arXiv subjects

Hernán A. Makse

Publications and source records attributed to Hernán A. Makse.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Efficient collective influence maximization in cascading processes with first-order transitions

In social networks, the collective behavior of large populations can be shaped by a small set of influencers through a cascading process induced by "peer pressure". For large-scale networks, efficient identification of multiple influential spreaders with a linear algorithm in threshold models that exhibit a first-order transition still remains a challenging task. Here we address this issue by exploring the collective influence in general threshold models of behavior cascading. Our analysis reveals that the importance of spreaders is fixed by the subcritical paths along which cascades propagate: the number of subcritical paths attached to each spreader determines its contribution to global cascades. The concept of subcritical path allows us to introduce a linearly scalable algorithm for massively large-scale networks. Results in both synthetic random graphs and real networks show that the proposed method can achieve larger collective influence given same number of seeds compared with other linearly scalable heuristic approaches.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2017

Equation of state for random sphere packing with arbitrary adhesion and friction

We systematically generate a large set of random micro-particle packings over a wide range of adhesion and friction by means of adhesive contact dynamics simulation. The ensemble of generated packings covers a range of volume fraction $ϕ$ from $0.135 \pm 0.007$ to $0.639 \pm 0.004$, and of coordination number $Z$ from $2.11 \pm 0.03$ to $6.40 \pm 0.06$. We determine $ϕ$ and $Z$ at four limits (random close packing, random loose packing, adhesive close packing, and adhesive loose packing), and find a universal equation of state $ϕ(Z)$ to describe packings with arbitrary adhesion and friction. From a mechanical equilibrium analysis, we determine a critical friction coefficient $μ_{\rm f, c}$: when the friction coefficient $μ_{\rm f}$ is below $μ_{\rm f, c}$, particles' rearrangements are dominated by sliding, otherwise, they are dominated by rolling. Because of this reason, both $ϕ(μ_{\rm f})$ and $Z(μ_{\rm f})$ change sharply across $μ_{\rm f, c}$. Finally, we generalize the Maxwell counting argument to micro-particle packings, and show that the loosest packing, i.e., adhesive loose packing, satisfies the isostatic condition at $Z=2$.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2016

Collective Influence of Multiple Spreaders Evaluated by Tracing Real Information Flow in Large-Scale Social Networks

Identifying the most influential spreaders that maximize information flow is a central question in network theory. Recently, a scalable method called "Collective Influence (CI)" has been put forward through collective influence maximization. In contrast to heuristic methods evaluating nodes' significance separately, CI method inspects the collective influence of multiple spreaders. Despite that CI applies to the influence maximization problem in percolation model, it is still important to examine its efficacy in realistic information spreading. Here, we examine real-world information flow in various social and scientific platforms including American Physical Society, Facebook, Twitter and LiveJournal. Since empirical data cannot be directly mapped to ideal multi-source spreading, we leverage the behavioral patterns of users extracted from data to construct "virtual" information spreading processes. Our results demonstrate that the set of spreaders selected by CI can induce larger scale of information propagation. Moreover, local measures as the number of connections or citations are not necessarily the deterministic factors of nodes' importance in realistic information spreading. This result has significance for rankings scientists in scientific networks like the APS, where the commonly used number of citations can be a poor indicator of the collective influence of authors in the community.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2016

Emergence of Robustness in Network of Networks

A model of interdependent networks of networks (NoN) has been introduced recently in the context of brain activation to identify the neural collective influencers in the brain NoN. Here we develop a new approach to derive an exact expression for the random percolation transition in Erdös-Rényi NoN. Analytical calculations are in excellent agreement with numerical simulations and highlight the robustness of the NoN against random node failures. Interestingly, the phase diagram of the model unveils particular patterns of interconnectivity for which the NoN is most vulnerable. Our results help to understand the emergence of robustness in such interdependent architectures.

q-bio.NC↗

arXiv2015

Dynamic effective mass of granular media and the attenuation of structure-borne sound

