Adaptive network dynamics — Modeling and control of time-dependent social contacts

Real networks consisting of social contacts do not possess static connections. That is, social connections may be time dependent due to a variety of individual behavioral decisions based on current network connections. Examples of adaptive networks occur in epidemics, where information about infectious individuals may change the rewiring of healthy people, or in the recruitment of individuals to a cause or fad, where rewiring may optimize recruitment of susceptible individuals. In this paper, we will review some of the dynamical properties of adaptive networks, and show how they predict novel phenomena as well as yield insight into new controls. The applications will be control of epidemic outbreaks and terrorist recruitment modeling.