Approximations of the Generalized Cascade Model

Abstract

The study of infection processes is an important field of science both from the theoretical and the practical point of view, and has many applications. In this paper we focus on the popular Independent Cascade model and its generalization. Unfortunately the exact computation of infection probabilities is a #P-complete problem [8], so one cannot expect fast exact algorithms. We propose several methods to efficiently compute infection patterns with acceptable accuracy. We will also examine the possibility of substituting the Independent Cascade model with a computationally more tractable model.