We report an experimental and theoretical investigation of the frequency-dependent effective mass, $\tilde{M}(ω)$, of loose granular particles which occupy a rigid cavity to a given filling fraction, the remaining volume being air of differing humidities. This allow us to study the mechanisms of elastic response and attenuation of acoustic modes in granular media. We demonstrate that this is a sensitive and direct way to measure those properties of the granular medium that are the cause of the changes in acoustic properties of structures containing grain-filled cavities. Specifically, we apply this understanding to the case of the flexural resonances of a rectangular bar with a grain-filled cavity within it. The dominant features of $\tilde{M}(ω)$ are a sharp resonance and a broad background, which we analyze within the context of simple models. We find that: a) These systems may be understood in terms of a height-dependent and diameter-dependent effective sound speed ($\sim 100-300$ m/s) and an effective viscosity ($\sim 5\times 10^4$ Poise). b) There is a dynamic Janssen effect in the sense that, at any frequency, and depending on the method of sample preparation, approximately one-half of the effective mass is borne by the side walls of the cavity and one-half by the bottom. c) By performing experiments under varying humidity conditions we conclude that, on a fundamental level, damping of acoustic modes is dominated by adsorbed films of water at grain-grain contacts in our experiments, not by global viscous dampening. d) There is a monotonically increasing effect of humidity on the dampening of the fundamental resonance within the granular medium which translates to a non-monotonic, but predictable, variation of dampening within the grain-loaded bar.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2015

Effect of long-range repulsive Coulomb interactions on packing structure of adhesive particles

The packing of charged micron-sized particles was investigated using discrete element simulations based on adhesive contact dynamic model. The formation process and the final obtained structures of ballistic packings are studied to show the effect of interparticle Coulomb force. It was found that increasing the charge on particles causes a remarkable decrease of the packing volume fraction ϕand the average coordination number Z, indicating a looser and chainlike structure. Force-scaling analysis shows that the long-range Coulomb interaction changes packing structures through its influence on particle inertia before they are bonded into the force networks. Once contact networks are formed, the expansion effect caused by repulsive Coulomb forces are dominated by short-range adhesion. Based on abundant results from simulations, a dimensionless adhesion parameter Ad* , which combines the effects of the particle inertia, the short-range adhesion and the long-range Coulomb interaction, is proposed and successfully scales the packing results for micron-sized particles within the latestly derived adhesive loose packing (ALP) regime. The structural properties of our packings follow well the recent theoretical prediction which is described by an ensemble approach based on a coarse-grained volume function, indicating some kind of universality in the low packing density regime of the phase diagram regardless of adhesion or particle charge. Based on the comprehensive consideration of the complicated inter-particle interactions, our findings provide insight into the roles of short-range adhesion and repulsive Coulomb force during packing formation and should be useful for further design of packings.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2015

Finding influential spreaders from human activity beyond network location

Most centralities proposed for identifying influential spreaders on social networks to either spread a message or to stop an epidemic require the full topological information of the network on which spreading occurs. In practice, however, collecting all connections between agents in social networks can be hardly achieved. As a result, such metrics could be difficult to apply to real social networks. Consequently, a new approach for identifying influential people without the explicit network information is demanded in order to provide an efficient immunization or spreading strategy, in a practical sense. In this study, we seek a possible way for finding influential spreaders by using the social mechanisms of how social connections are formed in real networks. We find that a reliable immunization scheme can be achieved by asking people how they interact with each other. From these surveys we find that the probabilistic tendency to connect to a hub has the strongest predictive power for influential spreaders among tested social mechanisms. Our observation also suggests that people who connect different communities is more likely to be an influential spreader when a network has a strong modular structure. Our finding implies that not only the effect of network location but also the behavior of individuals is important to design optimal immunization or spreading schemes.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2015

Avoiding catastrophic failure in correlated networks of networks

Networks in nature do not act in isolation but instead exchange information, and depend on each other to function properly. An incipient theory of Networks of Networks have shown that connected random networks may very easily result in abrupt failures. This theoretical finding bares an intrinsic paradox: If natural systems organize in interconnected networks, how can they be so stable? Here we provide a solution to this conundrum, showing that the stability of a system of networks relies on the relation between the internal structure of a network and its pattern of connections to other networks. Specifically, we demonstrate that if network inter-connections are provided by hubs of the network and if there is a moderate degree of convergence of inter-network connection the systems of network are stable and robust to failure. We test this theoretical prediction in two independent experiments of functional brain networks (in task- and resting states) which show that brain networks are connected with a topology that maximizes stability according to the theory.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2014

How does public opinion become extreme?

