Effects of Interconnections on Epidemics in Network of Networks

Abstract

Modern communication systems are increasingly interconnected. Rather than being modeled as a single complex system, they can be more appropriately modeled as multiple interconnected networks, i.e., a network of networks. Epidemics in interconnected networks may have some very different properties from those in a single network. In this paper, we study the effects of interconnections on agent (e.g., virus, rumor, ideas, etc.) spreading in interconnected networks, with the main focus on effects of the number of interconnections and interconnection pattern. We find that having a larger number of interconnections steadily leads to a much larger infection size, while different interconnection patterns typically do not make significant difference. Another interesting observation is that there could be two peaks of infection size in the time domain when the number of interconnections is small and the agent is of a high enough transmissibility. Such observations provide some interesting insights into the agent spreading in interconnected complex communication systems.