CIF: Small: Modeling, Analysis, and Control of Contagion Processes in Networks

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Contagion processes such as propagation of influence, information, and viruses can have dramatic impacts on the health and well-being of the society. This project will reveal how contagions are affected by various factors and parameters, some of which can be controlled by public-policy measures and by adjusting individuals’ behaviors. Thus, the project can help in developing efficient mechanisms for mitigating large-scale contagions including infectious-disease pandemics and misinformation campaigns. The project can also have a positive impact on national security by providing an improved understanding of the role of social influence in shaping popular opinion and actions, and thereby an improved capability to predict and control spread of antisocial behavior. The team of researchers will incorporate project results in teaching and disseminate them broadly in academic and industrial venues. The project will involve women and minority students and will include extensive outreach to K-12 students and teachers. This project aims to develop new approaches in modeling, analysis, and control of simple (e.g., spread of information and diseases) and complex contagions (e.g., spread of influence and opinions) over networks. First, a novel complex contagion model will be used to study the simultaneous spread of multiple correlated opinions. Utilizing this model, the team of researchers will i) derive fundamental relations between the network topology, the correlations among opinions, and the propagation dynamics including final fraction of individuals supporting each opinion; ii) reveal the impact of correlated opinion propagation on the polarization in the population; and iii) develop algorithms to efficiently control the spread of an opinion with constraints on other opinions and/or polarization. For simple contagions, the team of researchers will analyze novel models of both information and viral spread and reveal the impact of i) mutations in the spreading item; and ii) the heterogeneity in the population, e.g., due to different mask-wearing behavior, vaccination status, or socio-cultural diversity, on the contagion dynamics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.