Locating the source node that initiates a diffusion process is an increasingly popular topic that contributes new insights into the maintenance of cyber security, rumor detection in social media, digital surveillance of infectious diseases, etc. Existing studies select the observers randomly or select them heuristically according to the network centrality or community measures. However, there still lacks a method to identify the minimum set of observers for accurately locating the source node of information diffusion in cyber physical networks. Here, we fill this knowledge gap by proposing a greedy optimization algorithm by analyzing the differences of the propagation delay. We use extensive simulations with both synthetic and empirical networks to show that the number of observers can be substantially decreased: Our method only uses a small fraction of nodes (10%–20%) as observers in most networks, whereas the conventional random selection methods have to use 2–3 times more nodes as observers. Interestingly, if a network has a large proportion of low-degree nodes (e.g., karate network), it is necessary to recruit more observers. In particular, the periphery nodes that are only connected with one edge must be observers. Combining our greedy optimization algorithm with the diffusion-back method, the performance of source localization is robust against noise.
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Locating the source node of diffusion process in cyber-physical networks via minimum observers
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June 2019
Research Article|
June 20 2019
Locating the source node of diffusion process in cyber-physical networks via minimum observers

Special Collection:
Focus Issue: Complex Network Approaches to Cyber-Physical Systems
Z. L. Hu
;
Z. L. Hu
1
College of Mathematics and Computer Science, Zhejiang Normal University
, Jinhua 321004, People’s Republic of China
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L. Wang
;
L. Wang
2
Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases Unit, Institut Pasteur
, UMR2000, CNRS, 75015 Paris, France
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C. B. Tang
C. B. Tang
a)
3
College of Physics and Electronic Information Engineering, Zhejiang Normal University
, Jinhua 321004, People’s Republic of China
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a)
Electronic mail: [email protected]
Note: The paper is part of the Focus Issue, "Complex Network Approaches to Cyber-Physical Systems."
Chaos 29, 063117 (2019)
Article history
Received:
February 14 2019
Accepted:
May 31 2019
Connected Content
A companion article has been published:
New technique minimizes observers for determining sources of outbreaks
Citation
Z. L. Hu, L. Wang, C. B. Tang; Locating the source node of diffusion process in cyber-physical networks via minimum observers. Chaos 1 June 2019; 29 (6): 063117. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5092772
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