A hierarchical walk-based measure of centrality based on reachability between strongly connected components in a digraph. Issue 1 (2nd January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lu, Neng-Pin
• Is Part Of: Journal of mathematical sociology. Volume 45:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 51
• Page End: 64
• Publication Date: 2021-01-02
• Subjects: Adjacency matrix -- attenuation -- centrality; Sociology -- Periodicals; Sociology -- Mathematical models -- Periodicals; 301.0151
• DOI: 10.1080/0022250X.2020.1711753
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-250X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: For measuring the centrality in a digraph, Bonacich and Lloyd summarized a vector, from the power series of an attenuated adjacency matrix, as the alpha centrality. However, scores of alpha centrality are usually dominated by nodes in the strongly connected component, which owns the largest eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix. In this paper, based on reachability between strongly connected components, we consider not only the largest eigenvalue but also the other smaller ones to attenuate the adjacency matrix hierarchically; and obtain a measure from the power series of the hierarchically attenuated adjacency matrix. Consequently, we propose the hierarchical alpha centrality, which can yield higher scores for nodes at higher hierarchies of reachability in a digraph.