Predictability of evolving contacts and triadic closure in human face-to-face proximity networks

The analysis of link structures and particularly their dynamics is important for enhancing our understanding of the underlying (social) processes. This paper analyzes such structures in networks of face-to-face spatial proximity: we focus on evolving contacts and triadic closure and present new insights on the dynamic and static contact behavior in real-world networks, where we utilize face-to-face contact networks collected at three different conferences using the social conference guidance system Conferator [Atzmueller et al. 2011 , 2014 ]. We analyze network dynamics and the predictability of all, new and recurring links. Furthermore, we especially investigate the strength of ties, their connection to triadic closure, and examine influence factors for predicting triadic closure in face-to-face proximity networks.