Review and Assessment of Digital Twin–Oriented Social Network Simulators
The ability to faithfully represent real social networks is critical from the perspective of testing various what-if scenarios which are not feasible to be implemented in a real system as the system’s state would be irreversibly changed. High fidelity simulators allow one to investigate t...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2023-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Access |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10239386/ |
| _version_ | 1797685394642305024 |
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| author | Jiaqi Wen Bogdan Gabrys Katarzyna Musial |
| author_facet | Jiaqi Wen Bogdan Gabrys Katarzyna Musial |
| author_sort | Jiaqi Wen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The ability to faithfully represent real social networks is critical from the perspective of testing various what-if scenarios which are not feasible to be implemented in a real system as the system’s state would be irreversibly changed. High fidelity simulators allow one to investigate the consequences of different actions before introducing them to the real system. For example, in the context of social systems, an accurate social network simulator can be a powerful tool used to guide policy makers, help companies plan their advertising campaigns or authorities to analyse fake news spread. In this study we explore different Social Network Simulators (SNSs) and assess to what extent they are able to mimic the real social networks. We conduct a critical review and assessment of existing Social Network Simulators under the Digital Twin-Oriented Modelling framework proposed in our previous study. We subsequently extend one of the most promising simulators from the evaluated ones, to facilitate generation of social networks of varied structural complexity levels. This extension brings us one step closer to a Digital Twin Oriented SNS (DT Oriented SNS). We also propose an approach to assess the similarity between real and simulated networks with the composite performance indexes based on both global and local structural measures, while taking runtime of the simulator as an indicator of its efficiency. We illustrate various characteristics of the proposed DT Oriented SNS using a well known Karate Club network as an example. While not considered to be of sufficient complexity, the simulator is intended as one of the first steps on a journey towards building a Digital Twin of a social network that perfectly mimics the reality. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T00:44:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ccd658ce285349458f717981cef17cd1 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T00:44:33Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj.art-ccd658ce285349458f717981cef17cd12023-09-14T23:00:54ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362023-01-0111975039752110.1109/ACCESS.2023.331212910239386Review and Assessment of Digital Twin–Oriented Social Network SimulatorsJiaqi Wen0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5980-5140Bogdan Gabrys1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0790-2846Katarzyna Musial2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6038-7647Complex Adaptive Systems Laboratory, Data Science Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, AustraliaComplex Adaptive Systems Laboratory, Data Science Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, AustraliaComplex Adaptive Systems Laboratory, Data Science Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, AustraliaThe ability to faithfully represent real social networks is critical from the perspective of testing various what-if scenarios which are not feasible to be implemented in a real system as the system’s state would be irreversibly changed. High fidelity simulators allow one to investigate the consequences of different actions before introducing them to the real system. For example, in the context of social systems, an accurate social network simulator can be a powerful tool used to guide policy makers, help companies plan their advertising campaigns or authorities to analyse fake news spread. In this study we explore different Social Network Simulators (SNSs) and assess to what extent they are able to mimic the real social networks. We conduct a critical review and assessment of existing Social Network Simulators under the Digital Twin-Oriented Modelling framework proposed in our previous study. We subsequently extend one of the most promising simulators from the evaluated ones, to facilitate generation of social networks of varied structural complexity levels. This extension brings us one step closer to a Digital Twin Oriented SNS (DT Oriented SNS). We also propose an approach to assess the similarity between real and simulated networks with the composite performance indexes based on both global and local structural measures, while taking runtime of the simulator as an indicator of its efficiency. We illustrate various characteristics of the proposed DT Oriented SNS using a well known Karate Club network as an example. While not considered to be of sufficient complexity, the simulator is intended as one of the first steps on a journey towards building a Digital Twin of a social network that perfectly mimics the reality.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10239386/Social networksnetwork dynamicsdigital twinscomplex network systems |
| spellingShingle | Jiaqi Wen Bogdan Gabrys Katarzyna Musial Review and Assessment of Digital Twin–Oriented Social Network Simulators IEEE Access Social networks network dynamics digital twins complex network systems |
| title | Review and Assessment of Digital Twin–Oriented Social Network Simulators |
| title_full | Review and Assessment of Digital Twin–Oriented Social Network Simulators |
| title_fullStr | Review and Assessment of Digital Twin–Oriented Social Network Simulators |
| title_full_unstemmed | Review and Assessment of Digital Twin–Oriented Social Network Simulators |
| title_short | Review and Assessment of Digital Twin–Oriented Social Network Simulators |
| title_sort | review and assessment of digital twin x2013 oriented social network simulators |
| topic | Social networks network dynamics digital twins complex network systems |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10239386/ |
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