Studying the co-evolution of information diffusion,vaccination behavior and disease transmission in multilayer networks with local and global effects

Today,with the rapid development of the internet,a large amount of information often accompanies the rapid transmission of disease outbreaks,and increasing numbers of scholars are studying the relationship between information and the disease transmission process using complex networks.In fact,the disease transmission process is very complex.Besides this information,there will often be individual behavioral measures and other factors to consider.Most of the previous research has aimed to establish a two-layer network model to consider the impact of information on the transmission process of disease,rarely divided into information and behavior,respectively.To carry out a more in-depth analysis of the disease transmission process and the intrinsic influencing mechanism,this paper divides information and behavior into two layers and proposes the establishment of a complex network to study the dynamic co-evolution of information diffusion,vaccination behavior,and disease transmission.This is achieved by considering four influential relationships between adjacent layers in multilayer networks.In the information layer,the diffusion process of negative information is described,and the feedback effects of local and global vaccination are considered.In the behavioral layer,an individual's vaccination behavior is described,and the probability of an individual receiving a vaccination is influenced by two factors:the influence of negative information,and the influence of local and global disease severity.In the disease layer,individual susceptibility is considered to be influenced by vaccination behavior.The state transition equations are derived using the micro Markov chain approach(MMCA),and disease prevalence thresholds are obtained.It is demonstrated through simulation experiments that the negative information diffusion is less influenced by local vaccination behavior,and is mainly influenced by global vaccination behavior;vaccination behavior is mainly influenced by local disease conditions,and is less influenced by global disease conditions;the disease transmission threshold increases with the increasing vaccination rate;and the scale of disease transmission increases with the increasing negative information diffusion rate and decreases with the increasing vaccination rate.Finally,it is found that when individual vaccination behavior considers both the influence of negative information and disease,it can increase the disease transmission threshold and reduce the scale of disease transmission.Therefore,we should resist the diffusion of negative information,increase vaccination proportions,and take appropriate protective measures in time.

Dynamics of information diffusion and disease transmission in time-varying multiplex networks with asymmetric activity levels

While the interaction between information and disease in static networks has been extensively investigated,many studies have ignored the characteristics of network evolution.In this study,we construct a new two-layer coupling model to explore the interactions between information and disease.The upper layer describes the diffusion of disease-related information,and the lower layer represents the disease transmission.We then use power-law distributions to examine the influence of asymmetric activity levels on dynamic propagation,revealing a mapping relationship characterizing the interconnected propagation of information and diseases among partial nodes within the network.Subsequently,we derive the disease outbreak threshold by using the microscopic Markov-chain approach(MMCA).Finally,we perform extensive Monte Carlo(MC)numerical simulations to verify the accuracy of our theoretical results.Our findings indicate that the activity levels of individuals in the disease transmission layer have a more significant influence on disease transmission compared with the individual activity levels in the information diffusion layer.Moreover,reducing the damping factor can delay disease outbreaks and suppress disease transmission,while improving individual quarantine measures can contribute positively to disease control.This study provides valuable insights into policymakers for developing outbreak prevention and control strategies.

Dynamics modeling and optimal control for multi-information diffusion in Social Internet of Things

As an ingenious convergence between the Internet of Things and social networks,the Social Internet of Things(SIoT)can provide effective and intelligent information services and has become one of the main platforms for people to spread and share information.Nevertheless,SIoT is characterized by high openness and autonomy,multiple kinds of information can spread rapidly,freely and cooperatively in SIoT,which makes it challenging to accurately reveal the characteristics of the information diffusion process and effectively control its diffusion.To this end,with the aim of exploring multi-information cooperative diffusion processes in SIoT,we first develop a dynamics model for multi-information cooperative diffusion based on the system dynamics theory in this paper.Subsequently,the characteristics and laws of the dynamical evolution process of multi-information cooperative diffusion are theoretically investigated,and the diffusion trend is predicted.On this basis,to further control the multi-information cooperative diffusion process efficiently,we propose two control strategies for information diffusion with control objectives,develop an optimal control system for the multi-information cooperative diffusion process,and propose the corresponding optimal control method.The optimal solution distribution of the control strategy satisfying the control system constraints and the control budget constraints is solved using the optimal control theory.Finally,extensive simulation experiments based on real dataset from Twitter validate the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed model,strategy and method.

