arXiv subjects

José J. Ramasco

Publications and source records attributed to José J. Ramasco.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Synthetic populations for epidemic, demographic and mobility modeling

Synthetic populations are essential for individual-based simulations, such as agent-based models, enabling the evaluation of policy interventions for epidemic control, demographic studies and mobility management, to mention a few. Existing synthetic populations are often designed for specific settings and rarely combine nationwide coverage with realistic and explicit spatial detail. This limits their ability to represent realistic spatial relationships and interplay between households, workplaces, leisure activities, and mobility patterns, reducing models utility for targeted decision-making. Here, we present a harmonized dataset of synthetic populations taking as case studies Spain, France, and Italy. Despite heterogeneous census data sources and formats, we release a unified data structure ensuring consistency and interoperability. The synthetic population generation pipeline reproduces household composition, population density, age-sex structure, and occupation distribution at census-tract level, enriched with municipality-level commuting flows and economic activity patterns. Country-specific pre-processing, statistical calibration, and data integration produce coherent demographic and spatial characteristics suitable for large-scale, country-agnostic simulations. As the pipeline relies on publicly available census data, it is readily extensible to other countries, supporting high-resolution modeling of infectious diseases, hazard exposure, demographic analysis, and urban mobility.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2026

Vector field theory in motion: Revealing latent potentials in soccer dynamics

Team sports offer a natural laboratory for studying collective motion in competitive environments. While recent tracking technologies enabled detailed analysis of player and ball trajectories, most existing approaches rely on discrete events and local kinematic descriptors. This limits the possibility of studying team collective behavior. Here we introduce a physics-based framework to characterize collective dynamics using empirically reconstructed velocity vector fields defined over the pitch. Taking soccer as a paradigmatic example, we show that both ball and player movements generate smooth, predominantly irrotational vector fields. Each of these fields is generated by a potential providing compact, physically interpretable representations of collective motion and encoding how teams control, or constrain play across space during attacking and defensive phases in each match. Applied to an entire season of top-level competition, the resulting potentials reveal stable team-specific fingerprints and quantitative associations between potential gradients and effective ball progression.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2025

When Dialects Collide: How Socioeconomic Mixing Affects Language Use

The socioeconomic background of people and how they use standard forms of language are not independent, as demonstrated in various sociolinguistic studies. However, the extent to which these correlations may be influenced by the mixing of people from different socioeconomic classes remains relatively unexplored from a quantitative perspective. In this work we leverage geotagged tweets and transferable computational methods to map deviations from standard English on a large scale, in seven thousand administrative areas of England and Wales. We combine these data with high-resolution income maps to assign a proxy socioeconomic indicator to home-located users. Strikingly, across eight metropolitan areas we find a consistent pattern suggesting that the more different socioeconomic classes mix, the less interdependent the frequency of their departures from standard grammar and their income become. Further, we propose an agent-based model of linguistic variety adoption that sheds light on the mechanisms that produce the observations seen in the data.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2024

Exploring the spatial segmentation of housing markets from online listings

The real estate market shows an inherent connection to space. Real estate agencies unevenly operate and specialize across space, price and type of properties, thereby segmenting the market into submarkets. We introduce here a methodology based on multipartite networks to detect the spatial segmentation emerging from data on housing online listings. Considering the spatial information of the listings, we build a bipartite network that connects agencies and spatial units. This bipartite network is projected into a network of spatial units, whose connections account for similarities in the agency ecosystem. We then apply clustering methods to this network to segment markets into spatially-coherent regions, which are found to be robust across different clustering detection algorithms, discretization of space and spatial scales, and across countries with case studies in France and Spain. This methodology addresses the long-standing issue of housing market segmentation, relevant in disciplines such as urban studies and spatial economics, and with implications for policymaking.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2023

