https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00068-2
Model of mobile agents for sexual interactions networks
1
Institute for Computational Physics, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 27, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany
2
Centro de Física Teórica e Computacional, Av. Prof. Gama Pinto 2, 1649-003 Lisbon, Portugal
3
Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal do Ceará, 60451-970 Fortaleza, Brazil
Corresponding author: a marta@ica1.uni-stuttgart.de
Received:
19
August
2005
Revised:
4
November
2005
Published online:
27
February
2006
We present a novel model to simulate real social networks of complex interactions, based in a system of colliding particles (agents). The network is build by keeping track of the collisions and evolves in time with correlations which emerge due to the mobility of the agents. Therefore, statistical features are a consequence only of local collisions among its individual agents. Agent dynamics is realized by an event-driven algorithm of collisions where energy is gained as opposed to physical systems which have dissipation. The model reproduces empirical data from networks of sexual interactions, not previously obtained with other approaches.
PACS: 89.65.-s – Social and economic systems / 89.75.Fb – Structures and organization in complex systems / 89.75.Hc – Networks and genealogical trees / 89.75.Da – Systems obeying scaling laws
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2006