title: Burstiness and tie activation strategies in time-varying social networks.
abstract: The recent developments in the field of social networks shifted the focus from static to dynamical representations, calling for new methods for their analysis and modelling. Observations in real social systems identified two main mechanisms that play a primary role in networks' evolution and influence ongoing spreading processes: the strategies individuals adopt when selecting between new or old social ties, and the bursty nature of the social activity setting the pace of these choices. We introduce a time-varying network model accounting both for ties selection and burstiness and we analytically study its phase diagram. The interplay of the two effects is non trivial and, interestingly, the effects of burstiness might be suppressed in regimes where individuals exhibit a strong preference towards previously activated ties. The results are tested against numerical simulations and compared with two empirical datasets with very good agreement. Consequently, the framework provides a principled method to classify the temporal features of real networks, and thus yields new insights to elucidate the effects of social dynamics on spreading processes.
authors.affiliation: ISI Foundation, 10126 Torino, Italy.|Dipartimento di Fisica e Scienza della Terra, Università di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 7/A, 43124 Parma, Italy.|INFN, Gruppo Collegato di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 7/A, 43124 Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ubaldi
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica e Scienza della Terra, Università di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 7/A, 43124 Parma, Italy.|CNR, IMEM, Parco Area delle Scienze 37/A, 43124 Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vezzani
authors.affiliation: Univ Lyon, ENS de Lyon, INRIA, CNRS, UMR 5668, IXXI, 69364 Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Márton
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Karsai
authors.affiliation: Centre for Business Network Analysis, University of Greenwich, Park Row, London SE10 9LS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Perra
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica e Scienza della Terra, Università di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 7/A, 43124 Parma, Italy.|INFN, Gruppo Collegato di Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 7/A, 43124 Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Raffaella
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Burioni
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009716:Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted; D061108:Social Media; D060756:Social Networking; D013997:Time Factors