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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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Journal ArticleDOI

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.
Journal ArticleDOI

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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Statistical physics of social dynamics

TL;DR: In this article, a wide list of topics ranging from opinion and cultural and language dynamics to crowd behavior, hierarchy formation, human dynamics, and social spreading are reviewed and connections between these problems and other, more traditional, topics of statistical physics are highlighted.
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Evolution of networks

TL;DR: The recent rapid progress in the statistical physics of evolving networks is reviewed, and how growing networks self-organize into scale-free structures is discussed, and the role of the mechanism of preferential linking is investigated.
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Epidemic processes in complex networks

TL;DR: A coherent and comprehensive review of the vast research activity concerning epidemic processes is presented, detailing the successful theoretical approaches as well as making their limits and assumptions clear.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Dynamical Macroprudential Stress Testing Using Network Theory

TL;DR: Using network theory, the authors developed a dynamic model to reveal the systemic structure of a banking system, to analyze its sensibility to external shocks and to evaluate the presence of contagious underlying features of the system.
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Preferential attachment in sexual networks

TL;DR: The PA model is modified to account for individual heterogeneity in the inclination to find new partners and fitted to Norwegian survey data on heterosexual men and women, showing evidence of nonrandom, sublinear PA when comparing the growth in 3- to 5-year periods.
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Social network visualization in epidemiology

TL;DR: A better understanding of the processes that determine how networks form and how they operate with respect to the spread of behavior holds promise for improving public health.
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Analytic solution of a static scale-free network model

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a detailed analytical study of a paradigmatic scale-free network model, the Static Model, and derive analytical expressions for its main properties by using the hidden variables formalism.
Journal ArticleDOI

Controlling nosocomial infection based on structure of hospital social networks.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors simulate stochastic susceptible-infected-recovered dynamics on social networks, which are based on observations in a hospital in Tokyo, to explore effective containment strategies against nosocomial infection.
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