An Adaptive Version of Brandes\u27 Algorithm for Betweenness Centrality

Betweenness centrality - measuring how many shortest paths pass through a vertex - is one of the most important network analysis concepts for assessing the relative importance of a vertex. The well-known algorithm of Brandes [2001] computes, on an n-vertex and m-edge graph, the betweenness centrality of all vertices in O(nm) worst-case time. In follow-up work, significant empirical speedups were achieved by preprocessing degree-one vertices and by graph partitioning based on cut vertices. We further contribute an algorithmic treatment of degree-two vertices, which turns out to be much richer in mathematical structure than the case of degree-one vertices. Based on these three algorithmic ingredients, we provide a strengthened worst-case running time analysis for betweenness centrality algorithms. More specifically, we prove an adaptive running time bound O(kn), where k < m is the size of a minimum feedback edge set of the input graph

Two betweenness centrality measures based on Randomized Shortest Paths

This paper introduces two new closely related betweenness centrality measures based on the Randomized Shortest Paths (RSP) framework, which fill a gap between traditional network centrality measures based on shortest paths and more recent methods considering random walks or current flows. The framework defines Boltzmann probability distributions over paths of the network which focus on the shortest paths, but also take into account longer paths depending on an inverse temperature parameter. RSP's have previously proven to be useful in defining distance measures on networks. In this work we study their utility in quantifying the importance of the nodes of a network. The proposed RSP betweenness centralities combine, in an optimal way, the ideas of using the shortest and purely random paths for analysing the roles of network nodes, avoiding issues involving these two paradigms. We present the derivations of these measures and how they can be computed in an efficient way. In addition, we show with real world examples the potential of the RSP betweenness centralities in identifying interesting nodes of a network that more traditional methods might fail to notice.Comment: Minor updates; published in Scientific Report

Controlling nosocomial infection based on structure of hospital social networks

Nosocomial infection raises a serious public health problem, as implied by the existence of pathogens characteristic to healthcare and hospital-mediated outbreaks of influenza and SARS. We simulate stochastic SIR dynamics on social networks, which are based on observations in a hospital in Tokyo, to explore effective containment strategies against nosocomial infection. The observed networks have hierarchical and modular structure. We show that healthcare workers, particularly medical doctors, are main vectors of diseases on these networks. Intervention methods that restrict interaction between medical doctors and their visits to different wards shrink the final epidemic size more than intervention methods that directly protect patients, such as isolating patients in single rooms. By the same token, vaccinating doctors with priority rather than patients or nurses is more effective. Finally, vaccinating individuals with large betweenness centrality is superior to vaccinating ones with large connectedness to others or randomly chosen individuals, as suggested by previous model studies. [The abstract of the manuscript has more information.]Comment: 12 figures, 2 table