Epidemic thresholds for bipartite networks

• Autores: Hernandez, Damián G.; Risau Gusman, Sebastian Luis
• Año de publicación: 2013
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: Epidemics; Networks; Statistical Mechanics
• Institución: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

It is well known that sexually transmitted diseases (STD) spread across a network of human sexual contacts. This network is most often bipartite, as most STD are transmitted between men and women. Even though network models in epidemiology have quite a long history now, there are few general results about bipartite networks. One of them is the simple dependence, predicted using the mean field approximation, between the epidemic threshold and the average and variance of the degree distribution of the network. Here we show that going beyond this
approximation can lead to qualitatively different results that are  supported by numerical simulations. One of the new features, that can be relevant for applications, is the existence of a critical value for the infectivity of each population, below which no epidemics can arise, regardless of the value of the infectivity of the other population.


Fil: Hernandez, Damián G.. Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica. Gerencia del _rea de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina;
Fil: Risau Gusman, Sebastian Luis. Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica. Gerencia del Area Investicaciones y Aplicaciones No Nucleares; Argentina;