Identifying all-around nodes for spreading dynamics in complex networks

Identifying the most influential nodes in complex networks provides a strong basis for understanding spreading dynamics and ensuring more efficient spread of information. Due to the heterogeneous degree distribution, we observe that current centrality measures are correlated in their results of nodes ranking. This paper introduces the concept of all-around nodes, which act like all-around players with good performance in combined metrics. Then, an all-around distance is presented for quantifying the influence of nodes. The experimental results of susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) dynamics suggest that the proposed all-around distance can act as a more accurate, stable indicator of influential nodes. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.