Measures and Characterisations

Abstract

In this Chapter we will present the theoretical description and characterisation of bursty human dynamics. Starting from the description of discrete time series we go through all the characteristic measures, like inter-event time distribution, burstiness parameter, memory coefficient, bursty train size distribution, autocorrelation function, etc., which were borrowed or introduced over the last decade to describe human bursty systems from the individual to the network level. With these quantities, we show how to detect the temporal inhomogeneities and long-range memory effects in the event sequences of human dynamics. At the same time we also introduce methods for system-level characterisation, mainly in the frame of temporal networks, that have been intensively studied in recent years to describe temporal human social behaviour. Finally, as human dynamics intrinsically show the cyclic patterns like daily and weekly ones, the methods for deciphering the effects of such cycles are also described.