Ordering dynamics and aging in the Symmetrical Threshold model

The so-called Granovetter-Watts model was introduced to capture a situation in which the adoption of new ideas or technologies requires a certain redundancy in the social environment of each agent to take effect. This model has become a paradigm for complex contagion. Here we investigate a symmetric version of the model: agents may be in two states that can spread equally through the system via complex contagion. We find three possible phases: a mixed one (dynamically active disordered state), an ordered one, and a heterogeneous frozen phase. These phases exist for several configurations of the contact network. Then we consider the effect of introducing aging as a non-Markovian mechanism in the model, where agents become increasingly resistant to change their state the longer they remain in it. We show that when aging is present, the mixed phase is replaced, for sparse networks, by a new phase with different dynamical properties. This new phase is characterized by an initial disordering stage followed by a slow ordering process towards a fully ordered absorbing state. In the ordered phase, aging modifies the dynamical properties. For random contact networks, we develop a theoretical description based on an Approximate Master Equation that describes with good accuracy the results of numerical simulations for the model with and without aging.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2022

Aging in binary-state models: The Threshold model for Complex Contagion

Binary-state models are those in which the constituent elements can only appear in two possible configurations. These models are fundamental in the mathematical treatment of a number of phenomena such as spin interactions in magnetism, opinion dynamics, rumor and information spreading in social systems, etc. Here, we focus on the study of non-Markovian effects associated with aging for binary-state dynamics in complex networks. Aging is considered as the property of the agents to be less prone to change state the longer they have been in the current state, which gives rise to heterogeneous activity patterns. We analyze in this context the Threshold model of Complex Contagion, which has been proposed to explain, for instance, processes of adoption of new technologies and in which the agents need the reiterated confirmation of several contacts (until reaching over a given neighbor fraction threshold) to change state. Our analytical approximations give a good description of extensive numerical simulations in Erdös-Rényi, random-regular and Barabási-Albert networks. While aging does not modify the spreading condition, it slows down the cascade dynamics towards the full-adoption state: the exponential increase of adopters in time from the original model is replaced by a stretched exponential or power-law, depending on the aging mechanism. Under several approximations, we give analytical expressions for the cascade condition and for the exponents of the exponential, power-law and stretched exponential growth laws for the adopters density. Beyond networks, we also describe by numerical simulations the effects of aging for the Threshold model in a two-dimensional lattice.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2022

Aging effects in Schelling Segregation model

The Schelling model has become a paradigm in social sciences to explain the emerge of residential spatial segregation even in the presence of high tolerance to mixed neighborhoods by the side of citizens. In particular, we consider a noisy constrained version of the Schelling model, in which agents maximize its satisfaction, related to the composition of the local neighborhood, by infinite-range movements towards satisfying vacancies. We add to it an aging effect by making the probability of agents to move inversely proportional to the time they have been satisfied in their present location. This mechanism simulates the development of an emotional attachment to a location where an agent has been satisfied for a while. The introduction of aging has several major impacts on the model statics and dynamics: the phase transition between a segregated and a mixed phase of the original model disappears, and we observe segregated states with high level of agent satisfaction even for high values of the tolerance. In addition, the new segregated phase is dynamically characterized by a slow power-law coarsening process and by a glassy-like dynamics in which the asymptotic time translational invariance is broken.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2022

The world-wide waste web

Countries globally trade with tons of waste materials every year, some of which are highly hazardous. This trade admits a network representation of the world-wide waste web, with countries as vertices and flows as directed weighted edges. Here we investigate the main properties of this network by tracking 108 categories of wastes interchanged in the period 2001-2019. Although, most of the hazardous waste was traded between developed nations, a disproportionate asymmetry existed in the flow from developed to developing countries. Using a dynamical model, we simulate how waste stress propagates through the network and affects the countries. We identify 28 countries with low Environmental Performance Index that are at high risk of waste congestion. Therefore, they are at threat of improper handling and disposal of hazardous waste. We find evidence of pollution by heavy metals, by volatile organic compounds and/or by persistent organic pollutants, which are used as chemical fingerprints, due to the improper handling of waste in several of these countries.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2020

On the importance of trip destination for modeling individual human mobility patterns

Getting insights on human mobility patterns and being able to reproduce them accurately is of the utmost importance in a wide range of applications from public health, to transport and urban planning. Still the relationship between the effort individuals will invest in a trip and its purpose importance is not taken into account in the individual mobility models that can be found in the recent literature. Here, we address this issue by introducing a model hypothesizing a relation between the importance of a trip and the distance traveled. In most practical cases, quantifying such importance is undoable. We overcome this difficulty by focusing on shopping trips (for which we have empirical data) and by taking the price of items as a proxy. Our model is able to reproduce the long-tailed distribution in travel distances empirically observed and to explain the scaling relationship between distance traveled and item value found in the data.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2018

