A Novel Method of Identifying Influential Nodes in Complex Networks Based on Random Walks

How to identify influential nodes in complex networks is a fundamental and important problem. In this paper, we propose a novel centrality measure, called Absorption Centrality, to measure the influence of all the entities of complex networks. Based on random walks, we start with the perspective of dynamical process, instead of static structure properties which are exhibited by other traditional centrality measures, such as Degree Centrality, Betweenness Centrality and Closeness Centrality. Experimental results demonstrate the proposed Absorption Centrality is more effective than the above three centralities.