Generating surrogate temporal networks from mesoscale building blocks

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cencetti, Giulia, Barrat, Alain
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866908321421721600
author Cencetti, Giulia
Barrat, Alain
author_facet Cencetti, Giulia
Barrat, Alain
contents Surrogate networks can constitute suitable replacements for real networks, in particular to study dynamical processes on networks, when only incomplete or limited datasets are available. As empirical datasets most often present complex features and interplays between structure and temporal evolution, creating surrogate data is however a challenging task, in particular for data describing time-resolved interactions between agents. Here we propose a method to generate surrogate temporal networks that mimic such observed datasets. The method is based on a decomposition of the original dataset into small temporal subnetworks encoding local structures on a short time scale. These are used as building blocks to generate a new synthetic temporal network that will hence inherit the shape of local interactions from the dataset. Moreover, we also take into account larger scale correlations on structural and temporal dimension, using them to inform the process of assembling the building blocks. We showcase the method by generating surrogate networks for several datasets of social interactions and comparing them to the original data on two complementary aspects. First, we show that the surrogate data possess complex structural and temporal features similar to the ones of the original data. Second, we simulate several dynamical processes, describing respectively epidemic spread, opinion formation and emergence of norms in a population, and compare the outcome of these processes on the generated and original datasets. We describe the method in detail and provide an implementation so that it can be easily used in future works based on temporally evolving networks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_05477
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Generating surrogate temporal networks from mesoscale building blocks
Cencetti, Giulia
Barrat, Alain
Physics and Society
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Surrogate networks can constitute suitable replacements for real networks, in particular to study dynamical processes on networks, when only incomplete or limited datasets are available. As empirical datasets most often present complex features and interplays between structure and temporal evolution, creating surrogate data is however a challenging task, in particular for data describing time-resolved interactions between agents. Here we propose a method to generate surrogate temporal networks that mimic such observed datasets. The method is based on a decomposition of the original dataset into small temporal subnetworks encoding local structures on a short time scale. These are used as building blocks to generate a new synthetic temporal network that will hence inherit the shape of local interactions from the dataset. Moreover, we also take into account larger scale correlations on structural and temporal dimension, using them to inform the process of assembling the building blocks. We showcase the method by generating surrogate networks for several datasets of social interactions and comparing them to the original data on two complementary aspects. First, we show that the surrogate data possess complex structural and temporal features similar to the ones of the original data. Second, we simulate several dynamical processes, describing respectively epidemic spread, opinion formation and emergence of norms in a population, and compare the outcome of these processes on the generated and original datasets. We describe the method in detail and provide an implementation so that it can be easily used in future works based on temporally evolving networks.
title Generating surrogate temporal networks from mesoscale building blocks
topic Physics and Society
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.05477