Influential nodes ranking in complex networks: An entropy-based approach

Measurement of the spreading capability of nodes has been one of the most attractive challenges in the field of social networks. Because of the huge number of nodes in a network, it has appealed to many researchers to find an accurate measure which can potentially detect the spreading capability and rankings of nodes. Most of the available methods determine the spreading capability of nodes based on their topological locations. In this paper, however, we have proposed a new measure based on the basic notions in information theory to detect the spreading capability of nodes in networks on the basis of their topological information. The simulation and experimental results of investigating real-world and artificial networks show that the proposed measure is more accurate and efficient than the similar ones. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.