Dynamic Immunization Node Model for Complex Networks Based on Community Structure and Threshold.

In the information age of big data, and increasingly large and complex networks, there is a growing challenge of understanding how best to restrain the spread of harmful information, for example, a computer virus. Establishing models of propagation and node immunity are important parts of this problem. In this article, a dynamic node immune model, based on the community structure and threshold (NICT), is proposed. First, a network model is established, which regards nodes carrying harmful information as new nodes in the network. The method of establishing the edge between the new node and the original node can be changed according to the needs of different networks. The propagation probability between nodes is determined by using community structure information and a similarity function between nodes. Second, an improved immune gain, based on the propagation probability of the community structure and node similarity, is proposed. The improved immune gain value is calculated for neighbors of the infected node at each time step, and the node is immunized according to the hand-coded parameter: immune threshold. This can effectively prevent invalid or insufficient immunization at each time step. Finally, an evaluation index, considering both the number of immune nodes and the number of infected nodes at each time step, is proposed. The immune effect of nodes can be evaluated more effectively. The results of network immunization experiments, on eight real networks, suggest that the proposed method can deliver better network immunization than several other well-known methods from the literature.