4,908 research outputs found
Theories for influencer identification in complex networks
In social and biological systems, the structural heterogeneity of interaction
networks gives rise to the emergence of a small set of influential nodes, or
influencers, in a series of dynamical processes. Although much smaller than the
entire network, these influencers were observed to be able to shape the
collective dynamics of large populations in different contexts. As such, the
successful identification of influencers should have profound implications in
various real-world spreading dynamics such as viral marketing, epidemic
outbreaks and cascading failure. In this chapter, we first summarize the
centrality-based approach in finding single influencers in complex networks,
and then discuss the more complicated problem of locating multiple influencers
from a collective point of view. Progress rooted in collective influence
theory, belief-propagation and computer science will be presented. Finally, we
present some applications of influencer identification in diverse real-world
systems, including online social platforms, scientific publication, brain
networks and socioeconomic systems.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figure
Searching for superspreaders of information in real-world social media
A number of predictors have been suggested to detect the most influential
spreaders of information in online social media across various domains such as
Twitter or Facebook. In particular, degree, PageRank, k-core and other
centralities have been adopted to rank the spreading capability of users in
information dissemination media. So far, validation of the proposed predictors
has been done by simulating the spreading dynamics rather than following real
information flow in social networks. Consequently, only model-dependent
contradictory results have been achieved so far for the best predictor. Here,
we address this issue directly. We search for influential spreaders by
following the real spreading dynamics in a wide range of networks. We find that
the widely-used degree and PageRank fail in ranking users' influence. We find
that the best spreaders are consistently located in the k-core across
dissimilar social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Livejournal and
scientific publishing in the American Physical Society. Furthermore, when the
complete global network structure is unavailable, we find that the sum of the
nearest neighbors' degree is a reliable local proxy for user's influence. Our
analysis provides practical instructions for optimal design of strategies for
"viral" information dissemination in relevant applications.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure
Benchmarking Measures of Network Influence
Identifying key agents for the transmission of diseases (ideas, technology,
etc.) across social networks has predominantly relied on measures of centrality
on a static base network or a temporally flattened graph of agent interactions.
Various measures have been proposed as the best trackers of influence, such as
degree centrality, betweenness, and -shell, depending on the structure of
the connectivity. We consider SIR and SIS propagation dynamics on a
temporally-extruded network of observed interactions and measure the
conditional marginal spread as the change in the magnitude of the infection
given the removal of each agent at each time: its temporal knockout (TKO)
score. We argue that the exhaustive approach of the TKO score makes it an
effective benchmark measure for evaluating the accuracy of other, often more
practical, measures of influence. We find that none of the common network
measures applied to the induced flat graphs are accurate predictors of network
propagation influence on the systems studied; however, temporal networks and
the TKO measure provide the requisite targets for the hunt for effective
predictive measures
Spreading processes in Multilayer Networks
Several systems can be modeled as sets of interconnected networks or networks
with multiple types of connections, here generally called multilayer networks.
Spreading processes such as information propagation among users of an online
social networks, or the diffusion of pathogens among individuals through their
contact network, are fundamental phenomena occurring in these networks.
However, while information diffusion in single networks has received
considerable attention from various disciplines for over a decade, spreading
processes in multilayer networks is still a young research area presenting many
challenging research issues. In this paper we review the main models, results
and applications of multilayer spreading processes and discuss some promising
research directions.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures, 4 table
Virus Propagation in Multiple Profile Networks
Suppose we have a virus or one competing idea/product that propagates over a
multiple profile (e.g., social) network. Can we predict what proportion of the
network will actually get "infected" (e.g., spread the idea or buy the
competing product), when the nodes of the network appear to have different
sensitivity based on their profile? For example, if there are two profiles
and in a network and the nodes of profile
and profile are susceptible to a highly spreading
virus with probabilities and
respectively, what percentage of both profiles will actually get infected from
the virus at the end? To reverse the question, what are the necessary
conditions so that a predefined percentage of the network is infected? We
assume that nodes of different profiles can infect one another and we prove
that under realistic conditions, apart from the weak profile (great
sensitivity), the stronger profile (low sensitivity) will get infected as well.
First, we focus on cliques with the goal to provide exact theoretical results
as well as to get some intuition as to how a virus affects such a multiple
profile network. Then, we move to the theoretical analysis of arbitrary
networks. We provide bounds on certain properties of the network based on the
probabilities of infection of each node in it when it reaches the steady state.
Finally, we provide extensive experimental results that verify our theoretical
results and at the same time provide more insight on the problem
Finding an infection source under the SIS model
We consider the problem of identifying an infection source based only on an
observed set of infected nodes in a network, assuming that the infection
process follows a Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible (SIS) model. We derive an
estimator based on estimating the most likely infection source associated with
the most likely infection path. Simulation results on regular trees suggest
that our estimator performs consistently better than the minimum distance
centrality based heuristic
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