Consensus formation among mobile agents in networks of heterogeneous interaction venues

Guram Mikaberidze, Sayantan Nag Chowdhury, Alan Hastings and D’Souza, Raissa M.

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2024, vol. 178, issue C

Abstract: Exploring the collective behavior of interacting entities is of great interest and importance. Rather than focusing on static and uniform connections, we examine the co-evolution of diverse mobile agents experiencing varying interactions across both space and time. Analogous to the social dynamics of intrinsically diverse individuals who navigate between and interact within various physical or digital locations, agents in our model traverse a complex network of heterogeneous environments and engage with everyone they encounter. The precise nature of agents’ internal dynamics and the various interactions that nodes induce are left unspecified and can be tailored to suit the requirements of individual applications. We derive effective dynamical equations for agent states which are instrumental in investigating thresholds of consensus, devising effective attack strategies to hinder coherence, and designing optimal network structures with inherent node variations in mind. We demonstrate that agent cohesion can be promoted by increasing agent density, introducing network heterogeneity, and intelligently designing the network structure, aligning node degrees with the corresponding interaction strengths they facilitate. Our findings are applied to two distinct scenarios: the synchronization of brain activities between interacting individuals, as observed in recent collective MRI scans, and the emergence of consensus in a cusp catastrophe model of opinion dynamics.

Keywords: Synchronization; Mobile agents; Attractive–repulsive interactions; Time-varying networks; Network science (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chsofr:v:178:y:2024:i:c:s0960077923012006

DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2023.114298

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