Fourth-Order Cumulants to Characterize the Phase Transitions of a Spin-1   Ising Model
  Fourth-order cumulants of physical quantities have been used to characterize the nature of a phase transition. In this paper we report some Monte Carlo simulations to illustrate the behavior of fourth-order cumulants of magnetization and energy across second and first-order transitions in the phase diagram of a well known spin-1 Ising model. Simple ideas from the theory of thermodynamic fluctuations are used to account for the behavior of these cumulants. 
Shan-Ho Tsai, and Silvio R. A. Salinas