  In this work we review the precursors of catastrophic avalanches (global
failures) in several failure models, namely (a) Fiber Bundle Model (FBM), (b)
Random Fuse Model (RFM), (c) Sandpile Models and (d) Fractal Overlap Model. The
precursor parameters identified here essentially reflect the growing
correlations within such systems as they approach their respective failure
points. As we show, often they help us to predict the global failure points in
advance.

Soft Condensed Matter