Probabilistic spreading of information in a spatial network

TL;DR

This paper models how information spreads in a spatial network considering possible errors in transmission, revealing that error probability mainly affects critical connectivity, while the transmission speed remains stable across various error levels.

Contribution

It introduces a probabilistic model of information spread in spatial networks accounting for transmission errors, analyzing how these errors influence critical connectivity and boundary complexity.

Findings

Critical connectivity varies with error probability

Transmission velocity remains stable across error probabilities

Boundary complexity increases with lower connectivity

Abstract

Spread of information in crowd is analysed in terms of directed percolation in two-dimensional spatial network. We investigate the case when the information transmitted can be incomplete or damaged. The results indicate that for small or moderate probability of errors, it is only the critical connectivity that varies with this probability, but the shape of the transmission velocity curve remains unchanged in a wide range of the probability. The shape of the boundary between those already informed and those yet uninformed becomes complex when the connectivity of agents is small.