The Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible model is a canonical model for emerging disease outbreaks. Such outbreaks are naturally modeled as taking place on networks. A theoretical challenge in network epidemiology is the dynamic correlations coming from
that if one node is occupied, or infected (for disease spreading models), then its neighbors are likely to be occupied. By combining two theoretical approaches---the heterogeneous mean-field theory and the effective degree method---we are able to include these correlations in an analytical solution of the SIS model. We derive accurate expressions for the average prevalence (fraction of infected) and epidemic threshold. We also discuss how to generalize the approach to a larger class of stochastic population models.
An open problem in evolutionary game dynamics is to understand the effect of peer pressure on cooperation in a quantitative manner. Peer pressure can be modeled by punishment, which has been proved to be an effective mechanism to sustain cooperation
among selfish individuals. We investigate a symmetric punishment strategy, in which an individual will punish each neighbor if their strategies are different, and vice versa. Because of the symmetry in imposing the punishment, one might expect intuitively the strategy to have little effect on cooperation. Utilizing the prisoners dilemma game as a prototypical model of interactions at the individual level, we find, through simulation and theoretical analysis, that proper punishment, when even symmetrically imposed on individuals, can enhance cooperation. Besides, we find that the initial density of cooperators plays an important role in the evolution of cooperation driven by mutual punishment.
The interplay between traffic dynamics and epidemic spreading on complex networks has received increasing attention in recent years. However, the control of traffic-driven epidemic spreading remains to be a challenging problem. In this Brief Report,
we propose a method to suppress traffic-driven epidemic outbreak by properly removing some edges in a network. We find that the epidemic threshold can be enhanced by the targeted cutting of links among large-degree nodes or edges with the largest algorithmic betweeness. In contrast, the epidemic threshold will be reduced by the random edge removal. These findings are robust with respect to traffic-flow conditions, network structures and routing strategies. Moreover, we find that the shutdown of targeted edges can effectively release traffic load passing through large-degree nodes, rendering a relatively low probability of infection to these nodes.
Despite extensive work on the interplay between traffic dynamics and epidemic spreading, the control of epidemic spreading by routing strategies has not received adequate attention. In this paper, we study the impact of efficient routing protocol on
epidemic spreading. In the case of infinite node-delivery capacity, where the traffic is free of congestion, we find that that there exists optimal values of routing parameter, leading to the maximal epidemic threshold. This means that epidemic spreading can be effectively controlled by fine tuning the routing scheme. Moreover, we find that an increase in the average network connectivity and the emergence of traffic congestion can suppress the epidemic outbreak.
Recent empirical studies suggest that heavy-tailed distributions of human activities are universal in real social dynamics [Muchnik, emph{et al.}, Sci. Rep. textbf{3}, 1783 (2013)]. On the other hand, community structure is ubiquitous in biological a
nd social networks [M.~E.~J. Newman, Nat. Phys. textbf{8}, 25 (2012)]. Motivated by these facts, we here consider the evolutionary Prisoners dilemma game taking place on top of a real social network to investigate how the community structure and the heterogeneity in activity of individuals affect the evolution of cooperation. In particular, we account for a variation of the birth-death process (which can also be regarded as a proportional imitation rule from social point of view) for the strategy updating under both weak- and strong-selection (meaning the payoffs harvested from games contribute either slightly or heavily to the individuals performance). By implementing comparative studies, where the players are selected either randomly or in terms of their actual activities to playing games with their immediate neighbors, we figure out that heterogeneous activity benefits the emergence of collective cooperation in harsh environment (the action for cooperation is costly) under strong selection, while it impairs the formation of altruism under weak selection. Moreover, we find that the abundance of communities in the social network can evidently foster the fixation of cooperation under strong-selection, in contrast to the games evolving on the randomized counterparts. Our results are therefore helpful for us to better understand the evolution of cooperation in real social systems.
We study the evolution of cooperation in spatial Prisoners dilemma games with and without extortion by adopting aspiration-driven strategy updating rule. We focus explicitly on how the strategy updating manner (whether synchronous or asynchronous) an
d also the introduction of extortion strategy affect the collective outcome of the games. By means of Monte Carlo (MC) simulations as well as dynamical cluster techniques, we find that the involvement of extortioners facilitates the boom of cooperators in the population (and whom can always dominate the population if the temptation to defect is not too large) for both synchronous and asynchronous strategy updating, in stark contrast to the otherwise case, where cooperation is promoted for intermediate aspiration level with synchronous strategy updating, but is remarkably inhibited if the strategy updating is implemented asynchronously. We explain the results by configurational analysis and find that the presence of extortion leads to the checkerboard-like ordering of cooperators and extortioners, which enable cooperators to prevail in the population with both strategy updating manners. Moreover, extortion itself is evolutionary stable, and therefore acts as the incubator for the evolution of cooperation.
We study the evolution of cooperation in the evolutionary spatial prisoners dilemma game (PDG) and snowdrift game (SG), within which a fraction $alpha$ of the payoffs of each player gained from direct game interactions is shared equally by the immedi
ate neighbors. The magnitude of the parameter $alpha$ therefore characterizes the degree of the relatedness among the neighboring players. By means of extensive Monte Carlo simulations as well as an extended mean-field approximation method, we trace the frequency of cooperation in the stationary state. We find that plugging into relatedness can significantly promote the evolution of cooperation in the context of both studied games. Unexpectedly, cooperation can be more readily established in the spatial PDG than that in the spatial SG, given that the degree of relatedness and the cost-to-benefit ratio of mutual cooperation are properly formulated. The relevance of our model with the stakeholder theory is also briefly discussed.
Facing the threats of infectious diseases, we take various actions to protect ourselves, but few studies considered an evolving system with competing strategies. In view of that, we propose an evolutionary epidemic model coupled with human behaviors,
where individuals have three strategies: vaccination, self-protection and laissez faire, and could adjust their strategies according to their neighbors strategies and payoffs at the beginning of each new season of epidemic spreading. We found a counter-intuitive phenomenon analogous to the well-known emph{Braesss Paradox}, namely a better condition may lead to worse performance. Specifically speaking, increasing the successful rate of self-protection does not necessarily reduce the epidemic size or improve the system payoff. This phenomenon is insensitive to the network topologies, and can be well explained by a mean-field approximation. Our study demonstrates an important fact that a better condition for individuals may yield a worse outcome for the society.
We propose a limited packet-delivering capacity model for traffic dynamics in scale-free networks. In this model, the total nodes packet-delivering capacity is fixed, and the allocation of packet-delivering capacity on node $i$ is proportional to $k_
{i}^{phi}$, where $k_{i}$ is the degree of node $i$ and $phi$ is a adjustable parameter. We have applied this model on the shortest path routing strategy as well as the local routing strategy, and found that there exists an optimal value of parameter $phi$ leading to the maximal network capacity under both routing strategies. We provide some explanations for the emergence of optimal $phi$.
We study an evolutionary spatial prisoners dilemma game where the fitness of the players is determined by both the payoffs from the current interaction and their history. We consider the situation where the selection timescale is slower than the inte
raction timescale. This is done by implementing probabilistic reproduction on an individual level. We observe that both too fast and too slow reproduction rates hamper the emergence of cooperation. In other words, there exists an intermediate selection timescale that maximizes cooperation. Another factor we find to promote cooperation is a diversity of reproduction timescales.
