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Searchability of Central Nodes in Networks

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Abstract

Social networks are discrete systems with a large amount of heterogeneity among nodes (individuals). Measures of centrality aim at a quantification of nodes’ importance for structure and function. Here we ask to which extent the most central nodes can be found by purely local search. We find that many networks have close-to-optimal searchability under eigenvector centrality, outperforming searches for degree and betweenness. Searchability of the strongest spreaders in epidemic dynamics tends to be substantially larger for supercritical than for subcritical spreading.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bioinformatics Group, Institute for Computer Science, Leipzig University, Härtelstrasse 16-18, 04107, Leipzig, Germany

    Konstantin Klemm

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  1. Konstantin Klemm
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Correspondence to Konstantin Klemm.

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The author acknowledges funding from Volkswagenstiftung.

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Klemm, K. Searchability of Central Nodes in Networks. J Stat Phys 151, 707–719 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10955-013-0727-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10955-013-0727-7

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