Spread of Influence in Weighted Networks under Time and Budget Constraints
Abstract
Given a network represented by a weighted directed graph G, we consider the problem of finding a bounded cost set of nodes S such that the influence spreading from S in G, within a given time bound, is as large as possible. The dynamic that governs the spread of influence is the following: initially only elements in S are influenced; subsequently at each round, the set of influenced elements is augmented by all nodes in the network that have a sufficiently large number of already influenced neighbors. We prove that the problem is NP-hard, even in simple networks like complete graphs and trees. We also derive a series of positive results. We present exact pseudo-polynomial time algorithms for general trees, that become polynomial time in case the trees are unweighted. This last result improves on previously published results. We also design polynomial time algorithms for general weighted paths and cycles, and for unweighted complete graphs.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1502.05599,
title = {Spread of Influence in Weighted Networks under Time and Budget Constraints},
author = {Ferdinando Cicalese and Gennaro Cordasco and Luisa Gargano and Martin Milanic and Joseph Peters and Ugo Vaccaro},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.05599},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
This paper will appear in the special issue of Theoretical Computer Science devoted to selected papers presented at Fun 2014