Markov chains theory for scale-free networks

This paper proposes a Markov chain method to predict the growth dynamics of the individual nodes in scale-free networks, and uses this to calculate numerically the degree distribution. We first find that the degree evolution of a node in the BA model is a nonhomogeneous Markov chain. An efficient algorithm to calculate the degree distribution is developed by the theory of Markov chains. The numerical results for the BA model are consistent with those of the analytical approach. A directed network with the logarithmic growth is introduced. The algorithm is applied to calculate the degree distribution for the model. The numerical results show that the system self-organizes into a scale-free network.     

Robustness measurement of scale-free networks based on motif entropy

As a classical complex network model, scale-free network is widely used and studied. And motifs, as a high-order subgraph structure, frequently appear in scale-free networks, and have a great influence on the structural integrity, functional integrity and dynamics of the networks. In order to overcome the shortcomings in the existing work on the robustness of complex networks, only nodes or edges are considered, while the defects of high-order structure in the network are ignored. From the perspective of network motif, we propose an entropy of node degree distribution based on motif to measure the robustness of scale-free networks under random attacks. The effectiveness and superiority of our method are verified and analyzed in the BA scale-free networks.     

A packet routing strategy using neural networks on scale-free networks

We propose a dynamic packet routing strategy by using neural networks on scale-free networks. In this strategy, in order to determine the nodes to which the packets should be transmitted, we use path lengths to the destinations of the packets, and adjust the connection weights of the neural networks attached to the nodes from local information and the path lengths. The performances of this strategy on scale-free networks which have the same degree distribution and different degree correlations are compared to one another. Our numerical simulations confirm that this routing strategy is more effective than the shortest path based strategy on scale-free networks with any degree correlations and that the performance of our strategy on assortative scale-free networks is better than that on disassortative and uncorrelated scale-free networks.     

Relationship between degree-rank distributions and degree distributions of complex networks

Both the degree distribution and the degree-rank distribution, which is a relationship function between the degree and the rank of a vertex in the degree sequence obtained from sorting all vertices in decreasing order of degree, are important statistical properties to characterize complex networks. We derive an exact mathematical relationship between degree-rank distributions and degree distributions of complex networks. That is, for arbitrary complex networks, the degree-rank distribution can be derived from the degree distribution, and the reverse is true. Using the mathematical relationship, we study the degree-rank distributions of scale-free networks and exponential networks. We demonstrate that the degree-rank distributions of scale-free networks follow a power law only if scaling exponent λ>2. We also demonstrate that the degree-rank distributions of exponential networks follow a logarithmic law. The simulation results in the BA model and the exponential BA model verify our results.     

Robustness analysis of network controllability

Structural controllability, which is an interesting property of complex networks, attracts many researchers from various fields. The maximum matching algorithm was recently applied to explore the minimum number of driver nodes, where control signals are injected, for controlling the whole network. Here we study the controllability of directed Erdös–Rényi and scale-free networks under attacks and cascading failures. Results show that degree-based attacks are more efficient than random attacks on network structural controllability. Cascade failures also do great harm to network controllability even if they are triggered by a local node failure.     

有倾向性重连产生的反匹配网络

在具有网络结构的系统中度关联属性对于动力学行为具有重要的影响, 所以产生适当度关联网络的方法对于大量网络系统的研究具有重要的作用. 尽管产生正匹配网络的方法已经得到很好的验证, 但是产生反匹配网络的方法还没有被系统的讨论过. 重新连接网络中的边是产生度关联网络的一个常用方法. 这里我们研究使用重连方法产生反匹配无标度网络的有效性. 我们的研究表明, 有倾向的重连可以增强网络的反匹配属性. 但是有倾向重连不能使皮尔森度相关系数下降到-1, 而是存在一个依赖于网络参数的最小值. 我们研究了网络的主要参数对于网络度相关系数的影响, 包括网络尺寸, 网络的连接密度和网络节点的度差异程度. 研究表明在网络尺寸大的情况下和节点度差异性强的情况下, 重连的效果较差. 我们研究了真实Internet网络, 发现模型产生的网络经过重连不能达到真实网络的度关联系数.     

Research on the search ability of Brownian particles on networks with an adaptive mechanism

In this paper, we focus on the search ability of Brownian particles with an adaptive mechanism. In the adaptive mechanism, nodes are allowed to be able to change their own accepting probability according to their congestion states. Two searching-traffic models, the static one in which nodes have fixed accepting probability to the incoming particles and the adaptive one in which nodes have adaptive accepting probability to the incoming particles are presented for testing the adaptive mechanism. Instead of number of hops, we use the traveling time, which includes not only the number of hops for a particle to jump from the source node to the destination but also the time that the particle stays in the queues of nodes, to evaluate the search ability of Brownian particles. We apply two models to different networks. The experiment results show that the adaptive mechanism can decrease the network congestion and the traveling time of the first arriving particle. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of network topologies on the congestion of networks by addressing several main properties: degree distribution, average path length, and clustering coefficient. We show the reason why random topologies are more able to deal with congested traffic states than others. We also propose an absorption strategy to deal with the additional Brownian particles in networks. The experiment results on Barabási–Albert (BA) scale-free networks show that the absorption strategy can increase the probability of a successful search and decrease the average per-node particles overhead for our models.     

Anomalous transport in scale-free networks

To study transport properties of scale-free and Erdos-Rényi networks, we analyze the conductance G between two arbitrarily chosen nodes of random scale-free networks with degree distribution P(k)-k(-lambda) in which all links have unit resistance. We predict a broad range of values of G, with a power-law tail distribution phi(SF)(G)-G(-g(G)), where g(G)=2lambda-1, and confirm our predictions by simulations. The power-law tail in phi(SF)(G) leads to large values of G, signaling better transport in scale-free networks compared to Erdos-Rényi networks where the tail of the conductivity distribution decays exponentially. Based on a simple physical "transport backbone" picture we show that the conductances of scale-free and Erdos-Rényi networks are well approximated by ck(A)k(B)/(k(A)+k(B)) for any pair of nodes A and B with degrees k(A) and k(B), where c emerges as the main parameter characterizing network transport.     

Studies on controllability of directed networks with extremal optimization

Almost all natural, social and man-made-engineered systems can be represented by a complex network to describe their dynamic behaviors. To make a real-world complex network controllable with its desired topology, the study on network controllability has been one of the most critical and attractive subjects for both network and control communities. In this paper, based on a given directed–weighted network with both state and control nodes, a novel optimization tool with extremal dynamics to generate an optimal network topology with minimum control nodes and complete controllability under Kalman’s rank condition has been developed. The experimental results on a number of popular benchmark networks show the proposed tool is effective to identify the minimum control nodes which are sufficient to guide the whole network’s dynamics and provide the evolution of network topology during the optimization process. We also find the conclusion: “the sparse networks need more control nodes than the dense, and the homogeneous networks need fewer control nodes compared to the heterogeneous” (Liu et al., 2011  [18]), is also applicable to network complete controllability. These findings help us to understand the network dynamics and make a real-world network under the desired control. Moreover, compared with the relevant research results on structural controllability with minimum driver nodes, the proposed solution methodology may also be applied to other constrained network optimization problems beyond complete controllability with minimum control nodes.     

Transport between multiple users in complex networks

We study the transport properties of model networks such as scale-free and Erd?s-Rényi networks as well as a real network. We consider few possibilities for the trnasport problem. We start by studying the conductance G between two arbitrarily chosen nodes where each link has the same unit resistance. Our theoretical analysis for scale-free networks predicts a broad range of values of G, with a power-law tail distribution $\Phi_{\rm SF}(G)\sim G^{-g_G}$ , where g_G=2λ-1, and λ is the decay exponent for the scale-free network degree distribution. The power-law tail in Φ_SF(G) leads to large values of G, thereby significantly improving the transport in scale-free networks, compared to Erd?s-Rényi networks where the tail of the conductivity distribution decays exponentially. We develop a simple physical picture of the transport to account for the results. The other model for transport is the max-flow model, where conductance is defined as the number of link-independent paths between the two nodes, and find that a similar picture holds. The effects of distance on the value of conductance are considered for both models, and some differences emerge. We then extend our study to the case of multiple sources ans sinks, where the transport is defined between two groups of nodes. We find a fundamental difference between the two forms of flow when considering the quality of the transport with respect to the number of sources, and find an optimal number of sources, or users, for the max-flow case. A qualitative (and partially quantitative) explanation is also given.     

Number of loops of size h in growing scale-free networks

The hierarchical structure of scale-free networks has been investigated focusing on the scaling of the number N(h)(t) of loops of size h as a function of the system size. In particular, we have found the analytic expression for the scaling of N(h)(t) in the Barabási-Albert (BA) scale-free network. We have performed numerical simulations on the scaling law for N(h)(t) in the BA network and in other growing scale-free networks, such as the bosonic network and the aging nodes network. We show that in the bosonic network and in the aging node network the phase transitions in the topology of the network are accompained by a change in the scaling of the number of loops with the system size.     

Tuning degree distributions: Departing from scale-free networks

Scale-free networks are characterized by a degree distribution with power-law behavior. Although scale-free networks have been shown to arise in many areas, ranging from the World Wide Web to transportation or social networks, degree distributions of other observed networks often differ from the power-law type. Data based investigations require modifications of the typical scale-free network.We present an algorithm that generates networks in which the shape of the degree distribution is tunable by modifying the preferential attachment step of the Barabási-Albert construction algorithm. The shape of the distribution is represented by dispersion measures such as the variance and the skewness, both of which are highly correlated with the maximal degree of the network and, therefore, adequately represents the influence of superspreaders or hubs. By combining our algorithm with work of Holme and Kim, we show how to generate networks with a variety of degree distributions and clustering coefficients.     

Fractality and degree correlations in scale-free networks

Fractal scale-free networks are empirically known to exhibit disassortative degree mixing. It is, however, not obvious whether a negative degree correlation between nearest neighbor nodes makes a scale-free network fractal. Here we examine the possibility that disassortativity in complex networks is the origin of fractality. To this end, maximally disassortative (MD) networks are prepared by rewiring edges while keeping the degree sequence of an initial uncorrelated scale-free network. We show that there are many MD networks with different topologies if the degree sequence is the same with that of the (u,v)-flower but most of them are not fractal. These results demonstrate that disassortativity does not cause the fractal property of networks. In addition, we suggest that fractality of scale-free networks requires a long-range repulsive correlation, in the sense of the shortest path distance, in similar degrees.     

Cooperation in N-person evolutionary snowdrift game in scale-free Barabási-Albert networks

Cooperation in the N-person evolutionary snowdrift game (NESG) is studied in scale-free Barabási-Albert (BA) networks. Due to the inhomogeneity of the network, two versions of NESG are proposed and studied. In a model where the size of the competing group varies from agent to agent, the fraction of cooperators drops as a function of the payoff parameter. The networking effect is studied via the fraction of cooperative agents for nodes with a particular degree. For small payoff parameters, it is found that the small-k agents are dominantly cooperators, while large-k agents are of non-cooperators. Studying the spatial correlation reveals that cooperative agents will avoid to be nearest neighbors and the correlation disappears beyond the next-nearest neighbors. The behavior can be explained in terms of the networking effect and payoffs. In another model with a fixed size of competing groups, the fraction of cooperators could show a non-monotonic behavior in the regime of small payoff parameters. This non-trivial behavior is found to be a combined effect of the many agents with the smallest degree in the BA network and the increasing fraction of cooperators among these agents with the payoff for small payoffs.     

Synchronization optimal networks obtained using local structure information

In this paper, the networks with optimal synchronizability are obtained using the local structure information. In scale-free networks, a node will be coupled by its neighbors with maximal degree among the neighbors if and only if the maximal degree is larger than its own degree. If the obtained coupled networks are connected, they are synchronization optimal networks. The connection probability of coupled networks is greatly affected by the average degree which usually increases with the average degree. This method could be further generalized by taking into account the degree of next-nearest neighbors, which will sharply increase the connection probability. Compared to the other proposed methods that obtain synchronization optimal networks, our method uses only local structure information and can hold the structure properties of the original scale-free networks to some extent. Our method may present a useful way to manipulate the synchronizability of real-world scale-free networks.     

