Analysis of cut vertex in the control of complex networks

Abstract

The control of complex networks is affected by their structural characteristic. As a type of key nodes in a network structure, cut vertexes are essential for network connectivity because their removal will disconnect the network. Despite their fundamental importance, the influence of cut vertexes on network control is still uncertain. Here, we reveal the relationship between cut vertexes and driver nodes, and find that driver nodes tend to avoid cut vertexes. However, driving cut vertexes reduces the energy required for controlling complex networks, since the cut vertexes are located near the middle of the control chains. By employing three different node failure strategies, we investigate the impact of cut vertexes failure on the energy required. The results show that cut vertex failures markedly increases the control energy because cut vertexes are larger-degree nodes. Our results deepen the understanding of the structural characteristic in network control.

Self-similarity of complex networks under centrality-based node removal strategy

“…A complex network is composed of a large number of nodes and edges, in which interactions between nodes are very complicated, [1][2][3][4][5] which makes it difficult for us to directly explore and analyze the key attributes from the large network. Therefore, how to "reduce" a large-scale network to a smaller one while preserving the global structure of the network is a common concern of network science researchers.…”