Dresden 2014 – scientific programme
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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme
SOE 10: Networks, From Topology to Dynamics I (joint with DY and BP)
SOE 10.1: Talk
Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 15:00–15:15, GÖR 226
The Hidden Geometry of Complex, Network-Driven Contagion Phenomena — •Dirk Brockmann1,2 and Dirk Helbing3 — 1Humboldt University, Berlin — 2Robert Koch Institute, Berlin — 3ETH Zurich
The global spread of epidemics, rumors, opinions, and innovations are complex, network-driven dynamic processes. The combined multiscale nature and intrinsic heterogeneity of the underlying networks make it difficult to develop an intuitive understanding of these processes, to distinguish relevant from peripheral factors, to predict their time course, and to locate their origin. We show that complex spatiotemporal patterns can be reduced to surprisingly simple, homogeneous wave propagation patterns, if conventional geographic distance is replaced by a probabilistically motivated effective distance[1]. In the context of global, air-traffic-mediated epidemics, we show that effective distance reliably predicts disease arrival times. Even if epidemiological parameters are unknown, the method can still deliver relative arrival times. The approach can also identify the spatial origin of spreading processes. We validate the approach by application to data on the worldwide 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, the 2003 SARS epidemics and the 2011 outbreak of EHEC/HUS in Germany.
D. Brockmann, D. Helbing, Science (2013)