TY - JOUR A1 - Helfmann, Luzie A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Djurdjevac, Ana A1 - Winkelmann, Stefanie A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - From interacting agents to density-based modeling with stochastic PDEs JF - Communications in Applied Mathematics and Computational Science N2 - Many real-world processes can naturally be modeled as systems of interacting agents. However, the long-term simulation of such agent-based models is often intractable when the system becomes too large. In this paper, starting from a stochastic spatio-temporal agent-based model (ABM), we present a reduced model in terms of stochastic PDEs that describes the evolution of agent number densities for large populations. We discuss the algorithmic details of both approaches; regarding the SPDE model, we apply Finite Element discretization in space which not only ensures efficient simulation but also serves as a regularization of the SPDE. Illustrative examples for the spreading of an innovation among agents are given and used for comparing ABM and SPDE models. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.2140/camcos.2021.16.1 VL - 16 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 32 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Helfmann, Luzie A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Djurdjevac, Ana A1 - Winkelmann, Stefanie A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - From interacting agents to density-based modeling with stochastic PDEs N2 - Many real-world processes can naturally be modeled as systems of interacting agents. However, the long-term simulation of such agent-based models is often intractable when the system becomes too large. In this paper, starting from a stochastic spatio-temporal agent-based model (ABM), we present a reduced model in terms of stochastic PDEs that describes the evolution of agent number densities for large populations. We discuss the algorithmic details of both approaches; regarding the SPDE model, we apply Finite Element discretization in space which not only ensures efficient simulation but also serves as a regularization of the SPDE. Illustrative examples for the spreading of an innovation among agents are given and used for comparing ABM and SPDE models. T3 - ZIB-Report - 19-21 Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-73456 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Köppl, Jonas A1 - Djurdjevac, Ana T1 - Feedback Loops in Opinion Dynamics of Agent-Based Models with Multiplicative Noise JF - Entropy N2 - We introduce an agent-based model for co-evolving opinions and social dynamics, under the influence of multiplicative noise. In this model, every agent is characterized by a position in a social space and a continuous opinion state variable. Agents’ movements are governed by the positions and opinions of other agents and similarly, the opinion dynamics are influenced by agents’ spatial proximity and their opinion similarity. Using numerical simulations and formal analyses, we study this feedback loop between opinion dynamics and the mobility of agents in a social space. We investigate the behaviour of this ABM in different regimes and explore the influence of various factors on the appearance of emerging phenomena such as group formation and opinion consensus. We study the empirical distribution, and, in the limit of infinite number of agents, we derive a corresponding reduced model given by a partial differential equation (PDE). Finally, using numerical examples, we show that a resulting PDE model is a good approximation of the original ABM. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/e24101352 VL - 24(10) ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zimper, Sebastian A1 - Cornalba, Federico A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Djurdjevac, Ana T1 - On reduced inertial PDE models for Cucker-Smale flocking dynamics JF - arxiv N2 - In particle systems, flocking refers to the phenomenon where particles’ individual velocities eventually align. The Cucker-Smale model is a well-known mathematical framework that describes this behaviour. Many continuous descriptions of the Cucker-Smale model use PDEs with both particle position and velocity as independent variables, thus providing a full description of the particles mean-field limit (MFL) dynamics. In this paper, we introduce a novel reduced inertial PDE model consisting of two equations that depend solely on particle position. In contrast to other reduced models, ours is not derived from the MFL, but directly includes the model reduction at the level of the empirical densities, thus allowing for a straightforward connection to the underlying particle dynamics. We present a thorough analytical investigation of our reduced model, showing that: firstly, our reduced PDE satisfies a natural and interpretable continuous definition of flocking; secondly, in specific cases, we can fully quantify the discrepancy between PDE solution and particle system. Our theoretical results are supported by numerical simulations. Y1 - 2024 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Bruckner, Stefanie A1 - Conrad, Tim A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Random Walks on Complex Modular Networks JF - Journal of Numerical Analysis, Industrial and Applied Mathematics Y1 - 2012 UR - http://publications.imp.fu-berlin.de/1090/ VL - 6 IS - 1-2 SP - 29 EP - 50 PB - European Society of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sarich, Marco A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Bruckner, Sharon A1 - Conrad, Tim A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Modularity revisited: A novel dynamics-based concept for decomposing complex networks JF - Journal of Computational Dynamics Y1 - 2014 UR - http://publications.mi.fu-berlin.de/1127/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.3934/jcd.2014.1.191 VL - 1 IS - 1 SP - 191 EP - 212 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wulkow, Hanna A1 - Conrad, Tim A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Müller, Sebastian A. A1 - Nagel, Kai A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Prediction of Covid-19 spreading and optimal coordination of counter-measures: From microscopic to macroscopic models to Pareto fronts JF - PLOS One Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249676 VL - 16 IS - 4 PB - Public Library of Science ER - TY - GEN A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Banisch, Ralf A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Modularity of Directed Networks: Cycle Decomposition Approach N2 - The problem of decomposing networks into modules (or clusters) has gained much attention in recent years, as it can account for a coarsegrained description of complex systems, often revealing functional subunits of these systems. A variety of module detection algorithms have been proposed, mostly oriented towards finding hard partitionings of undirected networks. Despite the increasing number of fuzzy clustering methods for directed networks, many of these approaches tend to neglect important directional information. In this paper, we present a novel random walk based approach for finding fuzzy partitions of directed, weighted networks, where edge directions play a crucial role in defining how well nodes in a module are interconnected. We will show that cycle decomposition of a random walk process connects the notion of network modules and information transport in a network, leading to a new, symmetric measure of node communication. Finally, we will use this measure to introduce a communication graph, for which we will show that although being undirected it inherits all necessary information about modular structures from the original network. T3 - ZIB-Report - 14-31 KW - directed networks, modules, cycle decomposition, measure of node communication Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-51166 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Weber, Marcus A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Finding dominant structures of nonreversible Markov processes JF - Multiscale Modeling and Simulation Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1137/15M1032272 VL - 14 IS - 4 SP - 1319 EP - 1340 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Banisch, Ralf A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa T1 - Module Detection in Directed Real-World Networks N2 - We investigate the problem of finding modules (or clusters, communities) in directed networks. Until now, most articles on this topic have been oriented towards finding complete network partitions despite the fact that this often is unwanted. We present a novel random walk based approach for non-complete partitions of the directed network into modules in which some nodes do not belong to only one of the modules but to several or to none at all. The new random walk process is reversible even for directed networks but inherits all necessary information about directions and structure of the original network. We demonstrate the performance of the new method in application to a real-world earthquake network. T3 - ZIB-Report - 14-13 KW - Module identification and classification KW - cycle decomposition KW - communication KW - directed networks Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-49849 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - THES A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa T1 - Methods for analyzing complex networks using random walker Y1 - 2012 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Banisch, Ralf A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa T1 - Cycle-flow-based module detection in directed recurrence networks JF - EPL (Europhysics Letters) Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/108/68008 VL - 108 IS - 6 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Weber, Marcus A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Finding dominant structures of nonreversible Markov processes N2 - Finding metastable sets as dominant structures of Markov processes has been shown to be especially useful in modeling interesting slow dynamics of various real world complex processes. Furthermore, coarse graining of such processes based on their dominant structures leads to better understanding and dimension reduction of observed systems. However, in many cases, e.g. for nonreversible Markov processes, dominant structures are often not formed by metastable sets but by important cycles or mixture of both. This paper aims at understanding and identifying these different types of dominant structures for reversible as well as nonreversible ergodic Markov processes. Our algorithmic approach generalizes