Effect of time-varying validity of individual interaction on co-evolution of awareness and epidemics in a multiplex high-order network

Abstract

Individual interactions play a crucial role in the co-evolution process of awareness and epidemics; these interactions involve pairwise and higher-order types. Previous research usually assumed that individual interactions are all valid and static, overlooking the fact that some interactions may be invalid and time-varying. Notably, diffusion phenomena cannot occur if interactions lose their validity. To address this gap, a novel coupled model is proposed to study the effect of time-varying interaction validity on the co-evolution of awareness and epidemics in a multiplex high-order network. Individual activity and life-cycle theory are employed to model the time-varying validity of interactions, which is further characterized using threshold functions. Simulation experiments reveal that increasing individual activity will increase the validity of interactions, which then leads to the prevalence of epidemics. In addition, maximizing epidemic control can be achieved by increasing activity in the virtual layer while reducing activity in the physical layer. Moreover, the results in more densely interacted communities suggest that more stringent control measures are required to bring the epidemic to extinction.