Intervention against information diffusion in static and temporal coupling networks

Information diffusion in complex networks has become quite an active research topic.As an important part of this field,intervention against information diffusion processes is attracting ever-increasing attention from network and control engineers.In particular,it is urgent to design intervention schemes for the coevolutionary dynamics between information diffusion processes and coupled networks.For this purpose,we comprehensively study the problem of information diffusion intervention over static and temporal coupling networks.First,individual interactions are described by a modified activitydriven network(ADN)model.Then,we establish a novel node-based susceptible-infected-recovered-susceptible(SIRS)model to characterize the information diffusion dynamics.On these bases,three synergetic intervention strategies are formulated.Second,we derive the critical threshold of the controlled-SIRS system via stability analysis.Accordingly,we exploit a spectral optimization scheme to minimize the outbreak risk or the required budget.Third,we develop an optimal control scheme of dynamically allocating resources to minimize both system loss and intervention expense,in which the optimal intervention inputs are obtained through optimal control theory and a forward-backward sweep algorithm.Finally,extensive simulation results validate the accuracy of theoretical derivation and the performance of our proposed intervention schemes.

General limited information diffusion method of small-sample information analysis in insurance

When analyzing and evaluating risks in insurance, people are often confronted with the situation of incomplete information and insufficient data, which is known as a small-sample problem. In this paper, a one-dimensional small-sample problem in insurance was investigated using the kernel density estimation method （KerM） and general limited information diffusion method （GIDM）. In particular, MacCormack technique was applied to get the solutions of GIDM equations and then the optimal diffusion solution was acquired based on the two optimization principles. Finally, the analysis introduced in this paper was verified by treating some examples and satisfying results were obtained.

Subtle role of latency for information diffusion in online social networks

Information diffusion in online social networks is induced by the event of forwarding information for users, and latency exists widely in user spreading behaviors. Little work has been done to reveal the effect of latency on the diffusion process. In this paper, we propose a propagation model in which nodes may suspend their spreading actions for a waiting period of stochastic length. These latent nodes may recover their activity again. Meanwhile, the mechanism of forwarding information is also introduced into the diffusion model. Mean-field analysis and numerical simulations indicate that our model has three nontrivial results. First, the spreading threshold does not correlate with latency in neither homogeneous nor heterogeneous networks, but depends on the spreading and refractory parameter. Furthermore, latency affects the diffusion process and changes the infection scale. A large or small latency parameter leads to a larger final diffusion extent, but the intrinsic dynamics is different. Large latency implies forwarding information rapidly, while small latency prevents nodes from dropping out of interactions. In addition, the betweenness is a better descriptor to identify influential nodes in the model with latency, compared with the coreness and degree. These results are helpful in understanding some collective phenomena of the diffusion process and taking measures to restrain a rumor in social networks.

A comparative study of information diffusion in weblogs and microblogs based on social network analysis

Purpose: This paper intends to explore a quantitative method for investigating the characteristics of information diffusion through social media like weblogs and microblogs.By using the social network analysis methods,we attempt to analyze the different characteristics of information diffusion in weblogs and microblogs as well as the possible reasons of these differences.Design/methodology/approach: Using the social network analysis methods,this paper carries out an empirical study by taking the Chinese weblogs and microblogs in the field of Library and Information Science(LIS) as the research sample and employing measures such as network density,core/peripheral structure and centrality.Findings: Firstly,both bloggers and microbloggers maintain weak ties,and both of their social networks display a small-world effect. Secondly,compared with weblog users,microblog users are more interconnected,more equal and more capable of developing relationships with people outside their own social networks. Thirdly,the microblogging social network is more conducive to information diffusion than the blogging network,because of their differences in functions and the information flow mechanism. Finally,the communication mode emerged with microblogging,with the characteristics of micro-content,multi-channel information dissemination,dense and decentralized social network and content aggregation,will be one of the trends in the development of the information exchange platform in the future.Research limitations: The sample size needs to be increased so that samples are more representative. Errors may exist during the data collection. Moreover,the individual-level characteristics of the samples as well as the types of information exchanged need to be further studied.Practical implications: This preliminary study explores the characteristics of information diffusion in the network environment and verifies the feasibility of conducting a quantitative analysis of information diffusion through social media. In addition,it provides insight into the characteristics of information diffusion in weblogs and microblogs and the possible reasons of these differences.Originality/value: We have analyzed the characteristics of information diffusion in weblogs and microblogs by using the social network analysis methods. This research will be useful for a quantitative analysis of the underlying mechanisms of information flow through social media in the network environment.

