No Arabic abstract
In the last two decades, network science has blossomed and influenced various fields, such as statistical physics, computer science, biology and sociology, from the perspective of the heterogeneous interaction patterns of components composing the complex systems. As a paradigm for random and semi-random connectivity, percolation model plays a key role in the development of network science and its applications. On the one hand, the concepts and analytical methods, such as the emergence of the giant cluster, the finite-size scaling, and the mean-field method, which are intimately related to the percolation theory, are employed to quantify and solve some core problems of networks. On the other hand, the insights into the percolation theory also facilitate the understanding of networked systems, such as robustness, epidemic spreading, vital node identification, and community detection. Meanwhile, network science also brings some new issues to the percolation theory itself, such as percolation of strong heterogeneous systems, topological transition of networks beyond pairwise interactions, and emergence of a giant cluster with mutual connections. So far, the percolation theory has already percolated into the researches of structure analysis and dynamic modeling in network science. Understanding the percolation theory should help the study of many fields in network science, including the still opening questions in the frontiers of networks, such as networks beyond pairwise interactions, temporal networks, and network of networks. The intention of this paper is to offer an overview of these applications, as well as the basic theory of percolation transition on network systems.
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.
Power grids, road maps, and river streams are examples of infrastructural networks which are highly vulnerable to external perturbations. An abrupt local change of load (voltage, traffic density, or water level) might propagate in a cascading way and affect a significant fraction of the network. Almost discontinuous perturbations can be modeled by shock waves which can eventually interfere constructively and endanger the normal functionality of the infrastructure. We study their dynamics by solving the Burgers equation under random perturbations on several real and artificial directed graphs. Even for graphs with a narrow distribution of node properties (e.g., degree or betweenness), a steady state is reached exhibiting a heterogeneous load distribution, having a difference of one order of magnitude between the highest and average loads. Unexpectedly we find for the European power grid and for finite Watts-Strogatz networks a broad pronounced bimodal distribution for the loads. To identify the most vulnerable nodes, we introduce the concept of node-basin size, a purely topological property which we show to be strongly correlated to the average load of a node.
The static properties of the fundamental model for epidemics of diseases allowing immunity (susceptible-infected-removed model) are known to be derivable by an exact mapping to bond percolation. Yet when performing numerical simulations of these dynamics in a network a number of subtleties must be taken into account in order to correctly estimate the transition point and the associated critical properties. We expose these subtleties and identify the different quantities which play the role of criticality detector in the two dynamics.
Community structure is one of the most relevant features encountered in numerous real-world applications of networked systems. Despite the tremendous effort of scientists working on this subject over the past few decades to characterize, model, and analyze communities, more investigations are needed to better understand the impact of community structure and its dynamics on networked systems. Here, we first focus on generative models of communities in complex networks and their role in developing strong foundation for community detection algorithms. We discuss modularity and the use of modularity maximization as the basis for community detection. Then, we overview the Stochastic Block Model, its different variants, and inference of community structures from such models. Next, we focus on time evolving networks, where existing nodes and links can disappear and/or new nodes and links may be introduced. The extraction of communities under such circumstances poses an interesting and non-trivial problem that has gained considerable interest over the last decade. We briefly discuss considerable advances made in this field recently. Finally, we focus on immunization strategies essential for targeting the influential spreaders of epidemics in modular networks. Their main goal is to select and immunize a small proportion of individuals from the whole network to control the diffusion process. Various strategies have emerged over the years suggesting different ways to immunize nodes in networks with overlapping and non-overlapping community structure. We first discuss stochastic strategies that require little or no information about the network topology at the expense of their performance. Then, we introduce deterministic strategies that have proven to be very efficient in controlling the epidemic outbreaks, but require complete knowledge of the network.
Many real-world complex systems are best modeled by multiplex networks. The multiplexity has proved to have broad impact on the systems structure and function. Most theoretical studies on multiplex networks to date, however, have largely ignored the effect of link overlap across layers despite strong empirical evidences for its significance. In this article, we investigate the effect of link overlap in the viability of multiplex networks, both analytically and numerically. Distinctive role of overlapping links in viability and mutual connectivity is emphasized and exploited for setting up proper analytic framework. A rich phase diagram for viability is obtained and greatly diversified patterns of hysteretic behavior in viability are observed in the presence of link overlap. Mutual percolation with link overlap is revisited as a limit of multiplex viability problem, and controversy between existing results is clarified. The distinctive role of overlapping links is further demonstrated by the different responses of networks under random removals of overlapping and non-overlapping links, respectively, as well as under several removal strategies. Our results show that the link overlap strongly facilitates viability and mutual percolation; at the same time, the presence of link overlap poses challenge in analytical approach to the problem.