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Influence of Reciprocal links in Social Networks
In this Letter, we empirically study the influence of reciprocal links, in
order to understand its role in affecting the structure and function of
directed social networks. Experimental results on two representative datesets,
Sina Weibo and Douban, demonstrate that the reciprocal links indeed play a more
important role than non-reciprocal ones in both spreading information and
maintaining the network robustness. In particular, the information spreading
process can be significantly enhanced by considering the reciprocal effect. In
addition, reciprocal links are largely responsible for the connectivity and
efficiency of directed networks. This work may shed some light on the in-depth
understanding and application of the reciprocal effect in directed online
social networks
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