Eur. Phys. J. B (2015) 88: 320
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2015-60604-5

Regular Article

Empirical study on structural properties in temporal networks under different time scales^*

¹ Web Sciences Center, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Xiyuan Avenue 2006, Chengdu 611731, P.R. China
² Big Data Research Center, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Xiyuan Avenue 2006, Chengdu 611731, P.R. China

^a e-mail: dbchen@uestc.edu.cn

Received: 27 July 2015
Received in final form: 13 October 2015
Published online: 7 December 2015

Abstract

Many network analyzing methods are usually based on static networks. However, temporal networks should be considered so as to investigate real complex systems deeply since some dynamics on these systems cannot be described by static networks accurately. In this paper, four structural properties in temporal networks are empirically studied, including degree, clustering coefficient, adjacent correlation, and connected component. Three real temporal networks with different time scales are analyzed in this paper, including short message, telephone, and router networks. Moreover, structural properties of these temporal networks are compared with that of corresponding static aggregation networks in the whole time window. Some essential differences of structural properties between temporal and static networks are achieved through empirical analysis. Finally, the effect of structural properties on spreading dynamics under different time scales is investigated. Some interesting results such as turning point of structure evolving time scale corresponding to certain spreading dynamics time scale from the point of view of infected scale are achieved.