Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2408.15811

Identifying Influential and Vulnerable Nodes in Interaction Networks through Estimation of Transfer Entropy Between Univariate and Multivariate Time Series

Julian Lee
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Transfer entropy (TE) is a powerful tool for measuring causal relationships within interaction networks. Traditionally, TE and its conditional variants are applied pairwise between dynamic variables to infer these causal relationships. However, identifying the most influential or vulnerable node in a system requires measuring the causal influence of each component on the entire system and vice versa. In this paper, I propose using outgoing and incoming transfer entropy-where outgoing TE quantifies the influence of a node on the rest of the system, and incoming TE measures the influence of the rest of the system on the node. The node with the highest outgoing TE is identified as the most influential, or "hub", while the node with the highest incoming TE is the most vulnerable, or "anti-hub". Since these measures involve transfer entropy between univariate and multivariate time series, naive estimation methods can result in significant errors, particularly when the number of variables is comparable to or exceeds the number of samples. To address this, I introduce a novel estimation scheme that computes outgoing and incoming TE only between significantly interacting partners. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated by using synthetic data, and by applying it to real data of oral microbiota. The method successfully identifies the bacterial species known to be key players in the bacterial community, demonstrating the power of the new method.

Explore related subjects

cond-mat.stat-mechphysics.bio-ph

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Julian Lee. 2024-08-28. Identifying Influential and Vulnerable Nodes in Interaction Networks through Estimation of Transfer Entropy Between Univariate and Multivariate Time Series. https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.15811

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Universal sampling of spin systems across quenched disorder

Statistical physics extracts macroscopic laws by averaging over the many microscopic degrees of freedom of a system. Disordered systems demand a second and far harder average, one over the quenched randomness itself. The classic analytical routes, the replica and cavity methods, become uncontrolled outside mean-field or tree-like limits, and conventional numerical algorithms like parallel tempering require expensive, independent equilibration for every disorder realization. In this work, we introduce a universal neural variational framework that amortizes inference across the disorder ensemble, eliminating both the need for per-instance Markov chain equilibration and the cost of retraining instance-specific variational ansatzes. Built on an encoder-decoder Transformer architecture, after training once, it produces an explicit approximation to the Boltzmann distribution given previously unseen disorder realizations without further optimization. We validate this framework on 2D Edwards-Anderson models, and apply it to the random-bond Ising model, successfully capturing the Binder cumulant crossings near the Nishimori multicritical point. These results shift the object of variational inference from the single instance to the disorder ensemble, opening a route to frustrated many-body systems where instance-by-instance computation is prohibitive.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗
arXiv2026

Information-Theoretic Characterization of Macroscopic Chaos Emerging from the Chemical Master Equation

Open chemical reaction networks exhibit stochastic concentration dynamics at finite system sizes, whereas their macroscopic limit is governed by deterministic rate equations that can display chaos. In this Letter, we show theoretically that a rate of information loss constructed from two-time mutual information recovers the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy in the deterministic limit. We verify this result through numerical simulations of a Markov jump process for a three-species system involving seven reactions.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗
arXiv2026

Orientational order on non-orientable domains

We study the statistical properties of passive and active many-body systems with orientational degrees of freedom on non-orientable domains. By rephrasing topological constraints as non-local symmetry relations on an orientable double-cover, we show that non-orientability eliminates global rotational soft modes without acting like an external field. In a passive XY model, this results in topological caging, where orientational fluctuations that exhibit conventional diffusive behavior on a torus saturate on a Klein bottle to a finite value that we compute exactly in the thermodynamic limit. In models of active self-propelled particles with orientational degrees of freedom, topological caging persists despite continuously changing interaction neighborhoods. In an active Ising spin model, non-orientability enforces the coexistence of ordered anti-parallel domains with vanishing global polar order, a state that is absent on orientable domains.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