A Study on the Relationship between Connecting Different Types of Nodes and Epidemic Threshold

This paper investigates how to change epidemic spreading threshold of the whole network by connecting nodes of different types in two communities. A model connecting two multi-center networks is studied to see if analytical results are achievable. There are three main methods to connect two multi-center sub-networks depending on whether the connecting nodes are centers: (1) connect the centers of one sub-network to non-center nodes of the other sub-network, (2) connect the centers of the two sub-networks together and (3) connect non-center nodes of the two sub-networks. The results show that the epidemic threshold level of a single multi-center network can be maintained in scenarios (1) and (2) above, but its quantity class is changed in (3). In conclusion, either high or low level of epidemic threshold is achievable by connecting nodes with different degree properties in an ideal network constructed from two communities with similar network topology.