Discrete-time Markov chain approach to contact-based disease spreading in complex networks
Many epidemic processes in networks spread by stochastic contacts among their connected vertices. There are two limiting cases widely analyzed in the physics literature, the so-called contact process (CP) where the contagion is expanded at a certain rate from an infected vertex to one neighbor at a...
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Published in | Europhysics letters Vol. 89; no. 3; pp. 38009 - 38014 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
IOP Publishing
01.02.2010
EDP Sciences |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Many epidemic processes in networks spread by stochastic contacts among their connected vertices. There are two limiting cases widely analyzed in the physics literature, the so-called contact process (CP) where the contagion is expanded at a certain rate from an infected vertex to one neighbor at a time, and the reactive process (RP) in which an infected individual effectively contacts all its neighbors to expand the epidemics. However, a more realistic scenario is obtained from the interpolation between these two cases, considering a certain number of stochastic contacts per unit time. Here we propose a discrete-time formulation of the problem of contact-based epidemic spreading. We resolve a family of models, parameterized by the number of stochastic contact trials per unit time, that range from the CP to the RP. In contrast to the common heterogeneous mean-field approach, we focus on the probability of infection of individual nodes. Using this formulation, we can construct the whole phase diagram of the different infection models and determine their critical properties. |
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Bibliography: | ark:/67375/80W-2KBG19KH-6 istex:F7486C9A1C655EBA51E7E88A41627052DA82C79C publisher-ID:epl12464 ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0295-5075 1286-4854 |
DOI: | 10.1209/0295-5075/89/38009 |