Multiscale Analysis of Spreading in a Large Communication Network

In temporal networks, both the topology of the underlying network and the timings of interaction events can be crucial in determining how some dynamic process mediated by the network unfolds. We have explored the limiting case of the speed of spreading in the SI model, set up such that an event between an infectious and susceptible individual always transmits the infection. The speed of this process sets an upper bound for the speed of any dynamic process that is mediated through the interaction events of the network. With the help of temporal networks derived from large scale time-stamped data on mobile phone calls, we extend earlier results that point out the slowing-down effects of burstiness and temporal inhomogeneities. In such networks, links are not permanently active, but dynamic processes are mediated by recurrent events taking place on the links at specific points in time. We perform a multi-scale analysis and pinpoint the importance of the timings of event sequences on individual links, their correlations with neighboring sequences, and the temporal pathways taken by the network-scale spreading process. This is achieved by studying empirically and analytically different characteristic relay times of links, relevant to the respective scales, and a set of temporal reference models that allow for removing selected time-domain correlations one by one

The International Trade Network: weighted network analysis and modelling

Tools of the theory of critical phenomena, namely the scaling analysis and universality, are argued to be applicable to large complex web-like network structures. Using a detailed analysis of the real data of the International Trade Network we argue that the scaled link weight distribution has an approximate log-normal distribution which remains robust over a period of 53 years. Another universal feature is observed in the power-law growth of the trade strength with gross domestic product, the exponent being similar for all countries. Using the 'rich-club' coefficient measure of the weighted networks it has been shown that the size of the rich-club controlling half of the world's trade is actually shrinking. While the gravity law is known to describe well the social interactions in the static networks of population migration, international trade, etc, here for the first time we studied a non-conservative dynamical model based on the gravity law which excellently reproduced many empirical features of the ITN.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

A Markov model for inferring flows in directed contact networks

Directed contact networks (DCNs) are a particularly flexible and convenient class of temporal networks, useful for modeling and analyzing the transfer of discrete quantities in communications, transportation, epidemiology, etc. Transfers modeled by contacts typically underlie flows that associate multiple contacts based on their spatiotemporal relationships. To infer these flows, we introduce a simple inhomogeneous Markov model associated to a DCN and show how it can be effectively used for data reduction and anomaly detection through an example of kernel-level information transfers within a computer.Comment: 12 page

Evidence of 4He Crystallization via Quantum Tunneling at mK Temperatures

We have investigated creation of 4He crystals from the superfluid phase at the temperature range 2 mK–1.0 K. Statistical nucleation-event distributions in overpressure were found to be broad, asymmetric, and temperature independent below 100 mK. Our statistical analysis agrees with a theoretical model suggesting that solid formation is driven by macroscopical quantum-mechanical fluctuations from a seed preexisting in a cavity on the wall.Peer reviewe

Observation of a New Surface State on 4He Crystal Interfaces

The equilibrium shape of hcp 4He crystals has been studied at temperatures 0.05≤T≤0.7 K by means of a high-precision optical interferometer. We find that the profile of the interfacial boundary, close to an almost horizontal c-facet, has a well-defined slope discontinuity separating two angular regions with different behavior of the surface stiffness α̃. For surfaces tilted by an angle φ≲100 μrad with respect to the c-facet, we obtain α̃=κ/φ, contrary to the linear angular dependence predicted by current theories. Our results on four large crystals yield κ=(11±3)×10 exp −4T erg/ cm exp 2 K.Peer reviewe

Facet Growth of 4He Crystals at mK Temperatures

We have investigated growth of c facets in good quality helium crystals with screw dislocation densities 0–20 cm exp −2 along the c axis. Three distinct regimes of growth were observed. One of them can be explained by spiral growth provided that kinetic energy of moving steps and their tendency to localization at large driving forces are taken into account. In the absence of screw dislocations we find burstlike growth unless the speed is less than 0.5 nm/s, in which case anomalous, intrinsic growth of facets is detected.Peer reviewe

Shift of percolation thresholds for epidemic spread between static and dynamic small-world networks

