Measuring the centrality of nodes in networks based on the interstellar model

Measuring the centrality of nodes in a network is a vital and significant task in analyzing the influence of nodes and information dissemination. Existing methods measure the centrality of nodes mainly from local, global and semi-global network perspectives. Currently, semi-global centrality metrics are valued due to the fact that they can achieve high accuracy close to that of global centrality metrics with a slight increase in time complexity over local centrality metrics. In this paper, a novel semi-global centrality metric based on the interstellar model is proposed. First, an interstellar model of information dissemination is constructed and a variable velocity is set for the information after it leaves the source node, while velocity at which the information arrives at the next node determines whether the information can be further forwarded. Then, the attraction slingshot effect is considered to express the facilitation provided by the nodes that forward the information. The centrality of a node can be measured by the number of all nodes, including itself, that can forward the information sent by that node. Experiments with some popular centrality metrics are conducted on some real-world networks, and the results show that the proposed centrality metric has better performance without significant increase in time complexity, and also provides a plausible explanation for information forwarding.