No Arabic abstract
Link failures in supply networks can have catastrophic consequences that can lead to a complete collapse of the network. Strategies to prevent failure spreading are thus heavily sought after. Here, we make use of a spanning tree formulation of link failures in linear flow networks to analyse topological structures that prevent failures spreading. In particular, we exploit a result obtained for resistor networks based on the textit{Matrix tree theorem} to analyse failure spreading after link failures in power grids. Using a spanning tree formulation of link failures, we analyse three strategies based on the network topology that allow to reduce the impact of single link failures. All our strategies do not reduce the grids ability to transport flow or do in fact improve it - in contrast to traditional containment strategies based on lowering network connectivity. Our results also explain why certain connectivity features completely suppress any failure spreading as reported in recent publications.
In our daily lives, we rely on the proper functioning of supply networks, from power grids to water transmission systems. A single failure in these critical infrastructures can lead to a complete collapse through a cascading failure mechanism. Counteracting strategies are thus heavily sought after. In this article, we introduce a general framework to analyse the spreading of failures in complex networks and demonstrate that both weak and strong connections can be used to contain damages. We rigorously prove the existence of certain subgraphs, called network isolators, that can completely inhibit any failure spreading, and we show how to create such isolators in synthetic and real-world networks. The addition of selected links can thus prevent large scale outages as demonstrated for power transmission grids.
We introduce a general stochastic model for the spread of rumours, and derive mean-field equations that describe the dynamics of the model on complex social networks (in particular those mediated by the Internet). We use analytical and numerical solutions of these equations to examine the threshold behavior and dynamics of the model on several models of such networks: random graphs, uncorrelated scale-free networks and scale-free networks with assortative degree correlations. We show that in both homogeneous networks and random graphs the model exhibits a critical threshold in the rumour spreading rate below which a rumour cannot propagate in the system. In the case of scale-free networks, on the other hand, this threshold becomes vanishingly small in the limit of infinite system size. We find that the initial rate at which a rumour spreads is much higher in scale-free networks than in random graphs, and that the rate at which the spreading proceeds on scale-free networks is further increased when assortative degree correlations are introduced. The impact of degree correlations on the final fraction of nodes that ever hears a rumour, however, depends on the interplay between network topology and the rumour spreading rate. Our results show that scale-free social networks are prone to the spreading of rumours, just as they are to the spreading of infections. They are relevant to the spreading dynamics of chain emails, viral advertising and large-scale information dissemination algorithms on the Internet.
Epidemic propagation on complex networks has been widely investigated, mostly with invariant parameters. However, the process of epidemic propagation is not always constant. Epidemics can be affected by various perturbations, and may bounce back to its original state, which is considered resilient. Here, we study the resilience of epidemics on networks, by introducing a different infection rate ${lambda_{2}}$ during SIS (susceptible-infected-susceptible) epidemic propagation to model perturbations (control state), whereas the infection rate is ${lambda_{1}}$ in the rest of time. Through simulations and theoretical analysis, we find that even for ${lambda_{2}<lambda_{c}}$, epidemics eventually could bounce back if control duration is below a threshold. This critical control time for epidemic resilience, i.e., ${cd_{max}}$ can be predicted by the diameter (${d}$) of the underlying network, with the quantitative relation ${cd_{max}sim d^{alpha}}$. Our findings can help to design a better mitigation strategy for epidemics.
Comparing with single networks, the multiplex networks bring two main effects on the spreading process among individuals. First, the pathogen or information can be transmitted to more individuals through different layers at one time, which enlarges the spreading scope. Second, through different layers, an individual can also transmit the pathogen or information to the same individuals more than once at one time, which makes the spreading more effective. To understand the different roles of the spreading scope and effectiveness, we propose an epidemic model on multiplex networks with link overlapping, where the spreading effectiveness of each interaction as well as the variety of channels (spreading scope) can be controlled by the number of overlapping links. We find that for Poisson degree distribution, increasing the epidemic scope (the first effect) is more efficient than enhancing epidemic probability (the second effect) to facilitate the spreading process. However, for power-law degree distribution, the effects of the two factors on the spreading dynamics become complicated. Enhancing epidemic probability makes pathogen or rumor easier to outbreak in a finite system. But after that increasing epidemic scopes is still more effective for a wide spreading. Theoretical results along with reasonable explanation for these phenomena are all given in this paper, which indicates that the epidemic scope could play an important role in the spreading dynamics.
A model for epidemic spreading on rewiring networks is introduced and analyzed for the case of scale free steady state networks. It is found that contrary to what one would have naively expected, the rewiring process typically tends to suppress epidemic spreading. In particular it is found that as in static networks, rewiring networks with degree distribution exponent $gamma >3$ exhibit a threshold in the infection rate below which epidemics die out in the steady state. However the threshold is higher in the rewiring case. For $2<gamma leq 3$ no such threshold exists, but for small infection rate the steady state density of infected nodes (prevalence) is smaller for rewiring networks.