Fenner, Trevor and Levene, Mark and Loizou, George and Roussos, George (2007) A stochastic evolutionary growth model for social networks. Computer Networks 51 (16), 4586 - 4595. ISSN 1389-1286.
Abstract
We present a stochastic model for a social network, where new actors may join the network, existing actors may become inactive and, at a later stage, reactivate themselves. Our model captures the evolution of the network, assuming that actors attain new relations or become active according to the preferential attachment rule. We derive the mean-field equations for this stochastic model and show that, asymptotically, the distribution of actors obeys a power-law distribution. In particular, the model applies to social networks such as wireless local area networks, where users connect to access points, and peer-to-peer networks where users connect to each other. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate the validity of our model empirically by analysing a public log containing traces from a wireless network at Dartmouth College over a period of three years. Analysing the data processed according to our model, we demonstrate that the distribution of user accesses is asymptotically a power-law distribution.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | (1) Innovations in Web Communications Infrastructure; (2) Middleware Challenges for Next Generation Networks and Services |
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | Social network, power-law distribution, stochastic evolutionary growth model, preferential attachment |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Birkbeck Knowledge Lab |
| Depositing User: | Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Aug 2011 11:27 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Aug 2023 12:30 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/3972 |
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