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Ranking the spreading influence of nodes is of great importance in practice and research. The key to ranking a node's spreading ability is to evaluate the fraction of susceptible nodes been infected by the target node during the outbreak, i.e., the outbreak size. In this paper, we present a dynamic Markov process (DMP) method by integrating the Markov chain and the spreading process to evaluate the outbreak size of the initial spreader. Following the idea of the Markov process, this method solves the problem of nonlinear coupling by adjusting the state transition matrix and evaluating the probability of the susceptible node being infected by its infected neighbours. We have employed the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) and susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) models to test this method on real-world static and temporal networks. Our results indicate that the DMP method could evaluate the nodes' outbreak sizes more accurately than previous methods for both single and multi-spreaders. Besides, it can also be employed to rank the influence of nodes accurately during the spreading process.

The Bitcoin Lightning Network (BLN) was launched in 2018 to scale up the number of transactions between Bitcoin owners. Although several contributions concerning the analysis of the BLN binary structure have recently appeared in the literature, the properties of its weighted counterpart are still largely unknown. The present contribution aims at filling this gap, by considering the Bitcoin Lightning Network over a period of 18 months, ranging from 12th January 2018 to 17th July 2019, and focusing on its weighted, undirected, daily snapshot representation. As the study of the BLN weighted structural properties reveals, it is becoming increasingly 'centralised' at different levels, just as its binary counterpart: 1) the Nakamoto coefficient shows that the percentage of nodes whose degrees/strengths 'enclose' the 51% of the total number of links/total weight is rapidly decreasing; 2) the Gini coefficient confirms that several weighted centrality measures are becoming increasingly unevenly distributed; 3)the weighted BLN topology is becoming increasingly compatible with a core-periphery structure, with the largest nodes 'by strength' constituting the core of such a network, whose size keeps shrinking as the BLN evolves. Further inspection of the resilience of the weighted BLN shows that removing such hubs leads to the network fragmentation into many components, an evidence indicating potential security threats - as the ones represented by the so called 'split attacks'., Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures

The Bitcoin Lightning Network (BLN), a so-called "second layer" payment protocol, was launched in 2018 to scale up the number of transactions between Bitcoin owners. In this paper, we analyse the structure of the BLN over a period of 18 months, ranging from 12th January 2018 to 17th July 2019. Here, we consider three representations of the BLN: the daily snapshot one, the weekly snapshot one and the daily-block snapshot one. By studying the topological properties of the three representations above, we find that the total volume of transacted bitcoins approximately grows as the square of the network size; however, despite the huge activity characterising the BLN, the bitcoins distribution is very unequal: the average Gini coefficient of the node strengths (computed across the entire history of the Bitcoin Lightning Network) is, in fact, ~0.88 causing the 10% (50%) of the nodes to hold the 80% (99%) of the bitcoins at stake in the BLN (on average, across the entire period). This concentration brings up the question of which minimalist network model allows us to explain the network topological structure. Like for other economic systems, we hypothesise that local properties of nodes, like the degree, ultimately determine part of its characteristics. Therefore, we have tested the goodness of the Undirected Binary Configuration Model (UBCM) in reproducing the structural features of the BLN: the UBCM recovers the disassortative and the hierarchical character of the BLN but underestimates the centrality of nodes; this suggests that the BLN is becoming an increasingly centralised network, more and more compatible with a core-periphery structure. Further inspection of the resilience of the BLN shows that removing hubs leads to the collapse of the network into many components, an evidence suggesting that this network may be a target for the so-called split attacks., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures

In the past years statistical physics has been successfully applied for complex networks modelling. In particular, it has been shown that the maximum entropy principle can be exploited in order to construct graph ensembles for real-world networks which maximize the randomness of the graph structure keeping fixed some topological constraint. Such ensembles can be used as null models to detect statistically significant structural patterns and to reconstruct the network structure in cases of incomplete information. Recently, these randomizing methods have been used for the study of self-organizing systems in economics and finance, such as interbank and world trade networks, in order to detect topological changes and, possibly, early-warning signals for the economical crisis. In this work we consider the configuration models with different constraints for the network of mergers and acquisitions (M&As), Comparing triadic and dyadic motifs, for both the binary and weighted M&A network, with the randomized counterparts can shed light on its organization at higher order level.

This paper is to analyze the properties of evolving bipartite networks from four aspects, the growth of networks, the degree distribution, the popularity of objects and the diversity of user behaviours, leading a deep understanding on the empirical data. By empirical studies of data from the online bookstore Amazon and a question and answer site Stack Overflow, which are both rating bipartite networks, we could reveal the rules for the evolution of bipartite networks. These rules have significant meanings in practice for maintaining the operation of real systems and preparing for their future development. We find that the degree distribution of users follows a power law with an exponential cutoff. Also, according to the evolution of popularity for objects, we find that the large-degree objects tend to receive more new ratings than expected depending on their current degrees while the small-degree objects receive less ratings in terms of their degrees. Moreover, the user behaviours show such a trend that the larger degree the users have, the stronger purposes are with their behaviours except the initial periods when users choose a diversity of products to learn about what they want. Finally, we conclude with a discussion on how the bipartite network evolves, which provides guideline for meeting challenges brought by the growth of network., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

With great theoretical and practical significance, locating influential nodes of complex networks is a promising issues. In this paper, we propose a dynamics-sensitive (DS) centrality that integrates topological features and dynamical properties. The DS centrality can be directly applied in locating influential spreaders. According to the empirical results on four real networks for both susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) and susceptible-infected (SI) spreading models, the DS centrality is much more accurate than degree, $k$-shell index and eigenvector centrality., Comment: 6 pages, 1 table and 2 figures

With great theoretical and practical significance, identifying the node spreading influence of complex network is one of the most promising domains. So far, various topology-based centrality measures have been proposed to identify the node spreading influence in a network. However, the node spreading influence is a result of the interplay between the network topology structure and spreading dynamics. In this paper, we build up the systematic method by combining the network structure and spreading dynamics to identify the node spreading influence. By combining the adjacent matrix $A$ and spreading parameter $\beta$, we theoretical give the node spreading influence with the eigenvector of the largest eigenvalue. Comparing with the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model epidemic results for four real networks, our method could identify the node spreading influence more accurately than the ones generated by the degree, K-shell and eigenvector centrality. This work may provide a systematic method for identifying node spreading influence., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures