Unified underpinning of human mobility in the real world and cyberspace

Yi-Ming Zhao, An Zeng*, Xiao-Yong Yan*, Wen-Xu Wang, Ying-Cheng Lai

[New Journal of Physics 18, 053025 (2016)]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/5/053025

真实世界和在线空间中人类移动的统一基础

人们在真实世界和在线空间中的移动在许多方面都有着至关重要的作用。在动力学方面它影响着疾病传播和信息扩散；在社会经济活动中它影响到城市规划及在线个性化推荐。虽然相关研究工作对于人们在真实世界和在线空间的移动分别作了研究，但是对于两种行为共同的基础性质探究尚不足。本文提出了一个基于记忆的随机游走的模型，重现了人们在真实世界和在线空间移动行为中所展示出的统计特征，揭示了两种移动行为所遵从的统一基础。此简单模型不仅在理论分析上可解，而且其有效性在移动手机数据和在线浏览数据上都得到了验证。

摘要：

Human movements in the real world and in cyberspace affect not only dynamical processes such as epidemic spreading and information diffusion but also social and economical activities such as urban planning and personalized recommendation in online shopping. Despite recent efforts in characterizing and modeling human behaviors in both the real and cyber worlds, the fundamental dynamics underlying human mobility have not been well understood. We develop a minimal, memory-based random walk model in limited space for reproducing, with a single parameter, the key statistical behaviors characterizing human movements in both cases. The model is validated using relatively big data from mobile phone and online commerce, suggesting memory-based random walk dynamics as the unified underpinning for human mobility, regardless of whether it occurs in the real world or in cyberspace.