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We investigate the formation of musical preferences of millions of users of the NetEase Cloud Music (NCM), one of the largest online music platforms in China. We combine the methods from complex networks theory and information sciences within the context of Big Data analysis to unveil statistical patterns and community structures underlying the formation and evolution of musical preference behaviors. Our analyses address the decay patterns of music influence, users' sensitivity to music, age and gender differences, and their relationship to regional economic indicators. Employing community detection in user-music bipartite networks, we identified eight major cultural communities in the population of NCM users. Female users exhibited higher within-group variability in preference behavior than males, with a major transition occurring around the age of 25. Moreveor, the musical tastes and the preference diversity measures of women were also more strongly associated with economic factors. However, in spite of the highly variable popularity of music tracks and the identified cultural and demographic differences, we observed that the evolution of musical preferences over time followed a power-law-like decaying function, and that NCM listeners showed the highest sensitivity to music released in their adolescence, peaking at the age of 13. Our findings suggest the existence of universal properties in the formation of musical tastes but also their culture-specific relationship to demographic factors, with wide-ranging implications for community detection and recommendation system design in online music platforms., Comment: 23 pages, 15 Figures, 4 Tables

Understanding the interplay between human behavioral phenomena and infectious disease dynamics has been one of the central challenges of mathematical epidemiology. However, socio-cognitive processes critical for the initiation of desired behavioral responses during an outbreak have often been neglected or oversimplified in earlier models. Combining the microscopic Markov chain approach with the law of total probability, we herein institute a mathematical model describing the dynamic interplay between stage-based progression of awareness diffusion and endemic disease transmission in multiplex networks. We analytically derived the epidemic thresholds for both discrete-time and continuous-time versions of our model, and we numerically demonstrated the accuracy of our analytic arguments in capturing the time course and the steady-state of the coupled disease-awareness dynamics. We found that our model is exact for arbitrary unclustered multiplex networks, outperforming a widely adopted probability-tree-based method, both in the prediction of the time-evolution of a contagion and in the final epidemic size. Our findings show that informing the unaware individuals about the circulating disease will not be sufficient for the prevention of an outbreak unless the distributed information triggers strong awareness of infection risks with adequate protective measures, and that the immunity of highly-aware individuals can elevate the epidemic threshold, but only if the rate of transition from weak to strong awareness is sufficiently high. Our study thus reveals that awareness diffusion and other behavioral parameters can nontrivially interact when producing their effects on epidemiological dynamics of an infectious disease, suggesting that future public health measures should not ignore this complex behavioral interplay and its influence on contagion transmission in multilayered networked systems.

In this study, we track and analyze publication downloads from both copyrighted and pirated platforms to reconstruct scientists' activity patterns from a holistic perspective. Scientists around the world are working overtime, but scientists in different countries have different working patterns. Scientists' preferences for different platforms are influenced by a variety of factors such as working times and workplace arrangements. There are variations by country in terms of whether scientists prefer to work overtime at night, at the weekend, or both at night and on the weekend. When scientists are working overtime, they prefer to use Sci-Hub rather than copyrighted platforms to access scholarly publications This may be because of the transition in their working scenarios as they move from the office to home outside of work hours., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures

Thousands of cryptocurrencies have been issued and publicly exchanged since Bitcoin was invented in 2008. The total cryptocurrency market value exceeds 300 billion US dollars as of 2019. This paper analyzes the prices, volumes, blockchain transactions, coin difficulties and public opinion popularities of 3607 actively exchanged cryptocurrencies. We aim to reveal and explain the homogeneity, i.e., the strong correlation of market performance, and the heterogeneity, i.e., the imbalance of popularities and sophistications, of the cryptocurrencies.

