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Grant support

A.A. acknowledges support by Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (Grants No. PGC2018-094754-B-C21 and No. FIS2015-71582-C2-1), Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant No. 2017SGR-896), Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Grant No. 2017PFR-URV-B2-41), ICREA Academia, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation (Grant No. 220020325). H.S. acknowledges funding by the Chinese Scholarship Council.

Analysis of institutional authors

Rapisardi, GAuthorArenas, AAuthor

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March 15, 2021
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Message-passing approach to epidemic tracing and mitigation with apps

Publicated to:Physical Review Research. 3 (1): L012014- - 2021-02-08 3(1), DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L012014

Authors: Bianconi, Ginestra; Sun, Hanlin; Rapisardi, Giacomo; Arenas, Alex

Affiliations

‎ Alan Turing Inst, 96 Euston Rd, London NW1 2DB, England - Author
‎ Queen Mary Univ London, Sch Math Sci, London E1 4NS, England - Author
‎ Univ Rovira & Virgili, Barcelona Supercomp Ctr BSC, E-43007 Tarragona, Spain - Author
‎ Univ Rovira & Virgili, Dept Engn Informat & Matemat, E-43007 Tarragona, Spain - Author

Abstract

With the hit of new pandemic threats, scientific frameworks are needed to understand the unfolding of the epidemic. The use of mobile apps that are able to trace contacts is of utmost importance in order to control new infected cases and contain further propagation. Here we present a theoretical approach using both percolation and message-passing techniques, to the role of contact tracing, in mitigating an epidemic wave. We show how the increase of the app adoption level raises the value of the epidemic threshold, which is eventually maximized when high-degree nodes are preferentially targeted. Analytical results are compared with extensive Monte Carlo simulations showing good agreement for both homogeneous and heterogeneous networks. These results are important to quantify the level of adoption needed for contact-tracing apps to be effective in mitigating an epidemic.

Keywords

Adoption levelAnalytical resultsComplexContact tracingEpidemic thresholdEpidemiologyHeterogeneous networksHigh-degree nodesMessage passingMobile appsMonte carlo methodsNetworksSolventsTheoretical approach

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Physical Review Research, Q4 Agency Scopus (SJR), its regional focus and specialization in Physics and Astronomy (Miscellaneous), give it significant recognition in a specific niche of scientific knowledge at an international level.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 2.49. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 14, 2024)

This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:

  • Weighted Average of Normalized Impact by the Scopus agency: 3.02 (source consulted: FECYT Feb 2024)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-07-16, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 34
  • Scopus: 35
  • Google Scholar: 54

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-07-16:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 28.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 30 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 24.8.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 41 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/imarina9172955

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: United Kingdom.

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: Last Author (Arenas Moreno, Alejandro).