The aim of the study was to compare the epidemic spread on static and dynamic small-world networks. The network was constructed as a 2-dimensional Watts-Strogatz model (500x500 square lattice with additional shortcuts), and the dynamics involved rewiring shortcuts in every time step of the epidemic spread. The model of the epidemic is SIR with latency time of 3 time steps. The behaviour of the epidemic was checked over the range of shortcut probability per underlying bond 0-0.5. The quantity of interest was percolation threshold for the epidemic spread, for which numerical results were checked against an approximate analytical model. We find a significant lowering of percolation thresholds for the dynamic network in the parameter range given. The result shows that the behaviour of the epidemic on dynamic network is that of a static small world with the number of shortcuts increased by 20.7 +/- 1.4%, while the overall qualitative behaviour stays the same. We derive corrections to the analytical model which account for the effect. For both dynamic and static small-world we observe suppression of the average epidemic size dependence on network size in comparison with finite-size scaling known for regular lattice. We also study the effect of dynamics for several rewiring rates relative to latency time of the disease.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Analysis of a large-scale weighted network of one-to-one human communication

We construct a connected network of 3.9 million nodes from mobile phone call records, which can be regarded as a proxy for the underlying human communication network at the societal level. We assign two weights on each edge to reflect the strength of social interaction, which are the aggregate call duration and the cumulative number of calls placed between the individuals over a period of 18 weeks. We present a detailed analysis of this weighted network by examining its degree, strength, and weight distributions, as well as its topological assortativity and weighted assortativity, clustering and weighted clustering, together with correlations between these quantities. We give an account of motif intensity and coherence distributions and compare them to a randomized reference system. We also use the concept of link overlap to measure the number of common neighbors any two adjacent nodes have, which serves as a useful local measure for identifying the interconnectedness of communities. We report a positive correlation between the overlap and weight of a link, thus providing strong quantitative evidence for the weak ties hypothesis, a central concept in social network analysis. The percolation properties of the network are found to depend on the type and order of removed links, and they can help understand how the local structure of the network manifests itself at the global level. We hope that our results will contribute to modeling weighted large-scale social networks, and believe that the systematic approach followed here can be adopted to study other weighted networks.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figures, 2 table

New approaches to model and study social networks

We describe and develop three recent novelties in network research which are particularly useful for studying social systems. The first one concerns the discovery of some basic dynamical laws that enable the emergence of the fundamental features observed in social networks, namely the nontrivial clustering properties, the existence of positive degree correlations and the subdivision into communities. To reproduce all these features we describe a simple model of mobile colliding agents, whose collisions define the connections between the agents which are the nodes in the underlying network, and develop some analytical considerations. The second point addresses the particular feature of clustering and its relationship with global network measures, namely with the distribution of the size of cycles in the network. Since in social bipartite networks it is not possible to measure the clustering from standard procedures, we propose an alternative clustering coefficient that can be used to extract an improved normalized cycle distribution in any network. Finally, the third point addresses dynamical processes occurring on networks, namely when studying the propagation of information in them. In particular, we focus on the particular features of gossip propagation which impose some restrictions in the propagation rules. To this end we introduce a quantity, the spread factor, which measures the average maximal fraction of nearest neighbors which get in contact with the gossip, and find the striking result that there is an optimal non-trivial number of friends for which the spread factor is minimized, decreasing the danger of being gossiped.Comment: 16 Pages, 9 figure

Structure and tie strengths in mobile communication networks

Electronic databases, from phone to emails logs, currently provide detailed records of human communication patterns, offering novel avenues to map and explore the structure of social and communication networks. Here we examine the communication patterns of millions of mobile phone users, allowing us to simultaneously study the local and the global structure of a society-wide communication network. We observe a coupling between interaction strengths and the network's local structure, with the counterintuitive consequence that social networks are robust to the removal of the strong ties, but fall apart following a phase transition if the weak ties are removed. We show that this coupling significantly slows the diffusion process, resulting in dynamic trapping of information in communities, and find that when it comes to information diffusion, weak and strong ties are both simultaneously ineffective.Comment: 30 pages (manuscript + supplementary material), 11 figure