In order to understand controlling a complex system, an estimation of the required effort needed achieve control is vital. Previous works have addressed this issue by studying scaling laws energy cost in general way with continuous-time linear dynamics. However, dynamics unable capture conformity behavior, which common many social systems. Therefore, systems conformity, discrete-time modelling ...

As walking speed increases, consistent relationships emerge between the three determinant parameters of walking, speed, step frequency and step length. However, when step length or step frequency are predetermined rather than speed, different relationships are spontaneously selected. This result is expected if walking parameters are selected to optimize to an underlying objective function, know...

Most approaches to understanding human motor control assume that people maximize their rewards while minimizing their motor efforts. This tradeoff between potential rewards and a sense of effort is quantified with a cost function. While the rewards can change across tasks, our sense of effort is assumed to remain constant and characterize how the nervous system organizes motor control. As such,...

An important natural phenomenon surfaces that satisfactory synchronization of self-driven particles can be achieved via remarkably reduced communication cost, especially for high density particle groups with low external noise. Statistical numerical evidence illustrates that a highly efficient manner is to distribute the communication messages as evenly as possible along the whole dynamic proce...

In fundamental analysis, it is customary to interpret an increase in the ratio of selling, general, and administrative costs to sales (the SG&A cost ratio) between two periods as a negative signal about future profitability and firm value. Implicit in this interpretation is an expectation that SG&A costs should normally move proportionately with increases or decreases in revenues, and that an i...

In previous work, we employed finite-size scaling, a method from statistical mechanics, to explore the crossover from the SAT regime of k-SAT, where almost all randomly generated expressions are satisfiable, to the UNSAT regime, where almost all are not. In this work, we extend the experiments to cover critical behavior in the computational cost. We find that the median computational cost takes...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether challenging behavior in young children with autism and other developmental disabilities can be treated successfully at lower cost by using telehealth to train parents to implement applied behavior analysis (ABA). METHODS We compared data on the outcomes and costs for implementing evidence-based ABA procedures to reduce problem behavior by using 3 service deliver...

Optimal foraging theory has been criticized for underestimating patch exploitation time. However, proper modeling of costs not only answers these criticisms, but it also explains apparently irrational behaviors like the sunk-cost effect. When a forager is sure to experience high initial costs repeatedly, the forager should devote more time to exploitation than searching in order to minimize the...

This paper develops a model in which physicians choose the level of services to be provided to their patients. We show that if physicians undervalue benefits to patients relative to hospital profits, prospective payment, a system in which hospitals receive a payment dependent on the diagnosis-related group within which a patient falls, can lead to too few services being provided. In contrast, a...