centrality_neighbor_distance: Neighborhood centrality, and its neighbor distance special...

In cograph: Analysis and Visualization of Complex Networks

Neighborhood centrality, and its neighbor distance special case

Description

Neighborhood centrality adds to a node's own benchmark centrality the benchmark centrality of the nodes its walks reach, discounted once per step: C^n_i(\theta)=\theta_i+a\sum_{j\in\Gamma_i}\theta_j +a^2\sum_{l\in\Gamma_j\setminus i}\theta_l+\dots +a^n\sum_{s\in\Gamma_{s-1}\setminus x}\theta_s. The sums are nested and each level excludes only the node the walk just came from, so the k-th term sums \theta over the endpoints of the non-backtracking walks of length k that start at i, once per walk. A walk may revisit a node it passed earlier, including i itself; only immediate backtracking is barred. The Zoo calls the setting nd_mass = "degree", nd_order = 2, nd_decay = 0.2 the neighbor distance centrality, and that is the default here; it is the configuration the source recommends.

Usage

centrality_neighbor_distance(
  x,
  nd_order = 2,
  nd_decay = 0.2,
  nd_mass = "degree",
  ...
)

Arguments

x	Network input accepted by centrality.
nd_order	Number of steps n, a single nonnegative whole number; default two, the source's recommended setting. The source studies one to four steps. Zero returns the benchmark centrality.
nd_decay	Per-step decay a, a single finite number; default 0.2, the source's own value. The source's domain is [0,1].
nd_mass	Benchmark centrality \theta: "degree" (default) or "coreness". These are the two the source uses.
...	Additional arguments to centrality.

Details

This is not the same as summing over distance shells. The Centrality Zoo (section 2.279, equation 2.1) paraphrases the measure with sums over N^{(k)}(i), "the set of k-hop neighbors", which visits each node at most once per level and never revisits a closer one. The two readings agree on trees and disagree on any graph carrying a triangle or a cycle of length at most 2n, and the difference is a per-node offset, not a rescaling. On the triangle-plus-pendant A-B, A-C, B-C, A-D with the defaults, the walk sums of the source give 4.16, 3.24, 3.24, 1.76 while distance shells would give 4.00, 3.04, 3.04, 1.76. cograph implements the source equation. No shell variant is offered: the shell form appears only in a secondary paraphrase, which also attributes the measure to a different paper whose text does not contain it.

The source states no normalization, so raw scores grow with nd_decay and nd_order; normalized = TRUE max-scales the finished vector and is a cograph convention. nd_decay is a\in[0,1] in the source, which sweeps 0.1 to 0.5; cograph accepts any finite value, and a negative or larger one leaves the source's domain. nd_order = 0 drops every sum and returns \theta itself, which is what the source says a=0 does.

Uses the simple undirected unweighted skeleton, which is the source domain: either arc creates one edge, parallel edges count once, and loops are removed, since a loop would make "the node the walk just came from" ambiguous. Edge weights, mode, cutoff and path-weight inversion are ignored. Isolates have every sum empty and score \theta_i, which is zero for both benchmarks; walks never leave a component, so the raw score of a node is unchanged by adding a disconnected component. Empty graphs return no scores. Core numbers follow centrality's "coreness", so an isolate sits in the zero-shell. Cost is nd_order dense matrix-vector products, O(n^2) each. Walk counts grow geometrically in nd_order, so a large order overflows to infinity; the source considers one to four steps.

Numerical verification establishes agreement with the source equation as printed in the author preprint, not parity with author software, which does not exist, and not any claim about spreading performance.

Value

Named numeric vector in input node order.

References

Liu, Y., Tang, M., Zhou, T. and Do, Y. (2016). Identify influential spreaders in complex networks, the role of neighborhood. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 452, 289-298. \Sexpr[results=rd]{tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.1016/j.physa.2016.02.028")}.

See Also

centrality_semilocal and centrality_extended_coreness for other neighborhood sums, and list_centralities for the catalogue.

Examples

# Neighbor distance centrality: degree benchmark, two steps, a = 0.2
centrality_neighbor_distance(igraph::make_ring(6))

# The source's other benchmark, and a wider neighborhood
centrality_neighbor_distance(igraph::make_star(7, mode = "undirected"),
                             nd_order = 3, nd_mass = "coreness")

cograph documentation built on Sept. 30, 2026, 5:08 p.m.