arXiv subjects

Samarth Swarup

Publications and source records attributed to Samarth Swarup.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

An Empirical Assessment of the Complexity and Realism of Synthetic Social Contact Networks

We use multiple measures of graph complexity to evaluate the realism of synthetically-generated networks of human activity, in comparison with several stylized network models as well as a collection of empirical networks from the literature. The synthetic networks are generated by integrating data about human populations from several sources, including the Census, transportation surveys, and geographical data. The resulting networks represent an approximation of daily or weekly human interaction. Our results indicate that the synthetically generated graphs according to our methodology are closer to the real world graphs, as measured across multiple structural measures, than a range of stylized graphs generated using common network models from the literature.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2013

An agent-based epidemiological model of incarceration

We build an agent-based model of incarceration based on the SIS model of infectious disease propagation. Our central hypothesis is that the observed racial disparities in incarceration rates between Black and White Americans can be explained as the result of differential sentencing between the two demographic groups. We demonstrate that if incarceration can be spread through a social influence network, then even relatively small differences in sentencing can result in the large disparities in incarceration rates. Controlling for effects of transmissibility, susceptibility, and influence network structure, our model reproduces the observed large disparities in incarceration rates given the differences in sentence lengths for White and Black drug offenders in the United States without extensive parameter tuning. We further establish the suitability of the SIS model as applied to incarceration, as the observed structural patterns of recidivism are an emergent property of the model. In fact, our model shows a remarkably close correspondence with California incarceration data, without requiring any parameter tuning. This work advances efforts to combine the theories and methods of epidemiology and criminology.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2007

Unifying Evolutionary and Network Dynamics

Many important real-world networks manifest "small-world" properties such as scale-free degree distributions, small diameters, and clustering. The most common model of growth for these networks is "preferential attachment", where nodes acquire new links with probability proportional to the number of links they already have. We show that preferential attachment is a special case of the process of molecular evolution. We present a new single-parameter model of network growth that unifies varieties of preferential attachment with the quasispecies equation (which models molecular evolution), and also with the Erdos-Renyi random graph model. We suggest some properties of evolutionary models that might be applied to the study of networks. We also derive the form of the degree distribution resulting from our algorithm, and we show through simulations that the process also models aspects of network growth. The unification allows mathematical machinery developed for evolutionary dynamics to be applied in the study of network dynamics, and vice versa.

q-bio.QM↗