spectral based methods for reversible process by using Schur decomposition techniques which can tackle also nonreversible cases. We illustrate the mathematical construction of our new approach by numerical experiments. T3 - ZIB-Report - 15-40 KW - nonreversible Markov processes KW - metastable sets KW - cycle decomposition KW - Schur decomposition Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-55739 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Banisch, Ralf A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Reactive flows and unproductive cycles for random walks on complex networks JF - The European Physical Journal Special Topics, vol. 224, iss. 12 (2015) pp. 2369-2387 Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2015-02417-8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Becker, Fabian A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Eser, Raphael A. A1 - Helfmann, Luzie A1 - Schütt, Brigitta A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Zonker, Johannes T1 - The Furnace and the Goat—A spatio-temporal model of the fuelwood requirement for iron metallurgy on Elba Island, 4th century BCE to 2nd century CE JF - PLOS ONE Y1 - 2020 UR - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241133 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241133 VL - 15 SP - 1 EP - 37 PB - Public Library of Science ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Helfmann, Luzie A1 - Zonker, Johannes A1 - Winkelmann, Stefanie A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Human mobility and innovation spreading in ancient times: a stochastic agent-based simulation approach JF - EPJ Data Science N2 - Human mobility always had a great influence on the spreading of cultural, social and technological ideas. Developing realistic models that allow for a better understanding, prediction and control of such coupled processes has gained a lot of attention in recent years. However, the modeling of spreading processes that happened in ancient times faces the additional challenge that available knowledge and data is often limited and sparse. In this paper, we present a new agent-based model for the spreading of innovations in the ancient world that is governed by human movements. Our model considers the diffusion of innovations on a spatial network that is changing in time, as the agents are changing their positions. Additionally, we propose a novel stochastic simulation approach to produce spatio-temporal realizations of the spreading process that are instructive for studying its dynamical properties and exploring how different influences affect its speed and spatial evolution. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0153-9 VL - 7 IS - 1 PB - EPJ Data Science ET - EPJ Data Science ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Thiel, Denise A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Ntini, Evgenia A1 - Peschutter, Ria A1 - Siebert, Heike A1 - Marsico, Annalisa T1 - Identifying lncRNA-mediated regulatory modules via ChIA-PET network analysis JF - BMC Bioinformatics N2 - Background: Although several studies have provided insights into the role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), the majority of them have unknown function. Recent evidence has shown the importance of both lncRNAs and chromatin interactions in transcriptional regulation. Although network-based methods, mainly exploiting gene-lncRNA co-expression, have been applied to characterize lncRNA of unknown function by means of ’guilt-by-association’, no strategy exists so far which identifies mRNA-lncRNA functional modules based on the 3D chromatin interaction graph. Results: To better understand the function of chromatin interactions in the context of lncRNA-mediated gene regulation, we have developed a multi-step graph analysis approach to examine the RNA polymerase II ChIA-PET chromatin interaction network in the K562 human cell line. We have annotated the network with gene and lncRNA coordinates, and chromatin states from the ENCODE project. We used centrality measures, as well as an adaptation of our previously developed Markov State Models (MSM) clustering method, to gain a better understanding of lncRNAs in transcriptional regulation. The novelty of our approach resides in the detection of fuzzy regulatory modules based on network properties and their optimization based on co-expression analysis between genes and gene-lncRNA pairs. This results in our method returning more bona fide regulatory modules than other state-of-the art approaches for clustering on graphs. Conclusions: Interestingly, we find that lncRNA network hubs tend to be significantly enriched in evolutionary conserved lncRNAs and enhancer-like functions. We validated regulatory functions for well known lncRNAs, such as MALAT1 and the enhancer-like lncRNA FALEC. In addition, by investigating the modular structure of bigger components we mine putative regulatory functions for uncharacterized lncRNAs. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-019-2900-8 VL - 20 IS - 1471-2105 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Winkelmann, Stefanie A1 - Zonker, Johannes A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa T1 - Mathematical modeling of spatio-temporal population dynamics and application to epidemic spreading JF - Mathematical Biosciences N2 - Agent based models (ABMs) are a useful tool for modeling spatio-temporal population dynamics, where many details can be included in the model description. Their computational cost though is very high and for stochastic ABMs a lot of individual simulations are required to sample quantities of interest. Especially, large numbers of agents render the sampling infeasible. Model reduction to a metapopulation model leads to a significant gain in computational efficiency, while preserving important dynamical properties. Based on a precise mathematical description of spatio-temporal ABMs, we present two different metapopulation approaches (stochastic and piecewise deterministic) and discuss the approximation steps between the different models within this framework. Especially, we show how the stochastic metapopulation model results from a Galerkin projection of the underlying ABM onto a finite-dimensional ansatz space. Finally, we utilize our modeling framework to provide a conceptual model for the spreading of COVID-19 that can be scaled to real-world scenarios. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mbs.2021.108619 VL - 336 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Sarich, Marco A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Estimating the eigenvalue error of Markov State Models JF - Multiscale Modeling & Simulation Y1 - 2012 UR - http://publications.imp.fu-berlin.de/914/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.1137/100798910 VL - 10 IS - 1 SP - 61 EP - 81 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Sarich, Marco A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - On Markov State Models for Metastable Processes T2 - Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematics, Hyderabad, India, Section Invited Talks. (ICM) 2010 Y1 - 2010 UR - http://publications.imp.fu-berlin.de/991/ ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Fuerstenau, Daniel A1 - Grabundzija, Ana A1 - Helfmann, Luzie A1 - Park, Martin A1 - Schier, Wolfram A1 - Schütt, Brigitta A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Weber, Marcus A1 - Wulkow, Niklas A1 - Zonker, Johannes T1 - Mathematical modeling of the spreading of innovations in the ancient world JF - eTopoi. Journal for Ancient Studies Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.17171/4-7-1 SN - ISSN 2192-2608 VL - 7 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Helfmann, Luzie A1 - Conrad, Natasa Djurdjevac A1 - Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Modelling opinion dynamics under the impact of influencer and media strategies JF - Scientific Reports N2 - Digital communication has made the public discourse considerably more complex, and new actors and strategies have emerged as a result of this seismic shift. Aside from the often-studied interactions among individuals during opinion formation, which have been facilitated on a large scale by social media platforms, the changing role of traditional media and the emerging role of "influencers" are not well understood, and the implications of their engagement strategies arising from the incentive structure of the attention economy even less so. Here we propose a novel opinion dynamics model that accounts for these different roles, namely that media and influencers change their own positions on slower time scales than individuals, while influencers dynamically gain and lose followers. Numerical simulations show the importance of their relative influence in creating qualitatively different opinion formation dynamics: with influencers, fragmented but short-lived clusters emerge, which are then counteracted by more stable media positions. Mean-field approximations by partial differential equations reproduce this dynamic. Based on the mean-field model, we study how strategies of influencers to gain more followers can influence the overall opinion distribution. We show that moving towards extreme positions can be a beneficial strategy for influencers to gain followers. Finally, we demonstrate that optimal control strategies allow other influencers or media to counteract such attempts and prevent further fragmentation of the opinion landscape. Our modelling framework contributes to better understanding the different roles and strategies in the increasingly complex information ecosystem and their impact on public opinion formation. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-46187-9 VL - 13 SP - 19375 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Helfmann, Luzie A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Supplementary code for the paper Modelling opinion dynamics under the impact of influencer and media strategies N2 - This repository contains the Julia code accompanying the paper "Modelling opinion dynamics under the impact of influencer and media strategies", Scientific Reports, Vol.13, p. 19375, 2023. