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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

The Web of Human Sexual Contacts

TLDR
In this article, the authors analyze data on the sexual behavior of a random sample of individuals, and find that the cumulative distributions of the number of sexual partners during the twelve months prior to the survey decays as a power law with similar exponents for females and males.
Abstract
Many ``real-world'' networks are clearly defined while most ``social'' networks are to some extent subjective. Indeed, the accuracy of empirically-determined social networks is a question of some concern because individuals may have distinct perceptions of what constitutes a social link. One unambiguous type of connection is sexual contact. Here we analyze data on the sexual behavior of a random sample of individuals, and find that the cumulative distributions of the number of sexual partners during the twelve months prior to the survey decays as a power law with similar exponents $\alpha \approx 2.4$ for females and males. The scale-free nature of the web of human sexual contacts suggests that strategic interventions aimed at preventing the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases may be the most efficient approach.

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Citations
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A simple and exact Laplacian clustering of complex networking phenomena: Application to gene expression profiles

TL;DR: This work proposes a method based on a Laplacian matrix for the discovery and prediction of new classes in the unsupervised complex networking phenomena where the class of each sample is completely unknown and can simultaneously discover different classes and determine the identity of each class.
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Identifying the borders of mathematical knowledge

TL;DR: A web of mathematical theorems from Wikipedia is derived and, thanks to the powerful concept of entropy, its more central and frontier elements are identified, allowing further insights about the organization of this network, such as its highly modular structure.
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Evolution of vocabulary on scale-free and random networks

TL;DR: The evolution of the vocabulary of a group of individuals (linguistic agents) on a scale-free network is examined, using Monte Carlo simulations and assumptions from evolutionary game theory to find it is not necessary to learn the entire vocabulary available.
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Weighting for sex acts to understand the spread of STI on networks.

TL;DR: This work develops a framework that allows us to weight any sexual network based on biological assumptions and indicates that STI spreading on the resulting weighted networks do not have heterogeneous-related properties, which is consistent with data and earlier studies.
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Optimizing HIV Interventions for Multiplex Social Networks via Partition-Based Random Search

TL;DR: A new random search method, named partition-based random search with network and memory prioritization (PRS-NMP), to identify the optimal subset of high-value individuals in the social network for interventions to effectively reduce the scale of HIV transmissions.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Collective dynamics of small-world networks

TL;DR: Simple models of networks that can be tuned through this middle ground: regular networks ‘rewired’ to introduce increasing amounts of disorder are explored, finding that these systems can be highly clustered, like regular lattices, yet have small characteristic path lengths, like random graphs.
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Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks

TL;DR: A model based on these two ingredients reproduces the observed stationary scale-free distributions, which indicates that the development of large networks is governed by robust self-organizing phenomena that go beyond the particulars of the individual systems.
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Statistical mechanics of complex networks

TL;DR: In this paper, a simple model based on the power-law degree distribution of real networks was proposed, which was able to reproduce the power law degree distribution in real networks and to capture the evolution of networks, not just their static topology.
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The Structure and Function of Complex Networks

Mark Newman
- 01 Jan 2003 - 
TL;DR: Developments in this field are reviewed, including such concepts as the small-world effect, degree distributions, clustering, network correlations, random graph models, models of network growth and preferential attachment, and dynamical processes taking place on networks.
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Complex networks: Structure and dynamics

TL;DR: The major concepts and results recently achieved in the study of the structure and dynamics of complex networks are reviewed, and the relevant applications of these ideas in many different disciplines are summarized, ranging from nonlinear science to biology, from statistical mechanics to medicine and engineering.
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