1,328 research outputs found
On the reflected appraisals dynamics of influence networks with stubborn agents
Abstract — This article focuses on the evolution of interper-sonal influences in a group of stubborn individuals as they discuss a sequence of issues. Each individual opinion about a single issue is updated based upon the convex combination of the individual’s current opinion, the neighbors ’ current opinion, and the individual’s initial opinion; the attachment to the initial opinion characterizes how stubborn an individual is. To model the evolution of the influence network, we employ Friedkin’s “reflected appraisal ” model: each individual’s self-weight on a new issue is determined by the individual’s average influence and relative control on other individuals on prior issue outcomes. These modeling assumptions lead to a dynamical system for the evolution of self-weights. We establish the well-posedness and continuity of the proposed dynamics and prove the existence and uniqueness of equilibria for stubborn individuals. We then study the impact of network topology on the individuals ’ final self-weights. We prove the convergence of all system trajectories for the special case of doubly-stochastic networks and homogeneous stubbornness. We characterize equilibrium self-weights for systems with centralized networks and heterogeneous stubbornness. Finally, our numerical simulations illustrate how existence, uniqueness and attractivity of the equilibria holds true for general network topologies and stubbornness values. I
Evolution of Social Power for Opinion Dynamics Networks
This article studies the evolution of opinions and interpersonal influence
structures in a group of agents as they discuss a sequence of issues, each of
which follows an opinion dynamics model. In this work, we propose a general
opinion dynamics model and an evolution of interpersonal influence structures
based on the model of reflected appraisals proposed by Friedkin. Our
contributions can be summarized as follows: (i) we introduce a model of opinion
dynamics and evolution of interpersonal influence structures between issues
viewed as a best response cost minimization to the neighbor's actions, (ii) we
show that DeGroot's and Friedkin-Johnsen's models of opinion dynamics and their
evolution of interpersonal influence structures are particular cases of our
proposed model, and (iii) we prove the existence of an equilibrium. This work
is a step towards providing a solid formulation of the evolution of opinions
and interpersonal influence structures over a sequence of issues
On a Modified DeGroot-Friedkin Model of Opinion Dynamics
This paper studies the opinion dynamics that result when individuals
consecutively discuss a sequence of issues. Specifically, we study how
individuals' self-confidence levels evolve via a reflected appraisal mechanism.
Motivated by the DeGroot-Friedkin model, we propose a Modified DeGroot-Friedkin
model which allows individuals to update their self-confidence levels by only
interacting with their neighbors and in particular, the modified model allows
the update of self-confidence levels to take place in finite time without
waiting for the opinion process to reach a consensus on any particular issue.
We study properties of this Modified DeGroot-Friedkin model and compare the
associated equilibria and stability with those of the original DeGroot-Friedkin
model. Specifically, for the case when the interaction matrix is doubly
stochastic, we show that for the modified model, the vector of individuals'
self-confidence levels asymptotically converges to a unique nontrivial
equilibrium which for each individual is equal to 1/n, where n is the number of
individuals. This implies that eventually, individuals reach a democratic
state
Distributed Evaluation and Convergence of Self-Appraisals in Social Networks
We consider in this paper a networked system of opinion dynamics in
continuous time, where the agents are able to evaluate their self-appraisals in
a distributed way. In the model we formulate, the underlying network topology
is described by a rooted digraph. For each ordered pair of agents , we
assign a function of self-appraisal to agent , which measures the level of
importance of agent to agent . Thus, by communicating only with her
neighbors, each agent is able to calculate the difference between her level of
importance to others and others' level of importance to her. The dynamical
system of self-appraisals is then designed to drive these differences to zero.
We show that for almost all initial conditions, the trajectory generated by
this dynamical system asymptotically converges to an equilibrium point which is
exponentially stable
Dynamical Networks of Social Influence: Modern Trends and Perspectives
Dynamics and control of processes over social networks, such as the evolution of opinions, social influence and interpersonal appraisals, diffusion of information and misinformation, emergence and dissociation of communities, are now attracting significant attention from the broad research community that works on systems, control, identification and learning. To provide an introduction to this rapidly developing area, a Tutorial Session was included into the program of IFAC World Congress 2020. This paper provides a brief summary of the three tutorial lectures, covering the most “mature” directions in analysis of social networks and dynamics over them: 1) formation of opinions under social influence; 2) identification and learning for analysis of a network’s structure; 3) dynamics of interpersonal appraisals
Distributed Learning from Interactions in Social Networks
We consider a network scenario in which agents can evaluate each other
according to a score graph that models some interactions. The goal is to design
a distributed protocol, run by the agents, that allows them to learn their
unknown state among a finite set of possible values. We propose a Bayesian
framework in which scores and states are associated to probabilistic events
with unknown parameters and hyperparameters, respectively. We show that each
agent can learn its state by means of a local Bayesian classifier and a
(centralized) Maximum-Likelihood (ML) estimator of parameter-hyperparameter
that combines plain ML and Empirical Bayes approaches. By using tools from
graphical models, which allow us to gain insight on conditional dependencies of
scores and states, we provide a relaxed probabilistic model that ultimately
leads to a parameter-hyperparameter estimator amenable to distributed
computation. To highlight the appropriateness of the proposed relaxation, we
demonstrate the distributed estimators on a social interaction set-up for user
profiling.Comment: This submission is a shorter work (for conference publication) of a
more comprehensive paper, already submitted as arXiv:1706.04081 (under review
for journal publication). In this short submission only one social set-up is
considered and only one of the relaxed estimators is proposed. Moreover, the
exhaustive analysis, carried out in the longer manuscript, is completely
missing in this versio
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