Avalanches of electrochemical activity in brain networks have been empirically reported to obey scale-invariant behavior –characterized by power-law distributions up to some upper cut-off– both in vitro and in vivo. Elucidating whether such scaling laws stem from the underlying neural dynamics operating at the edge of a phase transition is a fascinating possibility, as systems poised at critica...

The presented approach describes a model for a rule-based expert system calculating the temporal variability of the release of wet snow avalanches, using the assumption of avalanche triggering without the loading of new snow. The knowledge base of the model is created by using investigations on the system behaviour of wet snow avalanches in the Italian Ortles Alps, and is represented by a fuzzy...

The avalanche behavior of gravitationally forced granular layers on a rough inclined plane is investigated experimentally for different materials and for a variety of grain shapes ranging from spherical beads to highly anisotropic particles with dendritic shape. We measure the front velocity, area, and height of many avalanches and correlate the motion with the area and height. We also measure ...

Avalanches in sandpiles are represented by a process of percolation in a Bethe lattice with a feedback mechanism. The results indicate that the frequency spectrum and probability distribution of avalanches provide a better resemblance to the experimental results than other models using cellular automata simulations. Apparent discrepancies between experiments performed by different authors are r...

In a finite-size Abelian sandpile model, extreme avalanches are repelling each other. Taking a time series of the avalanche size and using a decision variable derived from that, we predict the occurrence of a particularly large avalanche in the next time step. The larger the magnitude of these target avalanches, the better is their predictability. The predictability which is based on a finite-s...

We present a simple model of a dynamical system driven by externally-imposed coherent noise. Although the system never becomes critical in the sense of possessing spatial correlations of arbitrarily long range, it does organize into a stationary state characterized by avalanches with a power-law size distribution. We explain the behavior of the model within a time-averaged approximation, and di...

A regional study of snow avalanche processes was undertaken in the SE Pyrenees. Dendrogeomorphology was used to date and reconstruct large-scale snow avalanche events that occurred in the last four decades. Dendrochronological analyses yielded the dates of nine winters when avalanches occurred in the recent past in six studied avalanche paths. Some of these avalanches were already known, but ot...

This study investigates flood avalanches in a dense reservoir network in the semiarid north-eastern Brazil. The population living in this area strongly depends on the availability of the water from this network. Water is stored during intense wet-season rainfall events and evaporates from the reservoir surface during the dry season. These seasonal changes are the driving forces behind the water...

Ice avalanches typically occur when a large mass of ice breaks off from steep glaciers. Since the reach of ice avalanches is usually low, their hazard potential is generally restricted to high mountain areas that are densely populated or frequently visited by tourists. However, far-reaching disasters are possible in combination with other processes such as rockfalls or snow avalanches. In addit...