2010/04/30 by Naoki Masuda · 2 citations
Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Mathematical and Theoretical Epidemiology and Ecology Models #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #cond-mat.dis-nn #physics.soc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/12/9/093009
published as New Journal of Physics, 12, 093009 (2010) · 4 figures
arxiv created 2010/08/20 · openalex publication_date 2010/09/06 · arxiv updated 2010/09/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
It is often useful to represent the infectious dynamics of mobile agents by metapopulation models. In such a model, metapopulations form a static network, and individuals migrate from one metapopulation to another. It is known that heterogeneous degree distributions of metapopulation networks decrease the epidemic threshold above which epidemic spreads can occur. We investigate the combined effect of heterogeneous degree distributions and diffusion on epidemics in metapopulation networks. We show that for arbitrary heterogeneous networks, diffusion suppresses epidemics in the sense of an increase in the epidemic threshold. On the other hand, some diffusion rates are needed to elicit epidemic spreads on a global scale. As a result of these opposing effects of diffusion, epidemic spreading near the epidemic threshold is most pronounced at an intermediate diffusion rate. The result that diffusion can suppress epidemics contrasts with that for diffusive SIS dynamics and its variants when individuals are fixed at nodes on static networks.