Information diffusion on adaptive network

Based on the adaptive network, the feedback mechanism and interplay between the network topology and the diffusive process of information are studied. The results reveal that the adaptation of network topology can drive systems into the scale-free one with the assortative or disassortative degree correlations, and the hierarchical clustering. Meanwhile, the processes of the information diffusion are extremely speeded up by the adaptive changes of network topology.

Assessment of Agricultural Drought Risk in the Sichuan Basin Based on Information Diffusion Theory

Based on data of agricultural drought situation and sown area of main crops in each county or district of the Sichuan Basin, the spatial distribution and probability of agricultural drought risk at different risk levels were studied using normal information diffusion method, and the risk zoning was carried out. The results showed that normal information diffusion method could fit the distribution of agricultural drought risk in the Sichuan Basin. By comparison with the end of the 20^th century, agricultural drought risk in Meishan, Chongqing City and so on increased at the beginning of the 21^st century when x1≥ 10% or x1≥40%. Agricultural drought risk was low in the west of the Sichuan Basin, which was related to rich precipitation here, but it was high in Bazhong, Zhongjiang, Luxian and so forth. The risk zoning results can provide scientific references for disaster prevention and emergency management of government.

Bayesian Network Model of Product Information Diffusion and Reasoning of Influence

Information diffusion on social media has become a key strategy in people’s daily interactions. This paper studies consumers’ participation in the product information diffusion, and analyzes the complexity of information diffusion which is affected by many factors. Prior investigations of information diffusion have primarily focused on the composition of diffusion networks with independent factors and the intricacy of the process has not been completely evaluated. The majority of prior investigations have focused on strategies and the moving forces in social media processes and the determination of influential seed nodes, with few evaluations conducted about the factors affecting consumers’ choices in information diffusion. In this study, a Bayesian network model of product information diffusion was created to examine the links between factors and consumer deportment. It revealed how those factors had an impact on each other and on consumer deportment choice. The innovation of the thesis is reflected in the exploration and analysis of the specific communication path of product information diffusion, which provides a better marketing idea and practical method for the development of mobile e-commerce. The research findings can help identify the quantitative relationships between the factors affecting the process of product information diffusion and user behavior.

A Survey of Information Diffusion Prediction in Online Social Networks

With the development of Web 2.0 and the gradual maturity of online social media, social network has become an indispensable platform for people＇ s social interaction, information sharing and news transmission.The study of social networks has become the consensus and urgent need of the academic and industrial circles. The prediction of information communication is the core function of social network, and it is also the core content.To be specific, this paper briefly introduces the concept of social network, then summarizes the diffusion prediction models and methods from five aspects, namely, user attributes-based, information characteristics-based,user groups-based, statistic and inference-based and network topology -based models. Finally, the directions for the future research are discussed.

Study on the Diffusion Performance of Standard E-Government Information Systems

Standard e-government information system(SEIS) including mobile-government applications are playing more and more important roles in the establishing of national e-government framework. It can be beneficial not only for avoiding redundant e-government IS development but also for improving collaboration among government agencies. Two research questions were explored: what are the factors influencing the performance of SEIS? Will mandatory SEIS create a better performance than non-mandatory SEIS? Specifically, the use of five categories of IS aspects--information system quality, online service quality, offline service quality, diffusion modes and standard network size—is proposed to understand the performance of SEIS through applying both survey study and simulation study. The results show that information system quality and online service quality of SEIS have strong effects on users' expectation and users' satisfaction, which thereafter promotes the performance of SEIS. Government agencies' offline service quality shows a significant effect on users' satisfaction while not on users' expectation. Furthermore, the diffusion speed of SEIS in non-mandatory and mandatory modes and the standard network size also have great influence on the utility of SEIS.

Identifying Influential Communities Using IID for a Multilayer Networks

In online social networks(OSN),they generate several specific user activities daily,corresponding to the billions of data points shared.However,although users exhibit significant interest in social media,they are uninterested in the content,discussions,or opinions available on certain sites.Therefore,this study aims to identify influential communities and understand user behavior across networks in the information diffusion process.Social media platforms,such as Facebook and Twitter,extract data to analyze the information diffusion process,based on which they cascade information among the individuals in the network.Therefore,this study proposes an influential information diffusion model that identifies influential communities across these two social media sites.More-over,it addresses site migration by visualizing a set of overlapping communities using hyper-edge detection.Thus,the overlapping community structure is used to identify similar communities with identical user interests.Furthermore,the com-munity structure helps in determining the node activation and user influence from the information cascade model.Finally,the Fraction of Intra/Inter-Layer(FIL)dif-fusion score is used to evaluate the efficiency of the influential information diffu-sion model by analyzing the trending influential communities in a multilayer network.However,from the experimental result,it observes that the FIL diffusion score for the proposed method achieves better results in terms of accuracy,preci-sion,recall and efficiency of community detection than the existing methods.

Chinese Marine Economy Development: Dynamic Evolution and Spatial Difference

This study focuses on China's coastal area and its marine economic development. Applying the information diffusion method, the study establishes a kernel density function and its decomposition using a marine economic per capita as the index of the model to depict the dynamic evolution law and the internal influential factors of the Chinese marine economy during 1996–2013. The relative development rate was introduced to analyze the spatial differences in the marine economy's development. In this way, space and time dimensions fully characterized the evolution of the Chinese marine economy. Additionally, the influence of growth and inequality in the process of its development can be analyzed. The study shows that the Chinese marine economy as a whole has been growing, and regional marine economic development is relatively coordinated. In addition, the marine economy began to develop even more rapidly after 2004. There are three factors affecting the dynamic evolution of China's marine economy: first, the most influential mean effect, followed by, second, the variance effect, and third, the least influential residual effect. The biggest influence on the dynamic evolution of the marine economy is the improvement of the development level of the marine economy in the coastal area. Meanwhile, due to the existence of inequality, provinces at higher development levels are more dispersed. Furthermore, the existence of the residual effect weakens the influence of the mean effect, and the influence on the dynamic evolution of the marine economy continuously increases. In the analysis of the influencing factors of the evolution and spatial difference of marine economic development, the level of opening to the outside world, the level of investment in fixed assets and the industrial structure have a positive role in promoting economic development. However, capital investment in scientific human research has a negative correlation with economic development, and does not pass the significant test. The difference in regional development levels and development speed is also very apparent; namely, the provinces with higher development levels generally displayed faster development speeds while those with lower development levels showed slower development speeds across the four periods analyzed.

Storm surge disaster evaluation model based on an artificial neural network

Back propagation is employed to forecast the current of a storm with various characteristics of storm surge; the technique is thus important in disaster forecasting. One of the most fuzzy types of information in the prediction of geological calamity is handled employing the information diffusion method. First, a single-step prediction model and neural network prediction model are employed to collect influential information used to predict the extreme tide level. Second, information is obtained using the information diffusion method, which improves the precision of risk recognition when there is insufficient information. Experiments demonstrate that the method proposed in this paper is simple and effective and provides better forecast results than other methods. Future work will focus on a more precise forecast model.

Asynchronism of the spreading dynamics underlying the bursty pattern

The potential mechanisms of the spreading phenomena uncover the organizations and functions of various systems.However,due to the lack of valid data,most of early works are limited to the simulated process on model networks.In this paper,we track and analyze the propagation paths of real spreading events on two social networks:Twitter and Brightkite.The empirical analysis reveals that the spreading probability and the spreading velocity present the explosive growth within a short period,where the spreading probability measures the transferring likelihood between two neighboring nodes,and the spreading velocity is the growth rate of the information in the whole network.Besides,we observe the asynchronism between the spreading probability and the spreading velocity.To explain the interesting and abnormal issue,we introduce the time-varying spreading probability into the susceptible-infected(SI)and linear threshold(LT)models.Both the analytic and experimental results reproduce the spreading phenomenon in real networks,which deepens our understandings of spreading problems.

