English

Efficient Immunization Strategies for Computer Networks and Populations

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks 2007-05-23 v3 Populations and Evolution

Abstract

We present an effective immunization strategy for computer networks and populations with broad and, in particular, scale-free degree distributions. The proposed strategy, acquaintance immunization, calls for the immunization of random acquaintances of random nodes (individuals). The strategy requires no knowledge of the node degrees or any other global knowledge, as do targeted immunization strategies. We study analytically the critical threshold for complete immunization. We also study the strategy with respect to the susceptible-infected-removed epidemiological model. We show that the immunization threshold is dramatically reduced with the suggested strategy, for all studied cases.

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0207387,
  title  = {Efficient Immunization Strategies for Computer Networks and Populations},
  author = {Reuven Cohen and Shlomo Havlin and Daniel ben-Avraham},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0207387},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

Revtex, 5 pages, 4 ps figs

R2 v1 2026-07-22T10:39:12.564Z