Tabourier, L. and Stoica, A. and Peruani, F.

Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS), 2012 Fourth International Conference on

Here we propose a set of dynamical measures to detect causality effects on communication datasets. Using appropriate comparison models, we are able to enumerate patterns containing causality relationships. This approach is illustrated on a large cellphone call dataset: we show that specific patterns such as short chain-like trees and directed loops are more frequent in real networks than in comparison models at short time scales. We argue that these patterns – which involve a node and its close neighborhood – constitute indirect evidence of active spreading of information only at a local level. This suggests that mobile phone networks are used almost exclusively to communicate information to a closed group of individuals. Furthermore, our study reveals that the bursty activity of the callers promotes larger patterns at small time scales.

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Bivas Mitra, Lionel Tabourier and Camille Roth

Computer Networks, Vol. 56(3), 2012.

Community finding algorithms for networks have recently been extended to dynamic data. Most of these recent methods aim at exhibiting community partitions from successive graph snapshots and thereafter connecting or smoothing these partitions using clever time-dependent features and sampling techniques. These approaches are nonetheless achieving longitudinal rather than dynamic community detection. We assume that commu- nities are fundamentally defined by the repetition of interactions among a set of nodes over time. According to this definition, analyzing the data by considering successive snapshots induces a significant loss of information: we suggest that it blurs essentially dynamic phe- nomena—such as communities based on repeated inter-temporal interactions, nodes switching from a community to another across time, or the possibility that a community survives while its members are being integrally replaced over a longer time period. We propose a formalism which aims at tackling this issue in the context of time-directed data- sets (such as citation networks), and present several illustrations on both empirical and synthetic dynamic networks. We eventually introduce intrinsically dynamic metrics to qualify temporal community structure and emphasize their possible role as an estimator of the quality of the community detection—taking into account the fact that various empir- ical contexts may call for distinct ‘community’ definitions and detection criteria.

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Matthieu Latapy, Clémence Magnien et Raphaël Fournier

in Information Processing and Management, Volume 49, Issue 1, January 2013, Pages 248–263

Increasing knowledge of paedophile activity in P2P systems is a crucial societal concern, with important consequences on child protection, policy making, and internet regulation. Because of a lack of traces of P2P exchanges and rigorous analysis methodology, however, current knowledge of this activity remains very limited. We consider here a widely used P2P system, eDonkey, and focus on two key statistics: the fraction of paedophile queries entered in the system and the fraction of users who entered such queries. We collect hundreds of millions of keyword-based queries; we design a paedophile query detection tool for which we establish false positive and false negative rates using assessment by experts; with this tool and these rates, we then estimate the fraction of paedophile queries in our data; finally, we design and apply methods for quantifying users who entered such queries. We conclude that approximately 0.25% of queries are paedophile, and that more than 0.2% of users enter such queries. These statistics are by far the most precise and reliable ever obtained in this domain.

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Fernando Peruani and Lionel Tabourier

PLoS ONE, Vol 6(12), 2011

Without having direct access to the information that is being exchanged, traces of information flow can be obtained by looking at temporal sequences of user interactions. These sequences can be represented as causality trees whose statistics result from a complex interplay between the topology of the underlying (social) network and the time correlations among the communications. Here, we study causality trees in mobile-phone data, which can be represented as a dynamical directed network. This representation of the data reveals the existence of super-spreaders and super-receivers. We show that the tree statistics, respectively the information spreading process, are extremely sensitive to the in-out degree correlation exhibited by the users. We also learn that a given information, e.g., a rumor, would require users to retransmit it for more than 30 hours in order to cover a macroscopic fraction of the system. Our analysis indicates that topological node-node correlations of the underlying social network, while allowing the existence of information loops, they also promote information spreading. Temporal correlations, and therefore causality effects, are only visible as local phenomena and during short time scales. Consequently, the very idea that there is (intentional) information spreading beyond a small vicinity is called into question. These results are obtained through a combination of theory and data analysis techniques.

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