Effects of Levy Flights Mobility Pattern on Epidemic Spreading under Limited Energy Constraint

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Levy flight mobility patterns, constrained by limited energy, influence epidemic spreading on networks, revealing that an exponent of -2 acts as a critical threshold for epidemic dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a network model incorporating Levy flight properties under energy constraints and identifies the epidemic threshold at an exponent of -2.

Findings

Epidemic threshold occurs at Levy flight exponent -2.

Spreading speed peaks at the epidemic threshold.

Mobility pattern significantly impacts epidemic dynamics.

Abstract

Recently, many empirical studies uncovered that animal foraging, migration and human traveling obey Levy flights with an exponent around -2. Inspired by the deluge of H1N1 this year, in this paper, the effects of Levy flights' mobility pattern on epidemic spreading is studied from a network perspective. We construct a spatial weighted network which possesses Levy flight spatial property under a restriction of total energy. The energy restriction is represented by the limitation of total travel distance within a certain time period of an individual. We find that the exponent -2 is the epidemic threshold of SIS spreading dynamics. Moreover, at the threshold the speed of epidemics spreading is highest. The results are helpful for the understanding of the effect of mobility pattern on epidemic spreading.