Mathematical Modeling of Complex Contagion on Clustered Networks

 MOTIVATION
From the metabolic networks that fuel the cells in our body, to the social networks
that shape our lives, networks are everywhere. We see them in the rise of the
Internet, the flow of global air traffic and in the spread of financial crisis. Learning
to model and design these networks is central to 21 st century science and
engineering.
For the outline of this presentation,
We first define the network to graph and global clustering coefficient. Then the
models and results. And also the conclusion.
But before that, may I introduce some definitions of the terminologies that is
helpful to understand the topic.
When analyzing connectedness and clustering we’re asking how integrated or
fractured the major system is. How these different major subsystems are
distributed out and their local characteristics.
A graph is said to be connected if for any node in the graph there is a path to
any other node. When a graph is not connected then there will be a number of
what we call components. A component is a subset of nodes and edges within a
graph that are fully connected. A cluster is simply a subset in a graph that possess
certain common characteristics or relate to each other in a particular manner.
Whereas a component is referring to whether a given set of nodes are all
connected or not. A cluster is referring to how they are connected and how much
they are connected. That is the frequency of links between a given subset of nodes.
In order to model the degree of clustering to a subset of nodes we take a node and
look at how connected a node it links to other nodes that is also connected to.
If this was a social network of friends, we will be asking how many of your friends
know your other friends? The more your friends are interconnected the more
clustered the subset is said to be. This clustering within a social network is also
called a clique. A clique is a group of people who interact with each other more
regularly and intensely than others in the same setting.
Networks are not always but often created by the nodes in the network who create
or don’t create connection. In response to local level conditions. But once a
network has reached a level of maturity, a global structure will have emerge to it
that feeds back to affect the elements in the system. Once this is the case, we then
need to analyze the global structure to the network, what we call its topology in
order to understand it.
Moreover, a random network is a type of network that is generated by taking
a set of nodes and randomly placing links between them with some given
probability. So we just take two nodes in the network and we roll the dice to see if
there will be a connection between them or not. The higher we set our probability,
the more likely there will be a connection and thus the more connected our overall
graph will be. So this is a simple system in that once you have decided how many
nodes there will be, it is then really just defined by a single parameter. That is the
probability parameter for the likelihood that any two nodes will form a connection.
Lastly, we'll just touch upon topic of simple and complex contagion. The
diffusion of social behavior is often characterized as either a “simple contagion” or
a “complex contagion”. A simple contagion is essentially binary, meaning either a
node is affected or not. And within this model, all that matters is whether one of
the node affects it or not. Complex contagion in contrary is the process in which
multiple sources of exposure to phenomena are required before an individual
adopts that change in state. In other words, it is a process where a node can easily
become infected by a single contact with an infected neighbor.