Herding and idiosyncratic choices: Nonlinearity and aging-induced transitions in the noisy voter model

We consider the herding to non-herding transition caused by idiosyncratic choices or imperfect imitation in the context of the Kirman Model for financial markets, or equivalently the Noisy Voter Model for opinion formation. In these original models this is a finite size transition that disappears for a large number of agents. We show how the introduction of two different mechanisms make this transition robust and well defined. A first mechanism is nonlinear interactions among agents taking into account the nonlinear effect of local majorities. The second one is aging, so that the longer an agent has been in a given state the more reluctant she becomes to change state.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2018

Aging-induced continuous phase transition

Aging is considered as the property of the elements of a system to be less prone to change states as they get older. We incorporate aging into the noisy voter model, a stochastic model in which the agents modify their binary state by means of noise and pair-wise interactions. Interestingly, due to aging the system passes from a finite-size discontinuous transition between ordered (ferromagnetic) and disordered (paramagnetic) phases to a second order phase transition, well defined in the thermodynamic limit, belonging to the Ising universality class. We characterize it analytically by finding the stationary solution of an infinite set of mean field equations. The theoretical predictions are tested with extensive numerical simulations in low dimensional lattices and complex networks. We finally employ the aging properties to understand the symmetries broken in the phase transition.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2018

Mapping the Americanization of English in Space and Time

As global political preeminence gradually shifted from the United Kingdom to the United States, so did the capacity to culturally influence the rest of the world. In this work, we analyze how the world-wide varieties of written English are evolving. We study both the spatial and temporal variations of vocabulary and spelling of English using a large corpus of geolocated tweets and the Google Books datasets corresponding to books published in the US and the UK. The advantage of our approach is that we can address both standard written language (Google Books) and the more colloquial forms of microblogging messages (Twitter). We find that American English is the dominant form of English outside the UK and that its influence is felt even within the UK borders. Finally, we analyze how this trend has evolved over time and the impact that some cultural events have had in shaping it.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2018

Immigrant community integration in world cities

As a consequence of the accelerated globalization process, today major cities all over the world are characterized by an increasing multiculturalism. The integration of immigrant communities may be affected by social polarization and spatial segregation. How are these dynamics evolving over time? To what extent the different policies launched to tackle these problems are working? These are critical questions traditionally addressed by studies based on surveys and census data. Such sources are safe to avoid spurious biases, but the data collection becomes an intensive and rather expensive work. Here, we conduct a comprehensive study on immigrant integration in 53 world cities by introducing an innovative approach: an analysis of the spatio-temporal communication patterns of immigrant and local communities based on language detection in Twitter and on novel metrics of spatial integration. We quantify the "Power of Integration" of cities --their capacity to spatially integrate diverse cultures-- and characterize the relations between different cultures when acting as hosts or immigrants.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2018

Hierarchical invasion of cooperation in complex networks

The emergence and survival of cooperation is one of the hardest problems still open in science. Several factors such as the existence of punishment, fluctuations in finite systems, repeated interactions and the formation of prestige may all contribute to explain the counter-intuitive prevalence of cooperation in natural and social systems. The characteristics of the interaction networks have been also signaled as an element favoring the persistence of cooperators. Here we consider the invasion dynamics of cooperative behaviors in complex topologies. The invasion of a heterogeneous network fully occupied by defectors is performed starting from nodes with a given number of connections (degree) $k_0$. The system is then evolved within a Prisoner's Dilemma game and the outcome is analyzed as a function of $k_0$ and the degree $k$ of the nodes adopting cooperation. Carried out using both numerical and analytical approaches, our results show that the invasion proceeds following preferentially a hierarchical order in the nodes from those with higher degree to those with lower degree. However, the invasion of cooperation will succeed only when the initial cooperators are numerous enough to form a cluster from which cooperation can spread. This implies that the initial condition must be a suitable equilibrium between high degree and high numerosity, which usually takes place, when possible, at intermediate values of $k_0$. These findings have potential applications, as they suggest that, in order to promote cooperative behavior on complex networks, one should infect with cooperators \emph{high but not too high} degree nodes.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2017

Is spatial information in ICT data reliable?

