Information diffusion refers to the process about passing certain information from one subject to another. It is a typical and critical phenomenon observed in large scale social networks. To statistically model such a phenomenon, a network diffusion model is proposed and studied. The diffusion process is then investigated under the modeling framework from both the short term and long term perspectives. To estimate the model, a maximum likelihood estimator and a moment estimator are proposed, whose asymptotic properties are further established. The resulting estimators are manifested to have a reliable finite sample performance through a number of numerical studies. Lastly, the diffusion of earthquake news on Sina Weibo is analyzed to illustrate the practical usefulness.

中文翻译：

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网络结构的信息传播

信息传播是指将某些信息从一个主题传递到另一个主题的过程。这是在大型社交网络中观察到的典型和关键现象。为了对这种现象进行统计建模，提出并研究了网络扩散模型。然后在建模框架下从短期和长期角度研究了扩散过程。为了估计模型，提出了最大似然估计器和矩估计器，它们的渐近性质被进一步建立。通过大量的数值研究，得出的估计量被证明具有可靠的有限样本性能。最后，分析了新浪微博上地震新闻的传播，以说明其实用性。