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.12752/9267 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Kostré, Margarita A1 - Sunkara, Vikram A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Nataša T1 - Understanding the Romanization Spreading on Historical Interregional Networks in Northern Tunisia N2 - Spreading processes are important drivers of change in social systems. To understand the mechanisms of spreading it is fundamental to have information about the underlying contact network and the dynamical parameters of the process. However, in many real-wold examples, this information is not known and needs to be inferred from data. State-of-the-art spreading inference methods have mostly been applied to modern social systems, as they rely on availability of very detailed data. In this paper we study the inference challenges for historical spreading processes, for which only very fragmented information is available. To cope with this problem, we extend existing network models by formulating a model on a mesoscale with temporal spreading rate. Furthermore, we formulate the respective parameter inference problem for the extended model. We apply our approach to the romanization process of Northern Tunisia, a scarce dataset, and study properties of the inferred time-evolving interregional networks. As a result, we show that (1) optimal solutions consist of very different network structures and spreading rate functions; and that (2) these diverse solutions produce very similar spreading patterns. Finally, we discuss how inferred dominant interregional connections are related to available archaeological traces. Historical networks resulting from our approach can help understanding complex processes of cultural change in ancient times. T3 - ZIB-Report - 22-10 KW - mesoscale spreading process, network inference, time-evolving network, romanization spreading, scarce data Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-86764 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kostré, Margarita A1 - Sunkara, Vikram A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa T1 - Understanding the Romanization Spreading on Historical Interregional Networks in Northern Tunisia JF - Applied Network Science N2 - Spreading processes are important drivers of change in social systems. To understand the mechanisms of spreading it is fundamental to have information about the underlying contact network and the dynamical parameters of the process. However, in many real-wold examples, this information is not known and needs to be inferred from data. State-of-the-art spreading inference methods have mostly been applied to modern social systems, as they rely on availability of very detailed data. In this paper we study the inference challenges for historical spreading processes, for which only very fragmented information is available. To cope with this problem, we extend existing network models by formulating a model on a mesoscale with temporal spreading rate. Furthermore, we formulate the respective parameter inference problem for the extended model. We apply our approach to the romanization process of Northern Tunisia, a scarce dataset, and study properties of the inferred time-evolving interregional networks. As a result, we show that (1) optimal solutions consist of very different network structures and spreading rate functions; and that (2) these diverse solutions produce very similar spreading patterns. Finally, we discuss how inferred dominant interregional connections are related to available archaeological traces. Historical networks resulting from our approach can help understanding complex processes of cultural change in ancient times. KW - mesoscale spreading process KW - network inference KW - time-evolving network KW - romanization spreading KW - scarce data Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s41109-022-00492-w VL - 7 PB - Springer Nature ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Chemnitz, Robin A1 - Kostre, Margarita A1 - Schweigart, Fleur A1 - Fless, Friederike A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Ducke, Benjamin T1 - A Mathematical perspective on Romanisation: Modelling the Roman road activation process in ancient Tunisia Y1 - 2023 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Niemann, Jan-Hendrik A1 - Klus, Stefan A1 - Conrad, Natasa Djurdjevac A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Koopman-Based Surrogate Models for Multi-Objective Optimization of Agent-Based Systems JF - Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena N2 - Agent-based models (ABMs) provide an intuitive and powerful framework for studying social dynamics by modeling the interactions of individuals from the perspective of each individual. In addition to simulating and forecasting the dynamics of ABMs, the demand to solve optimization problems to support, for example, decision-making processes naturally arises. Most ABMs, however, are non-deterministic, high-dimensional dynamical systems, so objectives defined in terms of their behavior are computationally expensive. In particular, if the number of agents is large, evaluating the objective functions often becomes prohibitively time-consuming. We consider data-driven reduced models based on the Koopman generator to enable the efficient solution of multi-objective optimization problems involving ABMs. In a first step, we show how to obtain data-driven reduced models of non-deterministic dynamical systems (such as ABMs) that depend on potentially nonlinear control inputs. We then use them in the second step as surrogate models to solve multi-objective optimal control problems. We first illustrate our approach using the example of a voter model, where we compute optimal controls to steer the agents to a predetermined majority, and then using the example of an epidemic ABM, where we compute optimal containment strategies in a prototypical situation. We demonstrate that the surrogate models effectively approximate the Pareto-optimal points of the ABM dynamics by comparing the surrogate-based results with test points, where the objectives are evaluated using the ABM. Our results show that when objectives are defined by the dynamic behavior of ABMs, data-driven surrogate models support or even enable the solution of multi-objective optimization problems. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physd.2024.134052 VL - 460 SP - 134052 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Niemann, Jan-Hendrik A1 - Uram, Samuel A1 - Wolf, Sarah A1 - Conrad, Natasa Djurdjevac A1 - Weiser, Martin T1 - Multilevel Optimization for Policy Design with Agent-Based Epidemic Models JF - Computational Science N2 - Epidemiological models can not only be used to forecast the course of a pandemic like COVID-19, but also to propose and design non-pharmaceutical interventions such as school and work closing. In general, the design of optimal policies leads to nonlinear optimization problems that can be solved by numerical algorithms. Epidemiological models come in different complexities, ranging from systems of simple ordinary differential equations (ODEs) to complex agent-based models (ABMs). The former allow a fast and straightforward optimization, but are limited in accuracy, detail, and parameterization, while the latter can resolve spreading processes in detail, but are extremely expensive to optimize. We consider policy optimization in a prototypical situation modeled as both ODE and ABM, review numerical optimization approaches, and propose a heterogeneous multilevel approach based on combining a fine-resolution ABM and a coarse ODE model. Numerical experiments, in particular with respect to convergence speed, are given for illustrative examples. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocs.2024.102242 VL - 77 SP - 102242 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Banisch, Ralf A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Reactive flows and unproductive cycles for random walks on complex networks N2 - We present a comprehensive theory for analysis and understanding of transition events between an initial set A and a target set B for general ergodic finite-state space Markov chains or jump processes, including random walks on networks as they occur, e.g., in Markov State Modelling in molecular dynamics. The theory allows us to decompose the probability flow generated by transition events between the sets A and B into the productive part that directly flows from A to B through reaction pathways and the unproductive part that runs in loops and is supported on cycles of the underlying network. It applies to random walks on directed networks and nonreversible Markov processes and can be seen as an extension of Transition Path Theory. Information on reaction pathways and unproductive cycles results from the stochastic cycle decomposition of the underlying network which also allows to compute their corresponding weight, thus characterizing completely which structure is used how often in transition events. The new theory is illustrated by an application to a Markov State Model resulting from weakly damped Langevin dynamics where the unproductive cycles are associated with periodic orbits of the underlying Hamiltonian dynamics. T3 - ZIB-Report - 15-19 KW - Complex networks KW - molecular transition networks KW - transition path theory KW - cycle decomposition KW - reactive trajectories KW - Markow State Methods Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-54239 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lorenz-Spreen, Philipp A1 - Wolf, Frederik A1 - Braun, Jonas A1 - Ghoshal, Gourab A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Hövel, Philipp T1 - Tracking online topics over time: understanding dynamic hashtag communities JF - Computational Social Networks N2 - Background: Hashtags are widely used for communication in online media. As a condensed version of information, they characterize topics and discussions. For their analysis, we apply methods from network science and propose novel tools for tracing their dynamics in time-dependent data. The observations are characterized by bursty behaviors in the increases and decreases of hashtag usage. These features can be reproduced with a novel model of dynamic rankings. Hashtag communities in time: We build temporal and weighted co-occurrence networks from hashtags. On static snapshots, we infer the community structure using customized methods. On temporal networks, we solve the bipartite matching problem of detected communities at subsequent timesteps by taking into account higher-order memory. This results in a matching protocol that is robust toward temporal fluctuations and instabilities of the static community detection. The proposed methodology is broadly applicable and its outcomes reveal the temporal behavior of online topics. Modeling topic-dynamics: We consider the size of the communities in time as a proxy for online popularity dynamics. We find that the distributions of gains and losses, as well as the interevent times are fat-tailed indicating occasional, but large and sudden changes in the usage of hashtags. Inspired by typical website designs, we propose a stochastic model that incorporates a ranking with respect to a time-dependent prestige score. This causes occasional cascades of rank shift events and reproduces the observations with good agreement. This offers an explanation for the observed dynamics, based on characteristic elements of online media. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s40649-018-0058-6 VL - 5 IS - 9 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Banisch, Ralf A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Modularity of Directed Networks: Cycle Decomposition Approach JF - Journal of Computational Dynamics 2 (2015) pp. 1-24 N2 - The problem of decomposing networks into modules (or clusters) has gained much attention in recent years, as it can account for a coarsegrained description of complex systems, often revealing functional subunits of these systems. A variety of module detection algorithms have been proposed, mostly oriented towards finding hard partitionings of undirected networks. Despite the increasing number of fuzzy clustering methods for directed networks, many of these approaches tend to neglect important directional information. In this paper, we present a novel random walk based approach for finding fuzzy partitions of directed, weighted networks, where edge directions play a crucial role in defining how well nodes in a module are interconnected. We will show that cycle decomposition of a random walk process connects the notion of network modules and information transport in a network, leading to a new, symmetric measure of node communication. Finally, we will use this measure to introduce a communication graph, for which we will show that although being undirected it inherits all necessary information about modular structures from the original network. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3934/jcd.2015.2.1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Klus, Stefan A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa T1 - Koopman-based spectral clustering of directed and time-evolving graphs JF - Journal of Nonlinear Science N2 - While spectral clustering algorithms for undirected graphs are well established and have been successfully applied to unsupervised machine learning problems ranging from image segmentation and genome sequencing to signal processing and social network analysis, clustering directed graphs remains notoriously difficult. Two of the main challenges are that the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of graph Laplacians associated with directed graphs are in general complex-valued and that there is no universally accepted definition of clusters in directed graphs. We first exploit relationships between the graph Laplacian and transfer operators and in particular between clusters in undirected graphs and metastable sets in stochastic dynamical systems and then use a generalization of the notion of metastability to derive clustering algorithms for directed and time-evolving graphs. The resulting clusters can be interpreted as coherent sets, which play an important role in the analysis of transport and mixing processes in fluid flows. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00332-022-09863-0 VL - 33 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Kostre, Margarita A1 - Sunkara, Vikram A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa T1 - Inference of historical influence networks T2 - International Conference on Complex Networks & Their Applications Proceedings N2 - We study the romanization process of northern Africa from 50 BC till 300 AD. Our goal is to infer the communication strength between different subregions, based on the evolution of the status of cities. Herefore, we use the general inverse infection model, that infers the weights of a known underlying network, given observations of the spreading on this network. As infection process we choose the SI metapopulation model, where I stands for a city with a Roman status. To solve the minimization problem we use the particle swarm optimization algorithm with a specific choice of parameters. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.12752/8558 SP - 110 EP - 113 ET - International Conference on Complex Networks & Their Applications ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lorenz, Philipp A1 - Wolf, Frederik A1 - Braun, Jonas A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Hövel, Philipp T1 - Capturing the Dynamics of Hashtag-Communities JF - International Workshop on Complex Networks and their Applications Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72150-7_33 SP - 401 EP - 413 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zonker, Johannes A1 - Padilla-Iglesias, Cecilia A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa T1 - Insights into drivers of mobility and cultural dynamics of African hunter-gatherers over the past 120 000 years JF - Royal Society Open Science N2 - Humans have a unique capacity to innovate, transmit and rely on complex, cumulative culture for survival. While an important body of work has attempted to explore the role of changes in the size and interconnectedness of populations in determining the persistence, diversity and complexity of material culture, results have achieved limited success in explaining the emergence and spatial distribution of cumulative culture over our evolutionary trajectory. Here, we develop a spatio-temporally explicit