An increasing number of human activities are studied using data produced by individuals' ICT devices. In particular, when ICT data contain spatial information, they represent an invaluable source for analyzing urban dynamics. However, there have been relatively few contributions investigating the robustness of this type of results against fluctuations of data characteristics. Here, we present a stability analysis of higher-level information extracted from mobile phone data passively produced during an entire year by 9 million individuals in Senegal. We focus on two information-retrieval tasks: (a) the identification of land use in the region of Dakar from the temporal rhythms of the communication activity; (b) the identification of home and work locations of anonymized individuals, which enable to construct Origin-Destination (OD) matrices of commuting flows. Our analysis reveal that the uncertainty of results highly depends on the sample size, the scale and the period of the year at which the data were gathered. Nevertheless, the spatial distributions of land use computed for different samples are remarkably robust: on average, we observe more than 75% of shared surface area between the different spatial partitions when considering activity of at least 100,000 users whatever the scale. The OD matrix is less stable and depends on the scale with a share of at least 75% of commuters in common when considering all types of flows constructed from the home-work locations of 100,000 users. For both tasks, better results can be obtained at larger levels of aggregation or by considering more users. These results confirm that ICT data are very useful sources for the spatial analysis of urban systems, but that their reliability should in general be tested more thoroughly.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2017

Human Mobility: Models and Applications

Recent years have witnessed an explosion of extensive geolocated datasets related to human movement, enabling scientists to quantitatively study individual and collective mobility patterns, and to generate models that can capture and reproduce the spatiotemporal structures and regularities in human trajectories. The study of human mobility is especially important for applications such as estimating migratory flows, traffic forecasting, urban planning, and epidemic modeling. In this survey, we review the approaches developed to reproduce various mobility patterns, with the main focus on recent developments. This review can be used both as an introduction to the fundamental modeling principles of human mobility, and as a collection of technical methods applicable to specific mobility-related problems. The review organizes the subject by differentiating between individual and population mobility and also between short-range and long-range mobility. Throughout the text the description of the theory is intertwined with real-world applications.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2017

Crowdsourcing the Robin Hood effect in cities

Socioeconomic inequalities in cities are embedded in space and result in neighborhood effects, whose harmful consequences have proved very hard to counterbalance efficiently by planning policies alone. Considering redistribution of money flows as a first step toward improved spatial equity, we study a bottom-up approach that would rely on a slight evolution of shopping mobility practices. Building on a database of anonymized credit card transactions in Madrid and Barcelona, we quantify the mobility effort required to reach a reference situation where commercial income is evenly shared among neighborhoods. The redirections of shopping trips preserve key properties of human mobility, including travel distances. Surprisingly, for both cities only a small fraction ($\sim 5 \%$) of trips need to be altered to reach equity situations, improving even other sustainability indicators. The method could be implemented in mobile applications that would assist individuals in reshaping their shopping practices, to promote the spatial redistribution of opportunities in the city.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2016

Touristic site attractiveness seen through Twitter

Tourism is becoming a significant contributor to medium and long range travels in an increasingly globalized world. Leisure traveling has an important impact on the local and global economy as well as on the environment. The study of touristic trips is thus raising a considerable interest. In this work, we apply a method to assess the attractiveness of 20 of the most popular touristic sites worldwide using geolocated tweets as a proxy for human mobility. We first rank the touristic sites based on the spatial distribution of the visitors' place of residence. The Taj Mahal, the Pisa Tower and the Eiffel Tower appear consistently in the top 5 in these rankings. We then pass to a coarser scale and classify the travelers by country of residence. Touristic site's visiting figures are then studied by country of residence showing that the Eiffel Tower, Times Square and the London Tower welcome the majority of the visitors of each country. Finally, we build a network linking sites whenever a user has been detected in more than one site. This allow us to unveil relations between touristic sites and find which ones are more tightly interconnected.

physics.soc-ph↗