No Arabic abstract
The generalized $H(n)$ Hirsch index of order $n$ has been recently introduced and shown to interpolate between the degree and the $K$-core centrality in networks. We provide a detailed analytical characterization of the properties of sets of nodes having the same $H(n)$, within the annealed network approximation. The connection between the Hirsch indices and the degree is highlighted. Numerical tests in synthetic uncorrelated networks and real-world correlated ones validate the findings. We also test the use of the Hirsch index for the identification of influential spreaders in networks, finding that it is in general outperformed by the recently introduced Non-Backtracking centrality.
The largest eigenvalue of a networks adjacency matrix and its associated principal eigenvector are key elements for determining the topological structure and the properties of dynamical processes mediated by it. We present a physically grounded expression relating the value of the largest eigenvalue of a given network to the largest eigenvalue of two network subgraphs, considered as isolated: The hub with its immediate neighbors and the densely connected set of nodes with maximum $K$-core index. We validate this formula showing that it predicts with good accuracy the largest eigenvalue of a large set of synthetic and real-world topologies. We also present evidence of the consequences of these findings for broad classes of dynamics taking place on the networks. As a byproduct, we reveal that the spectral properties of heterogeneous networks built according to the linear preferential attachment model are qualitatively different from those of their static counterparts.
Complex networks are characterized by heterogeneous distributions of the degree of nodes, which produce a large diversification of the roles of the nodes within the network. Several centrality measures have been introduced to rank nodes based on their topological importance within a graph. Here we review and compare centrality measures based on spectral properties of graph matrices. We shall focus on PageRank, eigenvector centrality and the hub/authority scores of HITS. We derive simple relations between the measures and the (in)degree of the nodes, in some limits. We also compare the rankings obtained with different centrality measures.
Routing information through networks is a universal phenomenon in both natural and manmade complex systems. When each node has full knowledge of the global network connectivity, finding short communication paths is merely a matter of distributed computation. However, in many real networks nodes communicate efficiently even without such global intelligence. Here we show that the peculiar structural characteristics of many complex networks support efficient communication without global knowledge. We also describe a general mechanism that explains this connection between network structure and function. This mechanism relies on the presence of a metric space hidden behind an observable network. Our findings suggest that real networks in nature have underlying metric spaces that remain undiscovered. Their discovery would have practical applications ranging from routing in the Internet and searching social networks, to studying information flows in neural, gene regulatory networks, or signaling pathways.
Observing and controlling complex networks are of paramount interest for understanding complex physical, biological and technological systems. Recent studies have made important advances in identifying sensor or driver nodes, through which we can observe or control a complex system. Yet, the observational uncertainty induced by measurement noise and the energy required for control continue to be significant challenges in practical applications. Here we show that the variability of control energy and observational uncertainty for different directions of the state space depend strongly on the number of driver nodes. In particular, we find that if all nodes are directly driven, control is energetically feasible, as the maximum energy increases sublinearly with the system size. If, however, we aim to control a system through a single node, control in some directions is energetically prohibitive, increasing exponentially with the system size. For the cases in between, the maximum energy decays exponentially when the number of driver nodes increases. We validate our findings in several model and real networks, arriving to a series of fundamental laws to describe the control energy that together deepen our understanding of complex systems.
Controlling complex networks is of paramount importance in science and engineering. Despite the recent development of structural-controllability theory, we continue to lack a framework to control undirected complex networks, especially given link weights. Here we introduce an exact-controllability paradigm based on the maximum multiplicity to identify the minimum set of driver nodes required to achieve full control of networks with arbitrary structures and link-weight distributions. The framework reproduces the structural controllability of directed networks characterized by structural matrices. We explore the controllability of a large number of real and model networks, finding that dense networks with identical weights are difficult to be controlled. An efficient and accurate tool is offered to assess the controllability of large sparse and dense networks. The exact-controllability framework enables a comprehensive understanding of the impact of network properties on controllability, a fundamental problem towards our ultimate control of complex systems.