In this paper, we empirically analyze the spatial distribution of Chinese cities using a method based on triangle transition. This method uses a regular triangle mapping from the observed cities and its three neighboring cities to analyze their distribution of mapping positions. We find that obvious center-gathering tendency for the relationship between cities and its nearest three cities, indicating the spatial competition between cities. Moreover, we observed the competitive trends between neighboring cities with similar economic volume, and the remarkable cooperative tendency between neighboring cities with large difference on economy. The threshold of the ratio of the two cities' economic volume on the transition from competition to cooperation is about 1.2. These findings are helpful in the understanding of the cities economic relationship, especially in the study of competition and cooperation between cities., Comment: The 43rd Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society

A minimal model based on individual interactions is proposed to study the non-Poisson statistical properties of human behavior: individuals in the system interact with their neighbors, the probability of an individual acting correlates to its activity, and all individuals involved in action will change their activities randomly. The model creates rich non-Poisson spatial-temporal properties in the activities of individuals, in agreement with the patterns of human communication behaviors. Our findings provide insight into various human activities, embracing a range of realistic social interacting systems, particularly, intriguing bimodal phenomenons. This model bridges priority queues and punctuated equilibrium, and our modeling and analysis is likely to shed light on non-Poisson phenomena in many complex systems., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures

Participation in social groups are important but the collective behaviors of human as a group are difficult to analyze due to the difficulties to quantify ordinary social relation, group membership, and to collect a comprehensive dataset. Such difficulties can be circumvented by analyzing online social networks. In this paper, we analyze a comprehensive dataset obtained from Tencent QQ, an instant messenger with the highest market share in China. Specifically, we analyze three derivative networks involving groups and their members -- the hypergraph of groups, the network of groups and the user network -- to reveal social interactions at microscopic and mesoscopic level. Our results uncover interesting behaviors on the growth of user groups, the interactions between groups, and their relationship with member age and gender. These findings lead to insights which are difficult to obtain in ordinary social networks., Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures

Recently, contagion-based (disease, information, etc.) spreading on social networks has been extensively studied. In this paper, other than traditional full interaction, we propose a partial interaction based spreading model, considering that the informed individuals would transmit information to only a certain fraction of their neighbors due to the transmission ability in real-world social networks. Simulation results on three representative networks (BA, ER, WS) indicate that the spreading efficiency is highly correlated with the network heterogeneity. In addition, a special phenomenon, namely \emph{Information Blind Areas} where the network is separated by several information-unreachable clusters, will emerge from the spreading process. Furthermore, we also find that the size distribution of such information blind areas obeys power-law-like distribution, which has very similar exponent with that of site percolation. Detailed analyses show that the critical value is decreasing along with the network heterogeneity for the spreading process, which is complete the contrary to that of random selection. Moreover, the critical value in the latter process is also larger that of the former for the same network. Those findings might shed some lights in in-depth understanding the effect of network properties on information spreading.

The attack of novel avian influenza (H7N9) in east China caused a serious health crisis and public panic. In this paper, we empirically analyze the onset patterns of human cases of the novel avian influenza and observe several spatial and temporal properties that are similar to other infective diseases. More deeply, using the empirical analysis and modeling studies, we find that the spatio-temporal network that connects the cities with human cases along the order of outbreak timing emerges two-section-power-law edge-length distribution, indicating the picture that several islands with higher and heterogeneous risk straggle in east China. The proposed method is applicable to the analysis on the spreading situation in early stage of disease outbreak using quite limited dataset., Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures

Uncovering the mechanism behind the scaling law in human trajectories is of fundamental significance in understanding many spatio-temporal phenomena. In combination of the exploration and the preferential returns, we propose a simple dynamical model mainly based on the cascading processes to capture the human mobility patterns. By the numerical simulations and analytical studies, we show more than five statistical characters that are well consistent with the empirical observations, including several type of scaling anomalies, and the ultraslow diffusion property, implying the cascading processes associated with the other two mechanisms are indeed a key in the understanding of human mobility activities. Moreover, both of the diverse individual mobility and aggregated scaling move-lengths, bridging the micro and macro patterns in human mobility. Our model provides deeper understandings on the emergence of human mobility patterns., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

Human mobility patterns deeply affect the dynamics of many social systems. In this paper, we empirically analyze the real-world human movements based GPS records, and observe rich scaling properties in the temporal-spatial patterns as well as an abnormal transition in the speed-displacement patterns. We notice that the displacements at the population level show significant positive correlation, indicating a cascade-like nature in human movements. Furthermore, our analysis at the individual level finds that the displacement distributions of users with strong correlation of displacements are closer to power laws, implying a relationship between the positive correlation of the series of displacements and the form of an individual's displacement distribution. These findings from our empirical analysis show a factor directly relevant to the origin of the scaling properties in human mobility., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures

