Optimal immunisation of complex networks
Year: 2001
Type: preprint
Abstract: Complex networks such as the sexual partnership web or the Internet often show a high degree of redundancy and heterogeneity in their connectivity properties. This peculiar connectivity, however, provides an ideal environment for the spreading of biological or digital infective agents. Here we show that the random uniform immunisation of individuals does not lead to the eradication of infections in all complex networks. Namely, networks with scale-free properties do not acquire global immunity from major epidemic outbreaks even in the presence of unrealistically high densities of randomly immunised individuals. The absence of any critical immunisation threshold is due to the unbounded connectivity fluctuations of scale-free networks. Successful immunisation strategies can be developed only by taking into account the inhomogeneous connectivity properties of scale-free networks. In particular, targeted immunisation programmes, based on the nodes’ connectivity hierarchy, sharply lower the network’s vulnerability to epidemic attacks.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Language: English
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2288415190