1 research outputs found
A Cascading Failure Model by Quantifying Interactions
Cascading failures triggered by trivial initial events are encountered in
many complex systems. It is the interaction and coupling between components of
the system that causes cascading failures. We propose a simple model to
simulate cascading failure by using the matrix that determines how components
interact with each other. A careful comparison is made between the original
cascades and the simulated cascades by the proposed model. It is seen that the
model can capture general features of the original cascades, suggesting that
the interaction matrix can well reflect the relationship between components. An
index is also defined to identify important links and the distribution follows
an obvious power law. By eliminating a small number of most important links the
risk of cascading failures can be significantly mitigated, which is
dramatically different from getting rid of the same number of links randomly.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure