Error and attack tolerance of synchronization in Hindmarsh–Rose neural networks with community structure

Synchronization is one of the most important features observed in large-scale complex networks of interacting dynamical systems. As is well known, there is a close relation between the network topology and the network synchronizability. Using the coupled Hindmarsh–Rose neurons with community structure as a model network, in this paper we explore how failures of the nodes due to random errors or intentional attacks affect the synchronizability of community networks. The intentional attacks are realized by removing a fraction of the nodes with high values in some centrality measure such as the centralities of degree, eigenvector, betweenness and closeness. According to the master stability function method, we employ the algebraic connectivity of the considered community network as an indicator to examine the network synchronizability. Numerical evidences show that the node failure strategy based on the betweenness centrality has the most influence on the synchronizability of community networks. With this node failure strategy for a given network with a fixed number of communities, we find that the larger the degree of communities, the worse the network synchronizability; however, for a given network with a fixed degree of communities, we observe that the more the number of communities, the better the network synchronizability.     

节点中心性对复杂网络传播模式的影响分析

在众多的重要节点评估方法研究中,具有较高中心性的节点一直是关注的焦点,许多传播行为的研究也主要围绕高中心性节点展开,因此在一定程度上忽略了低中心性节点对传播行为的影响.本文从传播异构性角度,通过初始感染最大中心性节点和最小中心性节点揭示网络结构异构性对信息传播的影响.实验结果表明,传播过程中存在"链型"和"扇型"两种传播模式,在初始感染比例不断提升的情况下,两种传播模式的相互转换引发传播速率的变化,进一步促使非线性传播规模交叉现象的产生.这一现象说明,在宏观的信息传播过程中,最小中心性节点的影响力不容忽视,尤其在初始感染比例升高时,最小中心性节点比最大中心性节点更具传播优势.     

Rethinking failure and attack tolerance assessment in complex networks

Studies have revealed that real complex networks are inherently vulnerable to the loss of high centrality nodes. These nodes are crucial to maintaining the network connectivity and are identified by classical measures, such as degree and betweenness centralities. Despite its significance, an assessment based solely on this vulnerability premise is misleading for the interpretation of the real state of the network concerning connectivity. As a matter of fact, some networks may be in a state of imminent fragmentation before such a condition is fully characterized by an analysis targeted solely on the centrally positioned nodes. This work aims at showing that, in fact, it is basically the global network configuration that is responsible for network fragmentation, as it may allow many other lower centrality nodes to seriously damage the network connectivity.     

Methods to find community based on edge centrality

Divisive algorithms are of great importance for community detection in complex networks. One algorithm proposed by Girvan and Newman (GN) based on an edge centrality named betweenness, is a typical representative of this field. Here we studied three edge centralities based on network topology, walks and paths respectively to quantify the relevance of each edge in a network, and proposed a divisive algorithm based on the rationale of GN algorithm for finding communities that removes edges iteratively according to the edge centrality values in a certain order. In addition, we gave a comparison analysis of these measures with the edge betweenness and information centrality. We found the principal difference among these measures in the partition procedure is that the edge centrality based on walks first removes the edge connected with a leaf vertex, but the others first delete the edge as a bridge between communities. It indicates that the edge centrality based on walks is harder to uncover communities than other edge centralities. We also tested these measures for community detection. The results showed that the edge information centrality outperforms other measures, the edge centrality based on walks obtains the worst results, and the edge betweenness gains better performance than the edge centrality based on network topology. We also discussed our method’s efficiency and found that the edge centrality based on walks has a high time complexity and is not suitable for large networks.     

微博双向“关注”网络节点中心性及传播 影响力的分析

根据新浪微博的实际数据, 建立了两个基于双向“关注”的用户关系网络, 通过分析网络拓扑统计特征, 发现二者均具有小世界、无标度特征. 通过对节点度、紧密度、介数和k-core 四个网络中心性指标进行实证分析, 发现节点度服从分段幂率分布; 介数相比其他中心性指标差异性最为显著; 两个网络均具有明显的层次性, 但不是所有度值大的节点核数也大; 全局范围内各中心性指标之间存在着较强的相关性, 但在度值较大的节点群这种相关性明显减弱. 此外, 借助基于传染病动力学的SIR信息传播模型来分析四种指标在刻画节点传播能力方面的差异性, 仿真结果表明, 选择具有不同中心性指标的初始传播节点, 对信息传播速度和范围均具有不同影响; 紧密度和k-core较其他指标可以更加准确地描述节点在信息传播中所处的网络核心位置, 这有助于识别信息传播拓扑网络中的关键节点.     

基于节点负荷失效的网络可控性研究

Liu和Barabasi将现代控制理论应用到线性系统的网络可控性问题上, 提出了最小驱动节点集的计算方法, 解决了复杂网络控制的可计算问题. 针对现实网络中存在的节点因负荷过载而失效的问题, 本文提出了基于节点负荷失效的网络可控性模型. 通过对网络采用介数和Weibull失效模型, 在随机和目标失效机制下进行仿真, 研究结果表明: 维持无标度网络可控性的难度要明显大于随机网络; 在目标节点失效机制下, 即使对网络输入极少的失效信号, 也能极大地破坏网络的可控性; 使高介数节点失效要比使度高节点失效更能破坏网络的可控性, 说明高介数节点在维持网络可控性上发挥着重要作用; 对不同的负荷失效模型, 要合理采取措施, 防止网络发生阶跃性全不可控现象. 关键词： 网络可控性 结构可控性 节点失效     

Optimal navigation for characterizing the role of the nodes in complex networks

In this paper, we explore how the approach of optimal navigation (Cajueiro (2009) [33]) can be used to evaluate the centrality of a node and to characterize its role in a network. Using the subway network of Boston and the London rapid transit rail as proxies for complex networks, we show that the centrality measures inherited from the approach of optimal navigation may be considered if one desires to evaluate the centrality of the nodes using other pieces of information beyond the geometric properties of the network. Furthermore, evaluating the correlations between these inherited measures and classical measures of centralities such as the degree of a node and the characteristic path length of a node, we have found two classes of results. While for the London rapid transit rail, these inherited measures can be easily explained by these classical measures of centrality, for the Boston underground transportation system we have found nontrivial results.     

Change of network load due to node removal

The interplay between topology changes and the redistribution of traffic plays a significant role in many real-world networks. In this paper we study how the load of the remaining network changes when nodes are removed. This removal operation can model attacks and errors in networks, or the planned control of network topology. We consider a scenario similar to the data communication networks, and measure the load of a node by its betweenness centrality. By analysis and simulations, we show that when a single node is removed, the change of the remaining network’s load is positively correlated with the degree of the removed node. In multiple-node removal, by comparing several node removal schemes, we show in detail how significantly different the change of the remaining network’s load will be between starting the removal from small degree/betweenness nodes and from large degree/betweenness nodes. Moreover, when starting the removal from small degree/betweenness nodes, we not only observe that the remaining network’s load decreases, which is consistent with previous studies, but also find that the load of hubs keeps decreasing. These results help us to make a deeper understanding about the dynamics after topology changes, and are useful in planned control of network topology.     

Complexity in human transportation networks: a comparative analysis of worldwide air transportation and global cargo-ship movements

We present a comparative network-theoretic analysis of the two largest global transportation networks: the worldwide air-transportation network (WAN) and the global cargo-ship network (GCSN). We show that both networks exhibit surprising statistical similarities despite significant differences in topology and connectivity. Both networks exhibit a discontinuity in node and link betweenness distributions which implies that these networks naturally segregate into two different classes of nodes and links. We introduce a technique based on effective distances, shortest paths and shortest path trees for strongly weighted symmetric networks and show that in a shortest path tree representation the most significant features of both networks can be readily seen. We show that effective shortest path distance, unlike conventional geographic distance measures, strongly correlates with node centrality measures. Using the new technique we show that network resilience can be investigated more precisely than with contemporary techniques that are based on percolation theory. We extract a functional relationship between node characteristics and resilience to network disruption. Finally we discuss the results, their implications and conclude that dynamic processes that evolve on both networks are expected to share universal dynamic characteristics.     

Centrality measure of complex networks using biased random walks

We propose a novel centrality measure based on the dynamical properties of a biased random walk to provide a general framework for the centrality of vertex and edge in scale-free networks (SFNs). The suggested centrality unifies various centralities such as betweenness centrality (BC), load centrality (LC) and random walk centrality (RWC) when the degree, k, is relatively large. The relation between our centrality and other centralities in SFNs is clearly shown by both analytic and numerical methods. Regarding to the edge centrality, there have been few established studies in complex networks. Thus, we also provide a systematic analysis for the edge BC (LC) in SFNs and show that the distribution of edge BC satisfies a power-law. Furthermore we also show that the suggested centrality measures on real networks work very well as on the SFNs.     

Lobby index as a network centrality measure

We study the lobby index (l$l$-index for short) as a local node centrality measure for complex networks. The l$l$-index is compared with degree (a local measure), betweenness and Eigenvector centralities (two global measures) in the case of a biological network (Yeast interaction protein–protein network) and a linguistic network (Moby Thesaurus   II). In both networks, the l$l$-index has a poor correlation with betweenness but correlates with degree and Eigenvector centralities. Although being local, the l$l$-index carries more information about its neighbors than degree centrality. Also, it requires much less time to compute when compared with Eigenvector centrality. Results show that the l$l$-index produces better results than degree and Eigenvector centrality for ranking purposes.     

一种复杂网络路由策略的普适优化算法

现有的复杂网络路由策略很多,改进算法也不断涌现,但是目前还没有一个统一的标准来衡量算法是否达到网络最佳传输效果.针对这一问题,本文提出一种适用于现有路由策略的普适优化算法.首先通过理论分析指出制约网络传输能力的关键因素是最大介数中心度,因而"最大介数中心度是否已经最低"成为评判路由策略是否最优的标准.在此基础上,采用"惩罚选择法"避开网络中介数中心度值比较大的节点,使网络介数中心度值分布更均匀,均衡网络中各个节点的传输负载.仿真结果显示,该优化算法针对现有路由策略均能降低最大介数中心度值,大幅度提高网络的传输能力.     

Identifying Important Nodes in Complex Networks Based on Node Propagation Entropy

In recent years, the identification of the essential nodes in complex networks has attracted significant attention because of their theoretical and practical significance in many applications, such as preventing and controlling epidemic diseases and discovering essential proteins. Several importance measures have been proposed from diverse perspectives to identify crucial nodes more accurately. In this paper, we propose a novel importance metric called node propagation entropy, which uses a combination of the clustering coefficients of nodes and the influence of the first- and second-order neighbor numbers on node importance to identify essential nodes from an entropy perspective while considering the local and global information of the network. Furthermore, the susceptible–infected–removed and susceptible–infected–removed–susceptible epidemic models along with the Kendall coefficient are used to reveal the relevant correlations among the various importance measures. The results of experiments conducted on several real networks from different domains show that the proposed metric is more accurate and stable in identifying significant nodes than many existing techniques, including degree centrality, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and H-index.     

Detection of influential nodes with multi-scale information

The identification of influential nodes in complex networks is one of the most exciting topics in network science. The latest work successfully compares each node using local connectivity and weak tie theory from a new perspective. We study the structural properties of networks in depth and extend this successful node evaluation from single-scale to multi-scale. In particular, one novel position parameter based on node transmission efficiency is proposed, which mainly depends on the shortest distances from target nodes to high-degree nodes. In this regard, the novel multi-scale information importance (MSII) method is proposed to better identify the crucial nodes by combining the network's local connectivity and global position information. In simulation comparisons, five state-of-the-art algorithms, i.e. the neighbor nodes degree algorithm (NND), betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, Katz centrality and the k-shell decomposition method, are selected to compare with our MSII. The results demonstrate that our method obtains superior performance in terms of robustness and spreading propagation for both real-world and artificial networks.     

利用邻域“结构洞”寻找社会网络中最具影响力节点

识别复杂网络中的关键节点对网络结构优化和鲁棒性增强具有十分重要的意义. 经典的关键节点测量方法在一定程度上能够辨识网络中影响力节点, 但存在一定局限性: 局部中心性测量方法仅考虑节点邻居的数目, 忽略了邻居间的拓扑关系, 不能在计算中反映邻居节点间的相互作用; 全局测量方法则由于算法本身的复杂性而不能应用于大规模社会网络的分析, 另外, 经典的关键节点测量方法也没有考虑社会网络特有的社区特征. 为高效、准确地辨识具有社区结构的社会网络中最具影响力节点, 提出了一种基于节点及其邻域结构洞的局部中心性测量方法, 该方法综合考虑了节点的邻居数量及其与邻居间的拓扑结构, 在节点约束系数的计算中同时体现了节点的度属性和“桥接”属性. 利用SIR(易感-感染-免疫)模型在真实社会网络数据上对节点传播能力进行评价后发现, 所提方法可以准确地评价节点的传播能力且具有强的鲁棒性.     

Betweenness centrality in finite components of complex networks

We use generating function formalism to obtain an exact formula of the betweenness centrality in finite components of random networks with arbitrary degree distributions. The formula is obtained as a function of the degree and the component size, and is confirmed by simulations for Poisson, exponential, and power-law degree distributions. We find that the betweenness centralities for the three distributions are asymptotically power laws with an exponent 1.5 and are invariant to the particular distribution parameters.     

Optimization of transport protocols in complex networks

In this paper, an optimal routing strategy is proposed to enhance the traffic capacity of complex networks. In order to avoid nodes overloading, the new algorithm is derived on the basis of generalized betweenness centrality which gives an estimate of traffic handled by the node for a route set. Since the nodes with large betweenness centrality are more susceptible to traffic congestion, the traffic can be improved, as our strategy, by redistributing traffic load from nodes with large betweenness centrality to nodes with small betweenness centrality in the proceeding of computing collective routing table. Particularly, depending on a parameter that controls the optimization scale, the new routing can not only enlarge traffic capacity of networks more, but also enhance traffic efficiency with smaller average path length. Comparing results of previous routing strategies, it is shown that the present improved routing performs more effectively.     

Extracting hidden fluctuation patterns of Hang Seng stock index from network topologies

We present a model of complex network generated from Hang Seng index (HSI) of Hong Kong stock market, which encodes stock market relevant both interconnections and interactions between fluctuation patterns of HSI in the network topologies. In the network, the nodes (edges) represent all kinds of patterns of HSI fluctuation (their interconnections). Based on network topological statistic, we present efficient algorithms, measuring betweenness centrality (BC) and inverse participation ratio (IPR) of network adjacency matrix, for detecting topological important nodes. We have at least obtained three uniform nodes of topological importance, and find the three nodes, i.e. 18.7% nodes undertake 71.9% betweenness centrality and closely correlate other nodes. From these topological important nodes, we can extract hidden significant fluctuation patterns of HSI. We also find these patterns are independent the time intervals scales. The results contain important physical implication, i.e. the significant patterns play much more important roles in both information control and transport of stock market, and should be useful for us to more understand fluctuations regularity of stock market index. Moreover, we could conclude that Hong Kong stock market, rather than a random system, is statistically stable, by comparison to random networks.     

基于自规避随机游走的节点排序算法

评估复杂网络系统的节点重要性有助于提升其系统抗毁性和结构稳定性. 目前, 定量节点重要性的排序算法通常基于网络结构的中心性指标如度数、介数、紧密度、特征向量等. 然而, 这些算法需要以知晓网络结构的全局信息为前提, 很难在大规模网络中实际应用. 基于自规避随机游走的思想, 提出一种结合网络结构局域信息和标签扩散的节点排序算法. 该算法综合考虑了节点的直接邻居数量及与其他节点之间的拓扑关系, 能够表征其在复杂网络系统中的结构影响力和重要性. 基于三个典型的实际网络, 通过对极大连通系数、网络谱距离数、节点连边数和脆弱系数等评估指标的实验对比, 结果表明提出的算法显著优于现有的依据局域信息的节点排序算法.     

网络集聚性对节点中心性指标的准确性影响

节点中心性指标是从特定角度对网络某一方面的结构特点进行刻画的度量指标, 因此网络拓扑结构的改变会对节点中心性指标的准确性产生重要影响. 本文利用Holme-Kim模型构建可变集聚系数的无标度网络, 然后采用Susceptible-Infective-Removal模型进行传播影响力的仿真实验, 接着分析了节点中心性指标在不同集聚系数的无标度网络中的准确性. 结果表明, 度中心性和介数中心性的准确性在低集聚系数的网络中表现更好, 特征向量中心性则在高集聚类网络中更准确, 而紧密度中心性的准确性受网络集聚系数的变化影响较小. 因此当网络的集聚系数较低时, 可选择度或者介数作为中心性指标进行网络节点影响力评价; 反之则选择紧密度指标或特征向量指标较好, 尤其当网络的集聚系数接近0.6时特征向量的准确性可以高达到0.85, 是度量小规模网络的较优选择. 另一方面, 传播过程的感染率越高, 度指标和介数指标越可靠, 紧密度和特征向量则相反. 最后Autonomous System实证网络的断边重连实验, 进一步验证了网络集聚性的改变会对节点中心性指标的准确性产生重要影响.