Self-similarity, small-world, scale-free scaling, disassortativity, and robustness in hierarchical lattices

In this paper, firstly, we study analytically the topological features of a family of hierarchical lattices (HLs) from the view point of complex networks. We derive some basic properties of HLs controlled by a parameter q: scale-free degree distribution with exponent γ=2+ln 2/(ln q), null clustering coefficient, power-law behavior of grid coefficient, exponential growth of average path length (non-small-world), fractal scaling with dimension d_B=ln (2q)/(ln 2), and disassortativity. Our results show that scale-free networks are not always small-world, and support the conjecture that self-similar scale-free networks are not assortative. Secondly, we define a deterministic family of graphs called small-world hierarchical lattices (SWHLs). Our construction preserves the structure of hierarchical lattices, including its degree distribution, fractal architecture, clustering coefficient, while the small-world phenomenon arises. Finally, the dynamical processes of intentional attacks and collective synchronization are studied and the comparisons between HLs and Barabási-Albert (BA) networks as well as SWHLs are shown. We find that the self-similar property of HLs and SWHLs significantly increases the robustness of such networks against targeted damage on hubs, as compared to the very vulnerable non fractal BA networks, and that HLs have poorer synchronizability than their counterparts SWHLs and BA networks. We show that degree distribution of scale-free networks does not suffice to characterize their synchronizability, and that networks with smaller average path length are not always easier to synchronize.     

Synchronizability of dynamical scale-free networks subject to random errors

In this paper the robustness of network synchronizability against random deletion of nodes, i.e. errors, in dynamical scale-free networks was studied. To this end, two measures of network synchronizability, namely, the eigenratio of the Laplacian and the order parameter quantifying the degree of phase synchrony were adopted, and the synchronizability robustness on preferential attachment scale-free graphs was investigated. The findings revealed that as the network size decreases, the robustness of its synchronizability against random removal of nodes declines, i.e. the more the number of randomly removed nodes from the network, the worse its synchronizability. We also showed that this dependence of the synchronizability on the network size is different with that in the growing scale-free networks. The profile of a number of network properties such as clustering coefficient, efficiency, assortativity, and eccentricity, as a function of the network size was investigated in these two cases, growing scale-free networks and those with randomly removed nodes. The results showed that these processes are also different in terms of these metrics.     

基于传播免疫的复杂网络可控性研究

复杂网络控制反映了人类对复杂系统的认识深度和改造能力. 最新研究成果基于线性系统控制理论建立了复杂网络可控性的理论架构, 能够发现任意拓扑结构的线性时不变复杂网络中控制全部节点状态的最小驱动节点集, 但是该模型未考虑免疫节点或失效节点对控制信号传播的阻断.在继承该模型优点的前提下, 重新构建了基于传播免疫的复杂网络控制模型.在采用分属于随机免疫和目标免疫两种策略的 4个方法确定免疫节点的情况下,分析14个真实网络的可控性.结果表明:如果将网络中度数、 介数和紧密度指标较高的节点作为免疫节点,将极大地提高控制复杂网络的难度. 从而在一定程度上丰富了以往模型的结论.     

The emergence of scale-free networks with a seceding mechanism

In order to explore further the underlying mechanism of scale-free networks, we study stochastic secession as a mechanism for the creation of complex networks. In this evolution the network growth incorporates the addition of new nodes, the addition of new links between existing nodes, the deleting and rewiring of some existing links, and the stochastic secession of nodes. To random growing networks with preferential attachment, the model yields scale-free behavior for the degree distribution. Furthermore, we obtain an analytical expression of the power-law degree distribution with scaling exponent γ ranging from 1.1 to 9. The analytical expressions are in good agreement with the numerical simulation results.     

Pair correlations in scale-free networks

Correlation between nodes is found to be a common and important property in many complex networks. Here we investigate degree correlations of the Barabasi－Albert (BA) scale-free model with both analytical results and simulations, and find two neighbouring regions, a disassortative one for low degrees and a neutral one for high degrees. The average degree of the neighbours of a randomly picked node is expected to diverge in the limit of infinite network size. As a generalization of the concept of correlation, we also study the correlations of other scalar properties, including age and clustering coefficient. Finally we propose a correlation measurement in bipartite networks.