Dr. Dan Schult
Network Structure meets Dynamics
Basic models of disease spread ignore details of the transmission network. Everyone is assumed to be equally likely to infect anyone else. More detailed models divide the population into groups with different transmission rates between groups. In extreme cases, models try to keep track of each individual and transmission contact explicitly. Why keep track of the transmission network? Because it seems clear that the structure of the network can change the dynamics of the disease in important ways. Still, not much is known about how or when the structure of a network affects dynamics on that network. These questions apply more generally. Every contact process depends on the contact network's structure. But what is it about the structure that is important? What are the important features of a network? What features of the dynamics depend on that structure? This talk will discuss our recent attempts to find relationships between common measures of network structure and measures of dynamic behavior.