Identifying Key Nodes in Complex Networks Based on Local Structural Entropy and Clustering Coefficient

Abstract

Key nodes have a significant impact, both structural and functional, on complex networks. Commonly used methods for measuring the importance of nodes in complex networks are those using degree centrality, clustering coefficient, etc. Despite a wide range of application due to their simplicity, their limitations cannot be ignored. The methods based on degree centrality use only first-order relations of nodes, and the methods based on the clustering coefficient use the closeness of the neighbors of nodes while ignore the scale of numbers of neighbors. Local structural entropy, by replacing the node influence on networks with local structural influence, increases the identifying effect, but has a low accuracy in the case of high clustered networks. To identify key nodes in complex networks, a novel method, which considers both the influence and the closeness of neighbors and is based on local structural entropy and clustering coefficient, is proposed in this paper. The proposed method considers not only the information of the node itself, but also its neighbors. The simplicity and accuracy of measurement improve the significance of characterizing the reliability and destructiveness of large-scale networks. Demonstrations on constructed networks and real networks show that the proposed method outperforms other related approaches.