Derivation and characteristics of closed‐form solutions of the fundamental equations for online user dynamics

Abstract

SummaryThe oscillation model, based on the wave equation on networks, can describe user dynamics in online social networks. The fundamental equation of user dynamics can be introduced into the oscillation model to explicitly describe the causal relation of user dynamics yielded by certain specific network structures. Moreover, by considering the sparseness of the link structure of online social networks, a novel fundamental equation of different forms has been devised. In this article, we derive a closed‐form solution of the new fundamental equation. Also, we show that the closed‐form solution of the new fundamental equation can generate the general solution of the original wave equation and investigate the characteristics of the derived general solution.