Networks Behavior

Introduction to Network Diffusion

Riefvan Achmad Masrury
Diffusion
• Definition
• the spreading of
something more
widely
(Wikipedia)
VS

Particles Virus & Information

Images: Wikipedia & CNetS - Indiana University Bloomington

Diffusion Behavior in Social Networks
• We look at how individuals are influenced by their particular network
neighbors
• Many of our interactions with the rest of the world happen at a local,
rather than a global
• A tendency toward favoring similarity derived from a fundamental
principle:
• the behavior of individuals who are seeking to maximize their utility in given
situations
outline
• factors influencing information diffusion
• network structure: which nodes are connected?
• strength of ties: how strong are the connections?
• studies in information diffusion
• Granovetter: the strength of weak ties
• J-P Onnela et al: strength of intermediate ties
• Kossinets et al: strength of backbone ties
factors influencing diffusion
• network structure (un-weighted)
• density
• degree distribution
• clustering
• connected components
• community structure

• strength of ties (weighted)

• frequency of communication
• strength of influence

• spreading agent
• attractiveness and specificity of information
Strong tie defined
• A strong tie
• frequent contact
• affinity
• many mutual contacts

• Less likely to be a bridge (or a local bridge) “forbidden triad”:

strong ties are
likely to “close”

Source: Granovetter, M. (1973). "The Strength of Weak Ties"

how does strength of a tie influence
diffusion?
• M. S. Granovetter: The Strength of Weak Ties, AJS, 1973:

• finding a job through a contact that one saw

• frequently (2+ times/week) 16.7%
• occasionally (more than once a year but < 2x week) 55.6%
• rarely 27.8%

• but… length of path is short

• contact directly works for/is the employer
• or is connected directly to employer
strength of tie: frequency of communication
• Kossinets, Watts, Kleinberg,
KDD 2008:
• which paths yield the most up
to date info?
• how many of the edges form
the “backbone”?

Higher frequency means more options for channeling

information in an efficient way (Riefvan)
source: Kossinets et Higher frequency means more options for channeling information (Riefvan)
al. “The structure of information pathways in a social communication network”
the strength of intermediate ties
• strong ties
• frequent communication, but ties are redundant due to high clustering
• weak ties
• reach far across network, but communication is infrequent
How about intermediate ties? Case of Job Information Flow by Onnela J.:
• Interesting findings
• The removal of the weak ties results in a phase transition-like network collapse, although the
removal of strong ties has little impact on the network’s overall integrity
• Strong ties tend to make clusters thus slows information flow because (new) information is
trapped in the community (Silo effect). This is why successful searches in social networks are
conducted primarily through intermediate to weak-strength ties while avoiding the hubs.
• Taken together, weak ties appear to be crucial for maintaining the network’s structural
integrity, but strong ties play an important role in maintaining local communities.
• Both weak and strong ties are ineffective, however, when it comes to information transfer,
given that most news in the real simulations reaches an individual for the first time through
ties of intermediate strength.
• In Key-Players discussion: Closeness is more important than betweenness or
degree/hubness (Riefvan).
source: Onnela J. et.al. Structure and tie strengths in mobile communication networks
how can information diffusion be different
from simple contagion (e.g. a virus)?
• simple contagion:
• infected individual infects neighbors with information at Information spread  diffusion
some rate Virus spread  contagion
End result of diffusion is adoption
• threshold contagion: End result of contagion is infected
• individuals must hear information (or observe behavior)
from a number or fraction of friends before adopting
• in lab: complex contagion (Centola & Macy, AJS, 2007)
• how do you pick individuals to “infect” such that your
opinion prevails

http://projects.si.umich.edu/netlearn/NetLogo4/DiffusionCompetition.html
Framework
• The network of computers consists of nodes (computers) and edges (links
between nodes)
• Each node is in one of two states
• Susceptible (in other words, healthy)
• Infected
• Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible (SIS) model
• Cured nodes immediately become susceptible

Infected by neighbor

Susceptible Infected

Cured
internally
Framework (Continued)
• Homogeneous birth rate β on all edges between infected and
susceptible nodes
• Homogeneous death rate δ for infected nodes

Healthy
Prob. δ N2
Prob. β
N1 X

Infected
N3
SIR and SIS Models (from epidemiology study)
An SIR model consists of three group
• Susceptible: Those who may contract the disease
• Infected: Those infected
• Recovered/Removed: Those with natural immunity or those
that have died.

An SIS model consists of two group

• Susceptible: Those who may contract the disease
• Infected: Those infected
diffusion of innovation
• surveys:
• farmers adopting new varieties of hybrid corn by observing what their
neighbors were planting (Ryan and Gross, 1943)
• doctors prescribing new medication (Coleman et al. 1957)
• spread of obesity & happiness in social networks (Christakis and Fowler, 2008)
 online behavioral data:
 Spread of Flickr photos & Digg stories
(Lerman, 2007)
 joining LiveJournal groups & CS conferences
(Backstrom et al. 2006)
 + others e.g. Anagnostopoulos et al. 2008
Information is part of Influence
• Influence is the capacity to have an effect on the character,
development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect
itself.
Social Network and Spread of Influence
• Social network plays a fundamental
role as a medium for the spread of
INFLUENCE among its members
• Opinions, ideas, information,
innovation…

• Direct Marketing takes the “word-of-mouth”

effects to significantly increase profits
(Gmail, Tupperware popularization,
Microsoft Origami …)
Problem Setting
• Given
• a limited budget B for initial advertising (e.g. give away free samples of product)
• estimates for influence between individuals
• Goal
• trigger a large cascade of influence (e.g. further adoptions of a product)
• Question
• Which set of individuals should B target at?
• Application besides product marketing
• spread an innovation
• detect stories in blogs
What we need
• Form models of influence in social networks
• Obtain data about particular network (to estimate inter-personal
influence)
• Devise algorithm to maximize spread of influence
Models of Influence
• First mathematical models
• [Schelling '70/'78, Granovetter '78]
• Large body of subsequent work:
• [Rogers '95, Valente '95, Wasserman/Faust '94]
• Two basic classes of diffusion models: threshold and cascade
• General operational view:
• A social network is represented as a directed graph, with each person (customer)
as a node
• Nodes start either active or inactive
• An active node may trigger activation of neighboring nodes
• Monotonicity assumption: active nodes never deactivate
Linear Threshold Model
• A node v has random threshold
• A node v is influenced by each neighbor w according to a
weight
• A node v becomes active when at least a fraction of its
neighbors are active
Example
Inactive Node
0.6
Active Node

0.3 0.2 0.2 Threshold

X Active neighbors
0.1
0.4 U

0.5 0.3
0.2 Stop!
0.5
w v
Independent Cascade Model
• When node v becomes active, it has a single chance of activating each
currently inactive neighbor w
• The activation attempt succeeds with probability pvw
Example
0.6
Inactive Node

0.3 0.2 0.2 Active Node

Newly active
X 0.1 U node
0.4
Successful
0.5 0.3 attempt
0.2
Unsuccessful
0.5 attempt
w
v

Stop!
to sum up
• network structure influences information diffusion
• strength of tie matters
• diffusion can be simple (person to person) or complex (individuals
having thresholds)
• people in special network positions (the brokers) have an advantage
in receiving novel info & coming up with “novel” ideas
• in some scenarios, information diffusion may hinder innovation
References
• Adamic L., et al, “Information diffusion in networks”, Lecture note,
2015
• Easley D., Kleinberg J., “Networks, Crowd, and Markets”, Cambridge
University Press, 2010