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Entropy of dialogues creates coherent structures in e-mail traffic. (English) Zbl 1072.37516

Summary: We study the dynamical network of e-mail traffic and find that it develops self-organized coherent structures similar to those appearing in many nonlinear dynamical systems. Such structures are uncovered by a general information theoretic approach to dynamical networks based on the analysis of synchronization among trios of users. In the e-mail network, coherent structures arise from temporal correlations when users act in a synchronized manner. These temporally linked structures turn out to be functional, goal-oriented aggregates that must react in real time to changing objectives and challenges (e.g., committees at a university). In contrast, static structures turn out to be related to organizational units (e.g., departments).

MSC:

37N99 Applications of dynamical systems
82C99 Time-dependent statistical mechanics (dynamic and nonequilibrium)
90B18 Communication networks in operations research
68P99 Theory of data
90B20 Traffic problems in operations research
94A99 Communication, information
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