Epidemic spreading in weighted networks: an edge-based mean-field solution

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2012 May;85(5 Pt 2):056106. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.85.056106. Epub 2012 May 7.

Abstract

Weight distribution greatly impacts the epidemic spreading taking place on top of networks. This paper presents a study of a susceptible-infected-susceptible model on regular random networks with different kinds of weight distributions. Simulation results show that the more homogeneous weight distribution leads to higher epidemic prevalence, which, unfortunately, could not be captured by the traditional mean-field approximation. This paper gives an edge-based mean-field solution for general weight distribution, which can quantitatively reproduce the simulation results. This method could be applied to characterize the nonequilibrium steady states of dynamical processes on weighted networks.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Communicable Diseases / epidemiology*
  • Communicable Diseases / transmission*
  • Epidemics*
  • Models, Theoretical*