Current-flow efficiency of networks

Kai Liu and Xiaoyong Yan

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2018, vol. 492, issue C, 463-471

Abstract: Many real-world networks, from infrastructure networks to social and communication networks, can be formulated as flow networks. How to realistically measure the transport efficiency of these networks is of fundamental importance. The shortest-path-based efficiency measurement has limitations, as it assumes that flow travels only along those shortest paths. Here, we propose a new metric named current-flow efficiency, in which we calculate the average reciprocal effective resistance between all pairs of nodes in the network. This metric takes the multipath effect into consideration and is more suitable for measuring the efficiency of many real-world flow equilibrium networks. Moreover, this metric can handle a disconnected graph and can thus be used to identify critical nodes and edges from the efficiency-loss perspective. We further analyze how the topological structure affects the current-flow efficiency of networks based on some model and real-world networks. Our results enable a better understanding of flow networks and shed light on the design and improvement of such networks with higher transport efficiency.

Keywords: Complex networks; Flow networks; Current-flow efficiency; Effective graph resistance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:492:y:2018:i:c:p:463-471

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2017.10.039

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