How to promote the innovative activities is an important problem for modern society. In this paper, combining with the evolutionary games and information spreading, we propose a lattice model to investigate dynamics of human innovative behaviors based on benefit-driven assumption. Simulations show several properties in agreement with peoples' daily cognition on innovative behaviors, such as slow diffusion of innovative behaviors, gathering of innovative strategy on "innovative centers", and quasi-localized dynamics. Furthermore, our model also emerges rich non-Poisson properties in the temporal-spacial patterns of the innovative status, including the scaling law in the interval time of innovation releases and the bimodal distributions on the spreading range of innovations, which would be universal in human innovative behaviors. Our model provide a basic framework on the study of the issue relevant to the evolution of human innovative behaviors and the promotion measurement of innovative activities., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

We propose a model of two-way selection system. It appears in the processes like choosing a mate between men and women, making contracts between job hunters and recruiters, and trading between buyers and sellers. In this paper, we propose a model of two-way selection system, and present its analytic solution for the expectation of successful matching total and the regular pattern that the matching rate trends toward an inverse proportion to either the ratio between the two sides or the ratio of the state total to the smaller people number. The proposed model is verified by empirical data of the matchmaking fairs. Results indicate that the model well predicts this typical real-world two- way selection behavior to the bounded error extent, thus it is helpful for understanding the dynamics mechanism of the real-world two-way selection system., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

Uncovering human mobility patterns is of fundamental importance to the understanding of epidemic spreading, urban transportation and other socioeconomic dynamics embodying spatiality and human travel. According to the direct travel diaries of volunteers, we show the absence of scaling properties in the displacement distribution at the individual level,while the aggregated displacement distribution follows a power law with an exponential cutoff. Given the constraint on total travelling cost, this aggregated scaling law can be analytically predicted by the mixture nature of human travel under the principle of maximum entropy. A direct corollary of such theory is that the displacement distribution of a single mode of transportation should follow an exponential law, which also gets supportive evidences in known data. We thus conclude that the travelling cost shapes the displacement distribution at the aggregated level., Comment: 4 figures, 5 pages

Quantum networks provide access to exchange of quantum information. The primary task of quantum networks is to distribute entanglement between remote nodes. Although quantum repeater protocol enables long distance entanglement distribution, it has been restricted to one-dimensional linear network. Here we develop a general framework that allows application of quantum repeater protocol to arbitrary quantum repeater networks with fractal structure. Entanglement distribution across such networks is mapped to renormalization. Furthermore, we demonstrate that logarithmical times of recursive such renormalization transformations can trigger fractal to small-world transition, where a scalable quantum small-world network is achieved. Our result provides new insight into quantum repeater theory towards realistic construction of large-scale quantum networks., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. Accepted by Scientific Reports

Scaling mobility patterns have been widely observed for animals. In this paper, we propose a deterministic walk model to understand the scaling mobility patterns, where walkers take the least-action walks on a lattice landscape and prey. Scaling laws in the displacement distribution emerge when the amount of prey resource approaches the critical point. Around the critical point, our model generates ordered collective movements of walkers with a quasi-periodic synchronization of walkers' directions. These results indicate that the co-evolution of walkers' least-action behavior and the landscape could be a potential origin of not only the individual scaling mobility patterns, but also the flocks of animals. Our findings provide a bridge to connect the individual scaling mobility patterns and the ordered collective movements., Comment: 6 pages 7 figures

Gyration radius of individual's trajectory plays a key role in quantifying human mobility patterns. Of particular interests, empirical analyses suggest that the growth of gyration radius is slow versus time except the very early stage and may eventually arrive to a steady value. However, up to now, the underlying mechanism leading to such a possibly steady value has not been well understood. In this Letter, we propose a simplified human mobility model to simulate individual's daily travel with three sequential activities: commuting to workplace, going to do leisure activities and returning home. With the assumption that individual has constant travel speed and inferior limit of time at home and work, we prove that the daily moving area of an individual is an ellipse, and finally get an exact solution of the gyration radius. The analytical solution well captures the empirical observation reported in [M. C. Gonz`alez et al., Nature, 453 (2008) 779]. We also find that, in spite of the heterogeneous displacement distribution in the population level, individuals in our model have characteristic displacements, indicating a completely different mechanism to the one proposed by Song et al. [Nat. Phys. 6 (2010) 818]., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

We empirically study the activity patterns of individual blog-posting and find significant memory effects. The memory coefficient first decays in a power law and then turns to an exponential form. Moreover, the inter-event time distribution displays a heavy-tailed nature with power-law exponent dependent on the activity. Our findings challenge the priority-queue model that can not reproduce the memory effects or the activity-dependent distributions. We think there is another kind of human activity patterns driven by personal interests and characterized by strong memory effects. Accordingly, we propose a simple model based on temporal preference, which can well reproduce both the heavy-tailed nature and the strong memory effects. This work helps in understanding both the temporal regularities and the predictability of human behaviors.

The distribution of the lifetime of Chinese dynasties (as well as that of the British Isles and Japan) in a linear Zipf plot is found to consist of two straight lines intersecting at a transition point. This two-section piecewise-linear distribution is different from the power law or the stretched exponent distribution, and is called the Bilinear Effect for short. With assumptions mimicking the organization of ancient Chinese regimes, a 3-layer network model is constructed. Numerical results of this model show the bilinear effect, providing a plausible explanation of the historical data. Bilinear effect in two other social systems is presented, indicating that such a piecewise-linear effect is widespread in social systems., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Background: The pandemic of influenza A (H1N1) is a serious on-going global public crisis. Understanding its spreading dynamics is of fundamental importance for both public health and scientific researches. Recent studies have focused mainly on evaluation and prediction of on-going spreading, which strongly depends on detailed information about the structure of social contacts, human traveling patterns and biological activity of virus, etc. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this work we analyzed the distributions of confirmed cases of influenza A (H1N1) in different levels and find the Zipf's law and Heaps' law. Similar scaling properties were also observed for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and bird cases of H5N1. We also found a hierarchical spreading pattern from countries with larger population and GDP to countries with smaller ones. We proposed a model that considers generic control effects on both the local growth and transregional transmission, without the need of the above mentioned detailed information. We studied in detail the impact of control effects and heterogeneity on the spreading dynamics in the model and showed that they are responsible for the scaling and hierarchical spreading properties observed in empirical data. Conclusions/Significance: Our analysis and modeling showed that although strict control measures for interregional travelers could delay the outbreak in the regions without local cases, the focus should be turned to local prevention after the outbreak of local cases. Target control on a few regions with the largest number of active interregional travelers can efficiently prevent the spreading. This work provided not only a deeper understanding of the generic mechanisms underlying the spread of infectious diseases, but also some practical guidelines for decision makers to adopt suitable control strategies., Comment: 19figures

The interevent time of terrorism attack events is investigated by empirical data and model analysis. Empirical evidence shows it follows a scale-free property. In order to understand the dynamic mechanism of such statistic feature, an opinion dynamic model with memory effect is proposed on a two-dimension lattice network. The model mainly highlights the role of individual social conformity and self-affirmation psychology. An attack event occurs when the order parameter of the system reaches a critical value. Ultimately, the model reproduces the same statistical property as the empirical data and gives a good understanding of terrorism attack., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

The tuning process of a large apparatus of many components could be represented and quantified by constructing parameter-tuning networks. The experimental tuning of the ion source of the neutral beam injector of HT-7 Tokamak is presented as an example. Stretched-exponential cumulative degree distributions are found in the parameter-tuning networks. An active walk model with eight walkers is constructed. Each active walker is a particle moving with friction in an energy landscape; the landscape is modified by the collective action of all the walkers. Numerical simulations show that the parameter-tuning networks generated by the model also give stretched exponential functions, in good agreement with experiments. Our methods provide a new way and a new insight to understand the action of humans in the parameter-tuning of experimental processes, is helpful for experimental research and other optimization problems., Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures

Recently, increasing empirical evidence indicates the extensive existence of heavy tails in the interevent time distributions of various human behaviors. Based on the queuing theory, the Barab\'asi model and its variations suggest the highest-priority-first protocol a potential origin of those heavy tails. However, some human activity patterns, also displaying the heavy-tailed temporal statistics, could not be explained by a task-based mechanism. In this paper, different from the mainstream, we propose an interest-based model. Both the simulation and analysis indicate a power-law interevent time distribution with exponent -1, which is in accordance with some empirical observations in human-initiated systems., Comment: 3 figures and 4 pages