Observing network dynamics through sentinel nodes

Neil G. MacLaren, Baruch Barzel and Naoki Masuda ()
Additional contact information
Neil G. MacLaren: State University of New York at Buffalo, Department of Mathematics
Baruch Barzel: Bar-Ilan University, Department of Mathematics
Naoki Masuda: State University of New York at Buffalo, Department of Mathematics

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract A fundamental premise of statistical physics is that the particles in a physical system are interchangeable, and hence the state of each specific component is representative of the system as a whole. This assumption breaks down for complex networks, in which nodes may be extremely diverse, and no single component can truly represent the state of the entire system. It seems, therefore, that to observe the dynamics of social, biological or technological networks, one must extract the dynamic states of a large number of nodes—a task that is often practically prohibitive. Theoretical tools are also highly restrictive, given the analytically impenetrable combination of complex heterogeneous networks with nonlinear, often hidden, dynamics. To overcome this challenge, we use machine learning techniques to detect the network’s sentinel nodes, a set of network components whose combined states can help approximate the average dynamics of the entire network. The method allows us to assess the equilibrium state of a large complex system by tracking just a small number of carefully selected nodes. We find that the sentinels are mainly determined by the network structure such that they can be extracted even with little knowledge of the system’s specific interaction dynamics. Therefore, the network’s sentinels offer a natural probe by which to observe the system’s dynamic states. Intriguingly, sentinels tend to avoid the highly central nodes such as the hubs.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64975-x Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-64975-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-64975-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().