Prominence and Control: The Weighted Rich-Club Effect

Tore Opsahl1, Vittoria Colizza2, Pietro Panzarasa1 and José J. Ramasco2
1School of Business and Management, Queen Mary College, University of London, UK.
2Complex Systems Lagrange Laboratory, Complex Networks (CNLL), ISI Foundation, Turin I-10133, Italy.

(April 2008)

Complex systems are often characterized by large-scale hierarchical organizations. Whether the prominent elements, at the top of the hierarchy, share and control resources or avoid one another lies at the heart of a system's global organization and functioning. Inspired by network perspectives, we propose a new general framework for studying the tendency of prominent elements to form clubs with exclusive control over the majority of a system's resources. We explore associations between prominence and control in the fields of transportation, scienfic collaboration, and online communication.

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