39,076 research outputs found
Evolution of Social Power in Social Networks with Dynamic Topology
The recently proposed DeGroot-Friedkin model describes the dynamical evolution of individual social power in a social network that holds opinion discussions on a sequence of different issues. This paper revisits that model, and uses nonlinear contraction analysis, among other tools, to establish several novel results. First, we show that for a social network with constant topology, each individual's social power converges to its equilibrium value exponentially fast, whereas previous results only concluded asymptotic convergence. Second, when the network topology is dynamic (i.e., the relative interaction matrix may change between any two successive issues), we show that each individual exponentially forgets its initial social power. Specifically, individual social power is dependent only on the dynamic network topology, and initial (or perceived) social power is forgotten as a result of sequential opinion discussion. Last, we provide an explicit upper bound on an individual's social power as the number of issues discussed tends to infinity; this bound depends only on the network topology. Simulations are provided to illustrate our results.The work of Mengbin Ye, Brian D. O. Anderson, and Changbin Yu was supported by the Australian Research Council under Grant DP-130103610 and Grant DP-160104500, by 111-Project D17019, by NSFC Projects 61385702 and 61761136005, and by Data61-CSIRO. The work of Mengbin Ye was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. The work of Ji Liu
and Tamer Basžar was supported by the Office of Naval Research MURI Grant N00014-16-1-2710, and by NSF under Grant CCF 11-11342. Recommended by Associate Editor C. M. Kellett
Opinion Dynamics and the Evolution of Social Power in Social Networks
A fundamental aspect of society is the exchange and discussion of
opinions between individuals, occurring in mediums and situations
as varied as company boardrooms, elementary school classrooms and
online social media. This thesis studies several mathematical
models of how an individualâs opinion(s) evolves via
interaction with others in a social network, developed to reflect
and capture different socio-psychological processes that occur
during the interactions.
In the first part, and inspired by Solomon E. Aschâs seminal
experiments on conformity, a novel discrete-time model of opinion
dynamics is proposed, with each individual having both an
expressed and a private opinion on the same topic. Crucially, an
individualâs expressed opinion is altered from the
individualâs private opinion due to pressures to conform to the
majority opinion of the social network. Exponential convergence
of the opinion dynamical system to a unique configuration is
established for general networks. Several conclusions are
established, including how differences between an individualâs
expressed and private opinions arise, and how to estimate
disagreement among the private opinions at equilibrium. Aschâs
experiments are revisited and re-examined, and then it is shown
that a few extremists can create âpluralistic ignoranceâ,
where people believe there is majority support for a position but
in fact the position is privately rejected by the majority of
individuals!
The second part builds on the recently proposed discrete-time
DeGrootâFriedkin model, which describes the evolution of an
individualâs self-confidence (termed social power) in his/her
opinion over the discussion of a sequence of issues. Using
nonlinear contraction analysis, exponential convergence to a
unique equilibrium is established for networks with constant
topology. Networks with issue-varying topology (which remain
constant for any given issue) are then studied; exponential
convergence to a unique limiting trajectory is established. In a
social context, this means that each individual forgets his/her
initial social power exponentially fast; in the limit, his/her
social power for a given issue depends only on the previously
occurring sequence of dynamic topology. Two further related works
are considered; a network modification problem, and a different
convergence proof based on Lefschetz Fixed Point Theory.
In the final part, a continuous-time model is proposed to capture
simultaneous discussion of logically interdependent topics; the
interdependence is captured by a âlogic matrixâ. When no
individual remains attached to his/her initial opinion, a
necessary and sufficient condition for the network to reach a
consensus of opinions is provided. This condition depends on the
interplay between the network interactions and the logic matrix;
if the network interactions are too strong when compared to the
logical couplings, instability can result. Last, when some
individuals remain attached to their initial opinions, sufficient
conditions are given for opinions to converge to a state of
persistent disagreement
The Web as an Adaptive Network: Coevolution of Web Behavior and Web Structure
Much is known about the complex network structure of the Web, and about behavioral dynamics on the Web. A number of studies address how behaviors on the Web are affected by different network topologies, whilst others address how the behavior of users on the Web alters network topology. These represent complementary directions of influence, but they are generally not combined within any one study. In network science, the study of the coupled interaction between topology and behavior, or state-topology coevolution, is known as 'adaptive networks', and is a rapidly developing area of research. In this paper, we review the case for considering the Web as an adaptive network and several examples of state-topology coevolution on the Web. We also review some abstract results from recent literature in adaptive networks and discuss their implications for Web Science. We conclude that adaptive networks provide a formal framework for characterizing processes acting 'on' and 'of' the Web, and offers potential for identifying general organizing principles that seem otherwise illusive in Web Scienc
On analysis of complex network dynamics â changes in local topology
Social networks created based on data gathered in various computer systems are structures that constantly evolve. The nodes and their connections change because they are influenced by the external to the network events.. In this work we present a new approach to the description and quantification of patterns of complex dynamic social networks illustrated with the data from the Wroclaw University of Technology email dataset. We propose an approach based on discovery of local network connection patterns (in this case triads of nodes) as well as we measure and analyse their transitions during network evolution. We define the Triad Transition Matrix (TTM) containing the probabilities of transitions between triads, after that we show how it can help to discover the dynamic patterns of network evolution. One of the main issues when investigating the dynamical process is the selection of the time window size. Thus, the goal of this paper is also to investigate how the size of time window influences the shape of TTM and how the dynamics of triad number change depending on the window size. We have shown that, however the link stability in the network is low, the dynamic network evolution pattern expressed by the TTMs is relatively stable, and thus forming a background for fine-grained classification of complex networks dynamics. Our results open also vast possibilities of link and structure prediction of dynamic networks. The future research and applications stemming from our approach are also proposed and discussed
Evolution of cooperation on dynamical graphs
There are two key characteristic of animal and human societies: (1) degree heterogeneity, meaning that not all individual have the same number of associates; and (2) the interaction topology is not static, i.e. either individuals interact with different set of individuals at different times of their life, or at least they have different associations than their parents. Earlier works have shown that population structure is one of the mechanisms promoting cooperation. However, most studies had assumed that the interaction network can be described by a regular graph (homogeneous degree distribution). Recently there are an increasing number of studies employing degree heterogeneous graphs to model interaction topology. But mostly the interaction topology was assumed to be static. Here we investigate the fixation probability of the cooperator strategy in the prisonerâs dilemma, when interaction network is a random regular graph, a random graph or a scale-free graph and the interaction network is allowed to change.
We show that the fixation probability of the cooperator strategy is lower when the interaction topology is described by a dynamical graph compared to a static graph. Even a limited network dynamics significantly decreases the fixation probability of cooperation, an effect that is mitigated stronger by degree heterogeneous networks topology than by a degree homogeneous one. We have also found that from the considered graph topologies the decrease of fixation probabilities due to graph dynamics is the lowest on scale-free graphs
- âŠ