Objective: The study aims to build a comprehensive network structure of psychopathology based on patient narratives by combining the merits of both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. Research methods: The study web-scraped data from 10,933 people who disclosed a prior DSM/ICD11 diagnosed mental illness when discussing their lived experiences of mental ill health. The study then used Python 3 and its associated libraries to run network analyses and generate a network graph. Key findings: The results of the study revealed 672 unique experiences or symptoms that generated 30023 links or connections. The study also identified that of all 672 reported experiences/symptoms, five were deemed the most influential; “anxiety,” “fear,” “auditory hallucinations,” “sadness,” and “depressed mood and loss of interest.” Additionally, the study uncovered some unusual connections between the reported experiences/symptoms. Discussion and recommendations: The study demonstrates that applying a quantitative analytical framework to qualitative data at scale is a useful approach for understanding the nuances of psychopathological experiences that may be missed in studies relying solely on either a qualitative or a quantitative survey-based approach. The study discusses the clinical implications of its results and makes recommendations for potential future directions.

We present an opinion dynamics model framework discarding two common assumptions in the literature: (a) that there is direct influence between beliefs of neighboring agents, and (b) that agent belief is static in the absence of social influence. Agents in our framework learn from random experiences which possibly reinforce their belief. Agents determine whether they switch opinions by comparing their belief to a threshold. Subsequently, influence of an alter on an ego is not direct incorporation of the alter’s belief into the ego’s but by adjusting the ego’s decision-making criteria. We provide an instance from the framework in which social influence between agents generalizes majority rules updating. We conduct a sensitivity analysis as well as a pair of experiments concerning heterogeneous population parameters. We conclude that the framework is capable of producing consensus, polarization and fragmentation with only assimilative forces between agents which typically, in other models, lead exclusively to consensus.

We investigate the number of maximal cliques, that is, cliques that are not contained in any larger clique, in three network models: Erdős–Rényi random graphs, inhomogeneous random graphs (IRGs) (also called Chung–Lu graphs), and geometric inhomogeneous random graphs (GIRGs). For sparse and not-too-dense Erdős–Rényi graphs, we give linear and polynomial upper bounds on the number of maximal cliques. For the dense regime, we give super-polynomial and even exponential lower bounds. Although (G)IRGs are sparse, we give super-polynomial lower bounds for these models. This comes from the fact that these graphs have a power-law degree distribution, which leads to a dense subgraph in which we find many maximal cliques. These lower bounds seem to contradict previous empirical evidence that (G)IRGs have only few maximal cliques. We resolve this contradiction by providing experiments indicating that, even for large networks, the linear lower-order terms dominate, before the super-polynomial asymptotic behavior kicks in only for networks of extreme size.

In this paper, we introduce the concept of a multilayer network game in a cooperative setup. We consider the notion of simultaneous contribution of individual players or links to two different networks (say, X and Z). Our model nests both classical network games and bi-cooperative network games. The calculation of the utility of players within a specific network in the presence of an additional/alternative network provides a broader spectrum of real-world decision dynamics. The subsequent challenge involves achieving an optimal distribution of payoffs among the players forming the networks. The link-based rule best fits to our model as it delves into the influence of the alternative links in the network. We have designed an extended Position value to address the complexities arising from scenarios where networks overlap. Further, it is shown that the Position value is uniquely characterized by the Efficiency and Balanced Link Contribution axioms.

One of the goals of open science is to promote the transparency and accessibility of research. Sharing data and materials used in network research is critical to these goals. In this paper, we present recommendations for whether, what, when, and where network data and materials should be shared. We recommend that network data and materials should be shared, but access to or use of shared data and materials may be restricted if necessary to avoid harm or comply with regulations. Researchers should share the network data and materials necessary to reproduce reported results via a publicly accessible repository when an associated manuscript is published. To ensure the adoption of these recommendations, network journals should require sharing, and network associations and academic institutions should reward sharing.