Two Influence Maximization Games on Graphs Made Temporal

To address the dynamic nature of real-world networks, we generalize competitive diffusion games and Voronoi games from static to temporal graphs, where edges may appear or disappear over time. This establishes a new direction of studies in the area of graph games, motivated by applications such as influence spreading. As a first step, we investigate the existence of Nash equilibria in competitive diffusion and Voronoi games on different temporal graph classes. Even when restricting our studies to temporal paths and cycles, this turns out to be a challenging undertaking, revealing significant differences between the two games in the temporal setting. Notably, both games are equivalent on static paths and cycles. Our two main technical results are (algorithmic) proofs for the existence of Nash equilibria in temporal competitive diffusion and temporal Voronoi games when the edges are restricted not to disappear over time.

A Resilience Enhancement Model for Complex Distribution Network Coupling with Human Resources and Traffic Network

Resilience is the ability of a system to withstand and recover from deliberate accidents; as to distribution systems, it means the ability to withstand and recover from natural disasters or other serious accidents and ensure electricity supply. Generally, promotion strategies of distribution network resilience mostly focus on electrical topology planning and reinforcement. The operation strategies in emergency repair stage are frequently ignored, especially the complex coupling relationship between distribution network, traffic network, and maintenance teams. A model of resilience improvement for a complicated distribution-traffic-human coupling system under hurricane disasters considering is presented. Firstly, based on the influence spreading mechanism of a hurricane acting on the distribution and traffic part of the system, a fault analysis model of rush repair is constructed. Secondly, according to the function of human resources in shortening the repair time and improving system resilience, an optimization model of emergency repair strategy is proposed. Taking into account the repair demand, traffic cost, and personnel operating and executing ability, the optimized strategy can minimize the social loss in the whole repair and recovery process after hurricane disaster. Furthermore, three indices, including system adaptability, repair rate, and economic loss rate, are proposed to quantify the resilience of distribution network. Finally, case studies on the IEEE33 bus system are implemented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model.

RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA IN THE POLISH INFOSPHERE – CONTEXT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The publication addresses the issue of stimulation through private media companies and foreign entities of anxiety and social tensions on the wave of the Covid19 pandemic. The publication presents the process of influence of environments permanently involved in the process of disinformation, in activities serving to intensify social polarization and the effects of the crisis as a result of activity in the Internet space. An important element of the publication is to indicate the relationship between the described centers of influence spreading harmful content and their participation in the popularization of content convergent with the messages of Russian disinformation centers. The presented material is based on the analysis of content posted by portals identified as permanently involved in the process of popularization of Russian disinformation narratives. The aim of the article is to show the threat to social order resulting from the activities of unrestricted alternative portals influencing, among other things, social networks. The activity of the indicated environments, which seem to be partially copying the Russian information agenda, is shown as an element of activities destabilizing the modern country and society. The paper lists the specific aspects influenced by these environments, and emphasises the connection between these aspects and the goals of Kremlin policy (specific narratives and the goals they are supposed to pursue are indicated). Portals and examples of publications are also listed. The analysis aims to identify the threat to contemporary European society posed by the lack of adequate country control over the Internet (especially social networks) – this issue is examined in the context of attempts to exploit this condition by an external factor for hostile activity.

Modelling community structure and temporal spreading on complex networks

We present methods for analysing hierarchical and overlapping community structure and spreading phenomena on complex networks. Different models can be developed for describing static connectivity or dynamical processes on a network topology. In this study, classical network connectivity and influence spreading models are used as examples for network models. Analysis of results is based on a probability matrix describing interactions between all pairs of nodes in the network. One popular research area has been detecting communities and their structure in complex networks. The community detection method of this study is based on optimising a quality function calculated from the probability matrix. The same method is proposed for detecting underlying groups of nodes that are building blocks of different sub-communities in network structure. We present different quantitative measures for comparing and ranking solutions of the community detection algorithm. These measures describe properties of sub-communities: strength of a community, probability of formation and robustness of composition. We illustrate the community detection methods with two small network topologies. In case of network spreading models, time development of spreading in the network can be studied. Two different temporal spreading distributions demonstrate the methods with three real-world social networks of different sizes. The Poisson distribution describes a random response time and the e-mail forwarding distribution describes a process of receiving and forwarding messages.

Substitute Seed Nodes Mining Algorithms for Influence Maximization in Multi-Social Networks

Due to the growing interconnections of social networks, the problem of influence maximization has been extended from a single social network to multiple social networks. However, a critical challenge of influence maximization in multi-social networks is that some initial seed nodes may be unable to be active, which obviously leads to a low performance of influence spreading. Therefore, finding substitute nodes for mitigating the influence loss of uncooperative nodes is extremely helpful in influence maximization. In this paper, we propose three substitute mining algorithms for influence maximization in multi-social networks, namely for the Greedy-based substitute mining algorithm, pre-selected-based substitute mining algorithm, and similar-users-based substitute mining algorithm. The simulation results demonstrate that the existence of the uncooperative seed nodes leads to the range reduction of information influence. Furthermore, the viability and performance of the proposed algorithms are presented, which show that three substitute node mining algorithms can find suitable substitute nodes for multi-social networks influence maximization, thus achieves better influence.