Epidemics on networks

After a brief introduction to complex networks, I will focus on SIS epidemics on networks. Besides the spread of biological viruses, epidemics also occur in digital networks under the disguise of malware or under the more positive inclination of information diffusion in (social) networks.

From a fundamental point of view, epidemic processes on networks belong the “simplest” dynamic processes on networks, where the interplay between the process on and the topology of the network can be studied and understood. We will show why SIS epidemics on networks are so interesting.

Biosketch

Piet F. A. Van Mieghem is professor at the Delft University of Technology with a chair in telecommunication networks and chairman of the section Network Architectures and Services (NAS) since 1998. His main research interests lie in the modelling and analysis of complex networks (such as biological, brain, social, infrastructural, etc. networks) and in new Internet-like architectures and algorithms for future communications networks. He is the author of four books: Performance Analysis of Communications Networks and Systems, Data Communications Networking, Graph Spectra for Complex Networks and Performance Analysis of Complex Networks and Systems. Currently, he serves on the editorial board of the OUP journal of Complex Networks and Computer Communications. Professor Van Mieghem received a Master and Ph. D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the K.U.Leuven (Belgium) in 1987 and 1991, respectively. Before joining Delft, he worked at the Interuniversity Micro Electronic Center (IMEC) from 1987 to 1991. During 1993 to 1998, he was a member of the Alcatel Corporate Research Center in Antwerp where he was engaged in performance analysis of ATM systems and in network architectural concepts of both ATM networks (PNNI) and the Internet. He was a visiting scientist at MIT (department of Electrical Engineering, 1992-1993) and a visiting professor at UCLA (department of Electrical Engineering, 2005) and at Cornell University (Center of Applied Mathematics, 2009). He was member of the editorial board of Computer Networks (2005-2006), of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (2008-2012) and of the Journal of Discrete Mathematics (2012-2014).