A bio-inspired method for locating the diffusion source with limited observers

Yuxin Liu, Chao Gao, Xinyan She, Zili Zhang

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Locating the source of diffusion is a challenging problem in complex networks and has great practical significance for restraining rumors propagation and controlling epidemics spreading. An efficient locating method should have a higher locating accuracy with the minimum required information. Although existing locating methods based on observers consider the time delays of edges, they compute the time delays based on the shortest path, which may differ from the actual diffusion process. Moreover, the higher locating accuracy of traditional method with observers has a great dependence on the assumption that the propagation delays along edges follow a definite distribution such as the Gaussian distribution. In order to solve these shortcomings, this paper proposes a Physarum-inspired method to locate the diffusion source that is independence of the distribution of propagation delays. Our method quantifies the nutrient transportation process in the adaptive network evolved by Physarum, which is used to simulate the information or epidemic diffusion routes in a social network. Simulation results on various benchmark networks show that our method has a better performance in terms of error distance than that of Gaussian method without assuming the definite distribution of time delays. Together with the advantage that our method does not require the sender information of observers compared with existing methods, our method allows for a wider range of applications in the real-world networks.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2016 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, CEC 2016
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages508-514
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9781509006229
DOIs
StatePublished - 14 Nov 2016
Externally publishedYes
Event2016 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, CEC 2016 - Vancouver, Canada
Duration: 24 Jul 201629 Jul 2016

Publication series

Name2016 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, CEC 2016

Conference

Conference2016 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, CEC 2016
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityVancouver
Period24/07/1629/07/16

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A bio-inspired method for locating the diffusion source with limited observers'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this