agent-based model to explore the role of environmentally driven changes in the population dynamics of hunter–gatherer communities in allowing the development, transmission and accumulation of complex culture. By modelling separately demography- and mobility-driven changes in interaction networks, we can assess the extent to which cultural change is driven by different types of population dynamics. We create and validate our model using empirical data from Central Africa spanning 120 000 years. We find that populations would have been able to maintain diverse and elaborate cultural repertoires despite abrupt environmental changes and demographic collapses by preventing isolation through mobility. However, we also reveal that the function of cultural features was also an essential determinant of the effects of environmental or demographic changes on their dynamics. Our work can therefore offer important insights into the role of a foraging lifestyle on the evolution of cumulative culture. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230495 VL - 10 IS - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Klus, Stefan A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa T1 - Dynamical systems and complex networks: A Koopman operator perspective N2 - The Koopman operator has entered and transformed many research areas over the last years. Although the underlying concept–representing highly nonlinear dynamical systems by infinite-dimensional linear operators–has been known for a long time, the availability of large data sets and efficient machine learning algorithms for estimating the Koopman operator from data make this framework extremely powerful and popular. Koopman operator theory allows us to gain insights into the characteristic global properties of a system without requiring detailed mathematical models. We will show how these methods can also be used to analyze complex networks and highlight relationships between Koopman operators and graph Laplacians. Y1 - 2024 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Zonker, Johannes A1 - Padilla-Iglesias, Cecilia A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa T1 - Supplementary code and data for Royal Society Open Science Manuscript rsos.230495 N2 - In this repository are all files necessary to run the agent-based model of the paper "Insights into drivers of mobility and cultural dynamics of African hunter–gatherers over the past 120 000 years", Royal Society Open Science, 10(11), 2023. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.12752/9254 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Trower, Maia A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Klus, Stefan T1 - Clustering Time-Evolving Networks Using the Dynamic Graph Laplacian N2 - Time-evolving graphs arise frequently when modeling complex dynamical systems such as social networks, traffic flow, and biological processes. Developing techniques to identify and analyze communities in these time-varying graph structures is an important challenge. In this work, we generalize existing spectral clustering algorithms from static to dynamic graphs using canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to capture the temporal evolution of clusters. Based on this extended canonical correlation framework, we define the dynamic graph Laplacian and investigate its spectral properties. We connect these concepts to dynamical systems theory via transfer operators, and illustrate the advantages of our method on benchmark graphs by comparison with existing methods. We show that the dynamic graph Laplacian allows for a clear interpretation of cluster structure evolution over time for directed and undirected graphs. Y1 - 2024 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa A1 - Quang Vu, Nhu A1 - Nagel, Soeren T1 - Co-evolving networks for opinion and social dynamics in agent-based models JF - Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science N2 - The rise of digital social media has strengthened the coevolution of public opinions and social interactions, that shape social structures and collective outcomes in increasingly complex ways. Existing literature often explores this interplay as a one-directional influence, focusing on how opinions determine social ties within adaptive networks. However, this perspective overlooks the intrinsic dynamics driving social interactions, which can significantly influence how opinions form and evolve. In this work, we address this gap, by introducing the co-evolving opinion and social dynamics using stochastic agent-based models. Agents' mobility in a social space is governed by both their social and opinion similarity with others. Similarly, the dynamics of opinion formation is driven by the opinions of agents in their social vicinity. We analyze the underlying social and opinion interaction networks and explore the mechanisms influencing the appearance of emerging phenomena, like echo chambers and opinion consensus. To illustrate the model's potential for real-world analysis, we apply it to General Social Survey data on political identity and public opinion regarding governmental issues. Our findings highlight the model's strength in capturing the coevolution of social connections and individual opinions over time. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0226054 SN - 1054-1500 VL - 34 IS - 9 ER -