Optimal resource diffusion for suppressing disease spreading in multiplex networks

Authored by Wei Wang, Xiaolong Chen, Shimin Cai, H Eugene Stanley, Lidia A Braunstein

Date Published: 2018

DOI: 10.1088/1742-5468/aabfcc

Sponsors: Chinese National Natural Science Foundation United States Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) United States Department of Energy (DOE) United States National Science Foundation (NSF)

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Resource diffusion is a ubiquitous phenomenon, but how it impacts epidemic spreading has received little study. We propose a model that couples epidemic spreading and resource diffusion in multiplex networks. The spread of disease in a physical contact layer and the recovery of the infected nodes are both strongly dependent upon resources supplied by their counterparts in the social layer. The generation and diffusion of resources in the social layer are in turn strongly dependent upon the state of the nodes in the physical contact layer. Resources diffuse preferentially or randomly in this model. To quantify the degree of preferential diffusion, a bias parameter that controls the resource diffusion is proposed. We conduct extensive simulations and find that the preferential resource diffusion can change phase transition type of the fraction of infected nodes. When the degree of interlayer correlation is below a critical value, increasing the bias parameter changes the phase transition from double continuous to single continuous. When the degree of interlayer correlation is above a critical value, the phase transition changes from multiple continuous to first discontinuous and then to hybrid. We find hysteresis loops in the phase transition. We also find that there is an optimal resource strategy at each fixed degree of interlayer correlation under which the threshold reaches a maximum and the disease can be maximally suppressed. In addition, the optimal controlling parameter increases as the degree of inter-layer correlation increases.
Tags
Agent-based models Complex networks Scale-Free Networks networks network dynamics random graphs percolation Epidemic epidemic modelling Impact