Impact of temporal connectivity patterns on epidemic process

Abstract

To provide a comprehensive view for dynamics of and on many real- world temporal networks, we investigate the interplay of temporal connectivity patterns and spreading phenomena, in terms of the susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) model on the modified activity-driven temporal network (ADTN) with memory. In particular, we focus on how the epidemic threshold of the SIR model is affected by the heterogeneity of nodal activities and the memory strength in temporal and static regimes, respectively. While strong ties (memory) between nodes inhibit the spread of epidemic to be localized, the heterogeneity of nodal activities enhances it to be globalized initially. Since the epidemic threshold of the SIR model is very sensitive to the degree distribution of nodes in static networks, we test the SIR model on the modified ADTNs with the possible set of the activity exponents and the memory exponents that generates the same degree distributions in temporal networks. We also discuss the role of spatiotemporal scaling properties of the largest cluster and the maximum degree in the epidemic threshold. It is observed that the presence of highly active nodes enables to trigger the initial spread of epidemic in a short period of time, but it also limits its final spread to the entire network. This implies that there is the trade-off between the spreading time of epidemic and its outbreak size. Finally, we suggest the phase diagram of the SIR model on ADTNs and the optimal condition for the spread of epidemic under the circumstances.

Graphical abstract