3,211 research outputs found
The effect of negative feedback loops on the dynamics of Boolean networks
Feedback loops in a dynamic network play an important role in determining the
dynamics of that network. Through a computational study, in this paper we show
that networks with fewer independent negative feedback loops tend to exhibit
more regular behavior than those with more negative loops. To be precise, we
study the relationship between the number of independent feedback loops and the
number and length of the limit cycles in the phase space of dynamic Boolean
networks. We show that, as the number of independent negative feedback loops
increases, the number (length) of limit cycles tends to decrease (increase).
These conclusions are consistent with the fact, for certain natural biological
networks, that they on the one hand exhibit generally regular behavior and on
the other hand show less negative feedback loops than randomized networks with
the same numbers of nodes and connectivity
On the dynamics of a class of multi-group models for vector-borne diseases
The resurgence of vector-borne diseases is an increasing public health
concern, and there is a need for a better understanding of their dynamics. For
a number of diseases, e.g. dengue and chikungunya, this resurgence occurs
mostly in urban environments, which are naturally very heterogeneous,
particularly due to population circulation. In this scenario, there is an
increasing interest in both multi-patch and multi-group models for such
diseases. In this work, we study the dynamics of a vector borne disease within
a class of multi-group models that extends the classical Bailey-Dietz model.
This class includes many of the proposed models in the literature, and it can
accommodate various functional forms of the infection force. For such models,
the vector-host/host-vector contact network topology gives rise to a bipartite
graph which has different properties from the ones usually found in directly
transmitted diseases. Under the assumption that the contact network is strongly
connected, we can define the basic reproductive number and show
that this system has only two equilibria: the so called disease free
equilibrium (DFE); and a unique interior equilibrium---usually termed the
endemic equilibrium (EE)---that exists if, and only if, . We
also show that, if , then the DFE equilibrium is globally
asymptotically stable, while when , we have that the EE is
globally asymptotically stable
Combining Traditional Marketing and Viral Marketing with Amphibious Influence Maximization
In this paper, we propose the amphibious influence maximization (AIM) model
that combines traditional marketing via content providers and viral marketing
to consumers in social networks in a single framework. In AIM, a set of content
providers and consumers form a bipartite network while consumers also form
their social network, and influence propagates from the content providers to
consumers and among consumers in the social network following the independent
cascade model. An advertiser needs to select a subset of seed content providers
and a subset of seed consumers, such that the influence from the seed providers
passing through the seed consumers could reach a large number of consumers in
the social network in expectation.
We prove that the AIM problem is NP-hard to approximate to within any
constant factor via a reduction from Feige's k-prover proof system for 3-SAT5.
We also give evidence that even when the social network graph is trivial (i.e.
has no edges), a polynomial time constant factor approximation for AIM is
unlikely. However, when we assume that the weighted bi-adjacency matrix that
describes the influence of content providers on consumers is of constant rank,
a common assumption often used in recommender systems, we provide a
polynomial-time algorithm that achieves approximation ratio of
for any (polynomially small) . Our
algorithmic results still hold for a more general model where cascades in
social network follow a general monotone and submodular function.Comment: An extended abstract appeared in the Proceedings of the 16th ACM
Conference on Economics and Computation (EC), 201
Submodularity of Infuence in Social Networks: From Local to Global
Social networks are often represented as directed graphs where the nodes are individuals and the edges indicate a form of social relationship. A simple way to model the diffusion of ideas, innovative behavior, or âword-of-mouthâ effects on such a graph is to consider an increasing process of âinfectedâ (or active) nodes: each node becomes infected once an activation function of the set of its infected neighbors crosses a certain threshold value. Such a model was introduced by Kempe, Kleinberg, and Tardos (KKT) in [KKT03, KKT05] where the authors also impose several natural assumptions: the threshold values are random and the activation functions are monotone and submodular. The monotonicity condition indicates that a node is more likely to become active if more of its neighbors are active, while the submodularity condition indicates that the marginal effect of each neighbor is decreasing when the set of active neighbors increases.
For an initial set of active nodes S, let Ï(S) denote the expected number of active nodes at termination. Here we prove a conjecture of KKT: we show that the function Ï(S) is submodular under the assumptions above. We prove the same result for the expected value of any monotone, submodular function of the set of active nodes at termination. Roughly, our results demonstrate that âlocalâ submodularity is preserved âgloballyâ under this diffusion process. This is of natural computational interest, as many optimization problems have good approximation algorithms for submodular functions
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