The integrated risk assessment and zoning of meteorological disaster in Heilongjiang Province of China

This paper describes studies on the integrated risk assessment and zoning of meteorological disaster in Heilongjiang Province,in northeastern China,by using information-diffusion theory and cluster method with 35 years of summer temperature and precipitation data from 74 meteorological stations from 1971 through 2005.The information-diffusion theory has been used extensively in risk assessment,yet almost no one has done research about risk assessment by information-diffusion theory based on meteorological disaster standards.Some research results are as follows:the risk probability of low temperature and cold damage in the northern region is higher than that in the southern region;the risk probability of general low temperature and cold damage in the southwestern region is the highest;the risk probability of serious low temperature and cold damage in the northern region is the highest,followed by the central and southeast region;the high-risk region of arid disaster in Heilongjiang Province was primarily located in the southwestern,central,and southern parts of the province;the high-intensity arid disaster was located in the south-eastern region;the high-risk region of flood in Heilongjiang Province was primarily located from the southwest and then across the central part to the western part of Heilongjiang Province;the high-intensity flood disasters were located in almost every part of Heilongjiang Province.We can conclude from the integrated meteorological disaster risk zoning that the high-risk region of mete-orological disaster is primarily located in the southern and northern part of the province,the moderate-risk region is distributed in the central southern region and western region,the low-risk region is located in the eastern part,and the light-risk region is located in the central western part of Heilongjiang Province.

Behavior and Regularity Analysis of Online Topic Spreading

The spread of online topics,which is a complex socio-psychological and information dissemination process,can significantly influence the online public opinion. The behavior of online topics spreading is explored and its regularity is attempted to analyze. A general model for the spread of online topics is introduced,and the differential equation that describes the velocity of an online topic＇s spreading is derived. The velocity of an online topic＇s spread indicates the level of the topic＇s development and reflects its popularity over time. The proposed model has been theoretically analyzed and empirically studied,respectively. By analyzing the data set from a famous Internet forum,it is shown that the development of spread velocity of online topics has some certain features and our model matches the laws of reality. This method,which is suitable for forecasting the development trend of online topics’ spread velocity in short term,is also critical to the success of online topics’ regularity analysis.

Epidemic-Like Proximity-Based Traffic Offloading

Cellular networks are overloaded due to the mobile traffic surge,and mobile social networks(MSNets) can be leveraged for traffic offloading.In this paper,we study the issue of choosing seed users for maximizing the mobile traffic offloaded from cellular networks.We introduce a gossip-style social cascade(GSC) model to model the epidemic-like information diffusion process in MSNets.For static-case and mobile-case networks,we establish an equivalent view and a temporal mapping of the information diffusion process,respectively.We further prove the submodularity in the information diffusion and propose a greedy algorithm to choose the seed users for traffic offloading,yielding a sub-optimal solution to the NP-hard traffic offloading maximization(TOM) problem.Experiments are carried out to study the offloading performance,illustrating that the greedy algorithm significantly outperforms the heuristic and random algorithms,and user mobility can help further reduce cellular load.

Impact of asymmetric activity on interactions between information diffusion and disease transmission in multiplex networks

Disease is a serious threat to human society.Understanding the characteristics of disease transmission is helpful for people to effectively control disease.In real life,it is natural to take various measures when people are aware of disease.In this paper,a novel coupled model considering asymmetric activity is proposed to describe the interactions between information diffusion and disease transmission in multiplex networks.Then,the critical threshold for disease transmission is derived by using the micro-Markov chain method.Finally,the theoretical results are verified by numerical simulations.The results show that reducing the activity level of individuals in the physical contact layer will have a continuous impact on reducing the disease outbreak threshold and suppressing the disease.In addition,the activity level of individuals in the virtual network has little impact on the transmission of the disease.Meanwhile,when individuals are aware of more disease-related information,the higher their awareness of prevention will be,which can effectively inhibit the transmission of disease.Our research results can provide a useful reference for the control of disease transmission.