Epidemic spreading with nonlinear infectivity in weighted scale-free networks

Chu, Xiangwei; Zhang, Zhongzhi; Guan, Jihong; Zhou, Shuigeng

Epidemic spreading with nonlinear infectivity in weighted scale-free networks

Authors

Description

In this paper, we investigate the epidemic spreading for SIR model in weighted scale-free networks with nonlinear infectivity, where the transmission rate in our analytical model is weighted. Concretely, we introduce the infectivity exponent $α$ and the weight exponent $β$ into the analytical SIR model, then examine the combination effects of $α$ and $β$ on the epidemic threshold and phase transition. We show that one can adjust the values of $α$ and $β$ to rebuild the epidemic threshold to a finite value, and it is observed that the steady epidemic prevalence $R$ grows in an exponential form in the early stage, then follows hierarchical dynamics. Furthermore, we find $α$ is more sensitive than $β$ in the transformation of the epidemic threshold and epidemic prevalence, which might deliver some useful information or new insights in the epidemic spreading and the correlative immunization schemes.
17 pages, 12 figures