TopoNets 2025

Networks beyond pairwise interactions

Satellite @ NetSci 2025

3 June 2025 - Maastricht, the Netherlands

The complexity of many biological, social and technological systems stems from the richness of the interactions among their units. Over the past two decades, a great variety of complex systems has been successfully described as networks whose interacting pairs of nodes are connected by links. Yet, from face-to-face human communications to chemical and biological reactions, many interactions in networked systems cannot be described by simple dyads, as they can occur in groups composed by any number of units. Until recently, little attention has been devoted to such high-order architecture of real complex systems. However, a mounting body of evidence is showing that taking the high-order structure of these systems into account can greatly enhance our modelling capacities and help us to understand and predict their emerging dynamical behaviours.

The aim of this satellite is to provide a coherent window on the emerging subfield of networks beyond pairwise interactions. In particular, we will discuss how to represent higher-order interacting systems, and how to unify the diverse frameworks most commonly used to describe higher-order interactions, highlighting the numerous links between the existing concepts and representations. We also focus on recent advances on the structural measures developed to characterize the structure of these systems, on the related generative models, and on novel emergent phenomena characterizing landmark dynamical processes when extended beyond pairwise interactions.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Marilyn Gatica

Northeastern University London (NUL)

Exploring the Impact of Higher-Order Interactions in Neuroscience

Kwang-Il Goh

Korea University, KR

Higher-order interactions and optimality in hypergraphs

Alec Kirkley

University of Hong Kong (HKU)

Summarizing the structure of higher-order interactions with information theory

Maria Pope

Indiana University, US

Uncovering higher-order interactions in the cortex: applications of multivariate information theory

REGISTRATION

All meeting participants need to be registered for the main conference here.

PROGRAMME
[June 3, 2025 - Local time @ FPN Paarse zaal]

09:00 - 09:15 Welcome and Introduction
09:15 - 10:30 Session I
- Marilyn Gatica

Exploring the Impact of Higher-Order Interactions in Neuroscience

- Jason P. Smith, Pedro Conceicao Andras Ecker, Daniela Egas Santander, Dejan Govc, Kathryn Hess, Janis Lazovskis, Ran Levi, Christoph Pokorny, Michael W. Reimann, Henri Riihimaki, and Matteo Santoro

Classifying neural stimuli using pairwise and higher-order structural properties

Marco Mancastroppa, Iacopo Iacopini, Giovanni Petri and Alain Barrat

The structural dynamics of hypergraphs through the lens of hyper-cores

Cosimo Agostinelli, Marco Mancastroppa, Alain Barrat

Higher-order similarity measures for hypergraphs comparison

10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 12:30 Session II
- Alec Kirkley

Summarizing the structure of higher-order interactions with information theory

- Berné L. Nortier, Simon Dobson, Federico Battiston

Higher-order shortest paths in hypergraphs

- Thomas Robiglio, Leonardo Di Gaetano, Ada Altieri, Giovanni Petri, Federico Battiston

Higher-order Ising model on hypergraphs

- Jaroslav Hlinka, Giulio Tani Raffaelli, Jakub Kislinger, Tomáš Kroupa

Connected Information and Maximum Entropy With Entropic Constraints

12:30 - 14:30 Lunch Break
14:30 - 16:00 Session III
Maria Pope

Uncovering higher-order interactions in the cortex: applications of multivariate information theory

- Andrea Civilini, Fabrizio de Vico Fallani, Vito Latora

A Bayesian approach to construct higher-order networks from multivariate time-series

- Vincent P. Grande, Michael T. Schaub

Topological Trajectory Analysis on Single-Cell Data

Enrico Caprioglio, Luc Berthouze

Synergistic Motifs in Gaussian Systems

16:00 - 16:30 Coffee Break
16:30 - 17:30 Session IV
- Kwang-Il Goh

Higher-order interactions and optimality in hypergraphs

M. Iskrzynskì, A. Puchalska, A. Grzelik, G. Mutlu

Pangraphs as models of higher-order interactions

Marie Dorchain, Wilfried Segnou, Riccardo Muolo, Timoteo Carletti

Turing patterns: from pairwise to directed interactions and beyond

17:30- 18:30 Social hour

ORGANIZERS

Federico Battiston

Central European University

Leonardo Di Gaetano

Aix Marseille Université

Iacopo Iacopini

Northeastern University London

Nicholas Landry

University of Vermont

Tim LaRock

Oxford Mathematical Institute

Maxime Lucas

University of Namur

Giovanni Petri

Northeastern University London

Francesco Vaccarino

Polytechnic University of Turin

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS [closed]

The satellite will have space for contributed talks in the form of 10/15-minute presentations.

Topics of interest relate to higher-order structures (HOrSs) and network topology, and include

Higher-order representations of interacting systems
Structural measures for HOrS
Inference of HOrS
Time-varying HOrS
Generative models for HOrS (growing simplicial complexes, bipartite graphs, hypergraphs, etc.)
Dynamical processes on HOrS (diffusion, spreading, synchronization, games, etc.)
Applications to real-world systems (TDA)
Stochastic topology
Topological properties of network embedding into metric or pseudo-metric spaces
Topological properties of geometric representations of networks
Software and algorithms for HOrSs and TDA

Participants are invited to submit an abstract in PDF format. Submissions should be at most 2 pages long (figure included) and should include: title, author(s), affiliation(s), and references. Please send the PDF to leonardo.digaetano.96[at]gmail[dot]com and i.iacopini[at]northeastern[dot]edu using the email subject "TopoNets2025 - Submission [Surname of first author]".

Submissions will be evaluated and selected based on the adherence to the theme of the satellite, originality, and scientific soundness.

Deadline for submissions: 7 February 2025.

Acceptance notifications: 14 February 2025.