Related papers: Challenges to estimating contagion effects from ob…

In this work, the spread of a contagious disease on a society where the individuals may take precautions is modeled. The primary assumption is that the infected individuals transmit the infection to the susceptible members of the community…

Evidence-based knowledge of infectious disease burden, including prevalence, incidence, severity and transmission, in different population strata and locations, and possibly in real time, is crucial to the planning and evaluation of public…

Recently, contagion-based (disease, information, etc.) spreading on social networks has been extensively studied. In this paper, other than traditional full interaction, we propose a partial interaction based spreading model, considering…

How predictable is success in complex social systems? In spite of a recent profusion of prediction studies that exploit online social and information network data, this question remains unanswered, in part because it has not been adequately…

How does the extent to which a model is open or closed impact the scientific inferences that can be drawn from research that involves it? In this paper, we analyze how restrictions on information about model construction and deployment…

Researchers across the health and social sciences generally assume that observations are independent, even while relying on convenience samples that draw subjects from one or a small number of communities, schools, hospitals, etc. A…

A principled approach to understand network structures is to formulate generative models. Given a collection of models, however, an outstanding key task is to determine which one provides a more accurate description of the network at hand,…

Statistics is sometimes described as the science of reasoning under uncertainty. Statistical models provide one view of this uncertainty, but what is frequently neglected is the 'invisible' portion of uncertainty: that assumed not to exist…

Forecasting transmission of infectious diseases, especially for vector-borne diseases, poses unique challenges for researchers. Behaviors of and interactions between viruses, vectors, hosts, and the environment each play a part in…

We study proliferation of an action in binary action network coordination games that are generalized to include global effects. This captures important aspects of proliferation of a particular action or narrative in online social networks,…

Statistical models of natural stimuli provide an important tool for researchers in the fields of machine learning and computational neuroscience. A canonical way to quantitatively assess and compare the performance of statistical models is…

The spread of unwanted or malicious content through social media has become a major challenge. Traditional examples of this include social network spam, but an important new concern is the propagation of fake news through social media. A…

Information diffusion, spreading of infectious diseases, and spreading of rumors are fundamental processes occurring in real-life networks. In many practical cases, one can observe when nodes become infected, but the underlying network,…

Infectious diseases are studied to understand their spreading mechanisms, to evaluate control strategies and to predict the risk and course of future outbreaks. Because people only interact with a small number of individuals, and because…

With the advance of efficient analytical methods for sensitivity analysis ofprobabilistic networks, the interest in the sensitivities revealed by real-life networks is rekindled. As the amount of data resulting from a sensitivity analysis…

Randomized experiments have long been the gold standard for scientists seeking to learn about cause and effect. When randomized experiments are infeasible, scientists often resort to observational studies, which are widely available and…

A great deal of effort has been devoted to reducing the risk of spurious scientific discoveries, from the use of sophisticated validation techniques, to deep statistical methods for controlling the false discovery rate in multiple…

Levels of sociality in nature vary widely. Some species are solitary; others live in family groups; some form complex multi-family societies. Increased levels of social interaction can allow for the spread of useful innovations and…

When an infection spreads in a community, an individual's probability of becoming infected depends on both her susceptibility and exposure to the contagion through contact with others. While one often has knowledge regarding an individual's…

There is a rich history of models for the interaction of a biological contagion like influenza with the spread of related information such as an influenza vaccination campaign. Recent work on the spread of interacting contagions on networks…