Cathy Wang

When we think about the spreading of virus, we have to think about AIDS. It is a failure of classical epidemic model. We realize the power of hub through patient zero, Gaetan Dugas, who slept with more than 200 singles per year. He becomes the hub that spreads out the virus. The people he had sexual intercourse with then spread out more.

Complex network is vulnerable because it’s strong interconnectivity. It might be one of the biggest characteristic and one of its best features; however, it becomes a vulnerable point where the network can be easily attacked. Robustness means how a cell survives and function under different external conditions and internal errors. In order to achieve robustness, it is essential to learn from interconnectivity. The tolerance shown in a cell is the range of error it processes. Basically, under the theory of topological robustness, removing only a few nodes will do very little impact on the whole network. Only if the number of removed nodes reaches certain critical point the system would start corrupting.

Basically if we think like a terrorist, we would understand that there’s no point of having 100 anonymous citizens as hostage to negotiate any deal with the government. The … Read More »