6,122 research outputs found
Exact Analysis of TTL Cache Networks: The Case of Caching Policies driven by Stopping Times
TTL caching models have recently regained significant research interest,
largely due to their ability to fit popular caching policies such as LRU. This
paper advances the state-of-the-art analysis of TTL-based cache networks by
developing two exact methods with orthogonal generality and computational
complexity. The first method generalizes existing results for line networks
under renewal requests to the broad class of caching policies whereby evictions
are driven by stopping times. The obtained results are further generalized,
using the second method, to feedforward networks with Markov arrival processes
(MAP) requests. MAPs are particularly suitable for non-line networks because
they are closed not only under superposition and splitting, as known, but also
under input-output caching operations as proven herein for phase-type TTL
distributions. The crucial benefit of the two closure properties is that they
jointly enable the first exact analysis of feedforward networks of TTL caches
in great generality
Exact analysis of summary statistics for continuous-time discrete-state Markov processes on networks using graph-automorphism lumping
We propose a unified framework to represent a wide range of continuous-time discrete-state Markov processes on networks, and show how many network dynamics models in the literature can be represented in this unified framework. We show how a particular sub-set of these models, referred to here as single-vertex-transition (SVT) processes, lead to the analysis of quasi-birth-and-death (QBD) processes in the theory of continuous-time Markov chains. We illustrate how to analyse a number of summary statistics for these processes, such as absorption probabilities and first-passage times. We extend the graph-automorphism lumping approach [Kiss, Miller, Simon, Mathematics of Epidemics on Networks, 2017; Simon, Taylor, Kiss, J. Math. Bio. 62(4), 2011], by providing a matrix-oriented representation of this technique, and show how it can be applied to a very wide range of dynamical processes on networks. This approach can be used not only to solve the master equation of the system, but also to analyse the summary statistics of interest. We also show the interplay between the graph-automorphism lumping approach and the QBD structures when dealing with SVT processes. Finally, we illustrate our theoretical results with examples from the areas of opinion dynamics and mathematical epidemiology
Calculation of disease dynamics in a population of households
Early mathematical representations of infectious disease dynamics assumed a single, large, homogeneously mixing population. Over the past decade there has been growing interest in models consisting of multiple smaller subpopulations (households, workplaces, schools, communities), with the natural assumption of strong homogeneous mixing within each subpopulation, and weaker transmission between subpopulations. Here we consider a model of SIRS (susceptible-infectious-recovered-susceptible) infection dynamics in a very large (assumed infinite) population of households, with the simplifying assumption that each household is of the same size (although all methods may be extended to a population with a heterogeneous distribution of household sizes). For this households model we present efficient methods for studying several quantities of epidemiological interest: (i) the threshold for invasion; (ii) the early growth rate; (iii) the household offspring distribution; (iv) the endemic prevalence of infection; and (v) the transient dynamics of the process. We utilize these methods to explore a wide region of parameter space appropriate for human infectious diseases. We then extend these results to consider the effects of more realistic gamma-distributed infectious periods. We discuss how all these results differ from standard homogeneous-mixing models and assess the implications for the invasion, transmission and persistence of infection. The computational efficiency of the methodology presented here will hopefully aid in the parameterisation of structured models and in the evaluation of appropriate responses for future disease outbreaks
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