spina dorsale visto
che si nasconde nel branco.

 pare una talpa, pero' senza spina dorsale
Allora un lombrico
Ciao
R.

 Allora un lombrico
e molto miope (politicamente e culturalmente parlando).
