Link prediction based on the tie connection strength of common neighbor

Abstract

Traditional link prediction indices focus on the degree of the common neighbor and consider that the common neighbor with large degree contributes less to the similarity of two unconnected endpoints. Therefore, some of the local information-based methods only restrain the common neighbor with large degree for avoiding the influence dissipation. We find, however, if the large degree common neighbor connects with two unconnected endpoints through multiple paths simultaneously, these paths actually serve as transmission influences instead of dissipation. We regard these paths as the tie connection strength (TCS) of the common neighbor, and larger TCS can promote two unconnected endpoints to link with each other. Meanwhile, we notice that the similarity of node-pairs also relates to the network topology structure. Thus, in order to study the influences of TCS and the network structure on similarity, we introduce a free parameter and propose a novel link prediction method based on the TCS of the common neighbor. The experiment results on 12 real networks suggest that the proposed TCS index can improve the accuracy of link prediction.