A simulator of the Weighted Social Network (WSN) model, which was proposed in Kumpula et al.[1]. It considers an undirected weighted network of N nodes, with links between them being updated by the following three mechanisms.
- Local Attachment (LA)
- Global Attachment (GA)
- Link Deletion (LD) (or Node Deletion / Link Aging)
LA and GA respectively correspond to triadic and cyclic closures, which have been empirically observed to be the fundamental mechanisms for creating social ties. In addition to these mechanisms, a link reinforcement was introduced to correspond to the general obesrvation that social ties get stronger when they are used.
The model shows a phase transition, when the link reinformcemnt is introduced, from a homogeneous random network to a modular network having the Granovetterian weight-topology relationship.
Change the reinforcement parameter dw (which is denoted as delta in [1]) from 0 to 1, and see how the emergent network looks like.
In social networks of human individuals, social relationships do not necessarily last forever as they can either fade gradually with time, resulting in “link aging,” or terminate abruptly, causing “link deletion,” as even old friendships may cease.
In Murase et al.[2], WSN model is studied where several ways by which a link termination takes place is introduced.
If we adopt the link aging, we get a more modular structure with more homogeneously distributed link weights within communities than when link deletion is used.
By investigating distributions and relations of various network characteristics, we find that the empirical findings are better reproduced with the link deletion model. This indicates that link deletion plays a more prominent role in organizing social networks than link aging.