We investigate the emergence of extreme opinion trends in society by employing statistical physics modeling and analysis on polls that inquire about a wide range of issues such as religion, economics, politics, abortion, extramarital sex, books, movies, and electoral vote. The surveys lay out a clear indicator of the rise of extreme views. The precursor is a nonlinear relation between the fraction of individuals holding a certain extreme view and the fraction of individuals that includes also moderates, e.g., in politics, those who are "very conservative" versus "moderate to very conservative" ones. We propose an activation model of opinion dynamics with interaction rules based on the existence of individual "stubbornness" that mimics empirical observations. According to our modeling, the onset of nonlinearity can be associated to an abrupt bootstrap-percolation transition with cascades of extreme views through society. Therefore, it represents an early-warning signal to forecast the transition from moderate to extreme views. Moreover, by means of a phase diagram we can classify societies according to the percolative regime they belong to, in terms of critical fractions of extremists and people's ties.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2014

Stress-dependent normal mode frequencies from the effective mass of granular matter

A zero-temperature critical point has been invoked to control the anomalous behavior of granular matter as it approaches jamming or mechanical arrest. Criticality manifests itself in an anomalous spectrum of low-frequency normal modes and scaling behavior near the jamming transition. The critical point may explain the peculiar mechanical properties of dissimilar systems such as glasses and granular materials. Here, we study the critical scenario via an experimental measurement of the normal modes frequencies of granular matter under stress from a pole decomposition analysis of the effective mass. We extract a complex-valued characteristic frequency which displays scaling $|ω^*(σ)|\simσ^{Ω'}$ with vanishing stress $σ$ for a variety of granular systems. The critical exponent is smaller than that predicted by mean-field theory opening new challenges to explain the exponent for frictional and dissipative granular matter. Our results shed light on the anomalous behavior of stress-dependent acoustics and attenuation in granular materials near the jamming transition.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2014

Adhesive Loose Packings of Small Particles

We explore adhesive loose packings of dry small spherical particles of micrometer size using 3D discrete-element simulations with adhesive contact mechanics. A dimensionless adhesion parameter ($Ad$) successfully combines the effects of particle velocities, sizes and the work of adhesion, identifying a universal regime of adhesive packings for $Ad>1$. The structural properties of the packings in this regime are well described by an ensemble approach based on a coarse-grained volume function that includes correlations between bulk and contact spheres. Our theoretical and numerical results predict: (i) An equation of state for adhesive loose packings that appears as a continuation from the frictionless random close packing (RCP) point in the jamming phase diagram; (ii) The existence of a maximal loose packing point at the coordination number $Z=2$ and packing fraction $ϕ=1/2^{3}$. Our results highlight that adhesion leads to a universal packing regime at packing fractions much smaller than the random loose packing, which can be described within a statistical mechanical framework. We present a general phase diagram of jammed matter comprising frictionless, frictional, adhesive as well as non-spherical particles, providing a classification of packings in terms of their continuation from the spherical frictionless RCP.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2014

Conditions for viral influence spreading through multiplex correlated social networks

A fundamental problem in network science is to predict how certain individuals are able to initiate new networks to spring up "new ideas". Frequently, these changes in trends are triggered by a few innovators who rapidly impose their ideas through "viral" influence spreading producing cascades of followers fragmenting an old network to create a new one. Typical examples include the raise of scientific ideas or abrupt changes in social media, like the raise of Facebook.com to the detriment of Myspace.com. How this process arises in practice has not been conclusively demonstrated. Here, we show that a condition for sustaining a viral spreading process is the existence of a multiplex correlated graph with hidden "influence links". Analytical solutions predict percolation phase transitions, either abrupt or continuous, where networks are disintegrated through viral cascades of followers as in empirical data. Our modeling predicts the strict conditions to sustain a large viral spreading via a scaling form of the local correlation function between multilayers, which we also confirm empirically. Ultimately, the theory predicts the conditions for viral cascading in a large class of multiplex networks ranging from social to financial systems and markets.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2014

Fundamental challenges in packing problems: from spherical to non-spherical particles

Random packings of objects of a particular shape are ubiquitous in science and engineering. However, such jammed matter states have eluded any systematic theoretical treatment due to the strong positional and orientational correlations involved. In recent years progress on a fundamental description of jammed matter could be made by starting from a constant volume ensemble in the spirit of conventional statistical mechanics. Recent work has shown that this approach, first introduced by S. F. Edwards more than two decades ago, can be cast into a predictive framework to calculate the packing fractions of both spherical and non-spherical particles.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2014

