Scalable Durational Event Models: Application to Physical and Digital Interactions

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Main Authors: Fritz, Cornelius, Rastelli, Riccardo, Fop, Michael, Caimo, Alberto
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Fritz, Cornelius
Rastelli, Riccardo
Fop, Michael
Caimo, Alberto
author_facet Fritz, Cornelius
Rastelli, Riccardo
Fop, Michael
Caimo, Alberto
contents Durable interactions are ubiquitous in social network analysis and are increasingly observed with precise time stamps. Phone and video calls, for example, are events to which a specific duration can be assigned. We term data encoding interactions with the start and end times ``durational event data''. Recent advances in data collection have enabled the observation of such data over extended periods of time and between large populations of actors. Methodologically, we propose the Durational Event Model, an extension of Relational Event Models that decouples the modeling of event incidence from event duration. Computationally, we derive a fast, memory-efficient, and exact block-coordinate ascent algorithm to facilitate large-scale inference. Theoretical complexity analysis and numerical simulations demonstrate computational superiority of this approach over state-of-the-art methods. We apply the model to physical and digital interactions among college students in Copenhagen. Our empirical findings reveal that past interactions drive physical interactions, whereas digital interactions are influenced predominantly by friendship ties and prior dyadic contact.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_00049
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Scalable Durational Event Models: Application to Physical and Digital Interactions
Fritz, Cornelius
Rastelli, Riccardo
Fop, Michael
Caimo, Alberto
Methodology
Computation
Durable interactions are ubiquitous in social network analysis and are increasingly observed with precise time stamps. Phone and video calls, for example, are events to which a specific duration can be assigned. We term data encoding interactions with the start and end times ``durational event data''. Recent advances in data collection have enabled the observation of such data over extended periods of time and between large populations of actors. Methodologically, we propose the Durational Event Model, an extension of Relational Event Models that decouples the modeling of event incidence from event duration. Computationally, we derive a fast, memory-efficient, and exact block-coordinate ascent algorithm to facilitate large-scale inference. Theoretical complexity analysis and numerical simulations demonstrate computational superiority of this approach over state-of-the-art methods. We apply the model to physical and digital interactions among college students in Copenhagen. Our empirical findings reveal that past interactions drive physical interactions, whereas digital interactions are influenced predominantly by friendship ties and prior dyadic contact.
title Scalable Durational Event Models: Application to Physical and Digital Interactions
topic Methodology
Computation
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.00049