Statistical Signs of Social Influence on Suicides

Certain currents in sociology consider society as being composed of autonomous individuals with independent psychologies. Others, however, deem our actions as strongly influenced by the accepted standards of social behavior. The later view was central to the positivist conception of society when in 1887 Émile Durkheim published his monograph Suicide (Durkheim, 1897). By treating the suicide as a social fact, Durkheim envisaged that suicide rates should be determined by the connections (or the lack of them) between people and society. Under the same framework, Durkheim considered that crime is bound up with the fundamental conditions of all social life and serves a social function. In this sense, and regardless of its extremely deviant nature, crime events are somehow capable to release certain social tensions and so have a purging effect in society. The social effect on the occurrence of homicides has been previously substantiated (Bettencourt et al., 2007; Alves et al., 2013), and confirmed here, in terms of a superlinear scaling relation: by doubling the population of a Brazilian city results in an average increment of 135 % in the number of homicides, rather than the expected isometric increase of 100 %, as found, for example, for the mortality due to car crashes. Here we present statistical signs of the social influence on the suicide occurrence in cities. Differently from homicides (superlinear) and fatal events in car crashes (isometric), we find sublinear scaling behavior between the number of suicides and city population, with allometric power-law exponents, $β= 0.836 \pm 0.009$ and $0.870 \pm 0.002$, for all cities in Brazil and US, respectively. The fact that the frequency of suicides is disproportionately small for larger cities reveals a surprisingly beneficial aspect of living and interacting in larger and more complex social networks.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2011

Edwards thermodynamics of the jamming transition for frictionless packings: ergodicity test and role of angoricity and compactivity

This paper illustrates how the tools of equilibrium statistical mechanics can help to explain a far-from-equilibrium problem: the jamming transition in frictionless granular materials. Edwards ideas consist of proposing a statistical ensemble of volume and stress fluctuations through the thermodynamic notion of entropy, compactivity, X, and angoricity, A (two temperature-like variables). We find that Edwards thermodynamics is able to describe the jamming transition (J-point). Using the ensemble formalism we elucidate the following: (i)We test the combined volume-stress ensemble by comparing the statistical properties of jammed configurations obtained by dynamics with those averaged over the ensemble of minima in the potential energy landscape as a test of ergodicity. Agreement between both methods supports the idea of "thermalization" at a given angoricity and compactivity. (ii) A microcanonical ensemble analysis supports the idea of maximum entropy principle for grains. (iii) The intensive variables describe the approach to jamming through a series of scaling relations as A {\to} 0+ and X {\to} 0-. Due to the force-volume coupling, the jamming transition can be probed thermodynamically by a "jamming temperature" TJ comprised of contributions from A and X. (iv) The thermodynamic framework reveals the order of the jamming phase transition by showing the absence of critical fluctuations at jamming in observables like pressure and volume. (v) Finally, we elaborate on a comparison with relevant studies showing a breakdown of equiprobability of microstates.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2010

Jamming in two-dimensional packings

We investigate the existence of random close and random loose packing limits in two-dimensional packings of monodisperse hard disks. A statistical mechanics approach-- based on several approximations to predict the probability distribution of volumes-- suggests the existence of the limiting densities of the jammed packings according to their coordination number and compactivity. This result has implications for the understanding of disordered states in the disk packing problem as well as the existence of a putative glass transition in two dimensional systems.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2010

Small world-Fractal Transition in Complex Networks: Renormalization Group Approach

We show that renormalization group (RG) theory applied to complex networks are useful to classify network topologies into universality classes in the space of configurations. The RG flow readily identifies a small-world/fractal transition by finding (i) a trivial stable fixed point of a complete graph, (ii) a non-trivial point of a pure fractal topology that is stable or unstable according to the amount of long-range links in the network, and (iii) another stable point of a fractal with short-cuts that exists exactly at the small-world/fractal transition. As a collateral, the RG technique explains the coexistence of the seemingly contradicting fractal and small-world phases and allows to extract information on the distribution of short-cuts in real-world networks, a problem of importance for information flow in the system.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2009

Explosive Percolation in the Human Protein Homology Network

We study the explosive character of the percolation transition in a real-world network. We show that the emergence of a spanning cluster in the Human Protein Homology Network (H-PHN) exhibits similar features to an Achlioptas-type process and is markedly different from regular random percolation. The underlying mechanism of this transition can be described by slow-growing clusters that remain isolated until the later stages of the process, when the addition of a small number of links leads to the rapid interconnection of these modules into a giant cluster. Our results indicate that the evolutionary-based process that shapes the topology of the H-PHN through duplication-divergence events may occur in sudden steps, similarly to what is seen in first-order phase transitions.

q-bio.MN↗