KATZ centrality with biogeography-based optimization for influence maximization problem

Abstract

In the field of social networks, the Influence Maximization Problem (IMP) is one of the most well-known issues that have attracted many researchers in recent years. Influence Maximization (IM) means trying to find the best subset of K nodes that maximizes the number of nodes influenced by this subset. The IM is an NP-hard problem that plays an important role in viral marketing and dissemination of information. The existing solutions like greedy approaches to solving IMP do not have the efficiency and accuracy in solving the problem. In this paper, we propose a new metaheuristic algorithm based on Katz centrality with biogeography-based optimization to solve IMP in the social network. In the proposed algorithm, each habitat with the subset of K nodes is considered as the solution to the IM problem. In the proposed algorithm, the Katz centrality of each node is calculated and used as the emigration rate of each habitat. The focus of the study has been on improving the performance of the BBO algorithm by combining it with the Katz centrality. The objective was to use an enhanced meta-heuristic algorithm with measuring centrality to solve the IM problem. In the results of experiments based on different types of real-world social networks, it is well known that the proposed algorithm is more efficient, accurate, and faster than influence maximization greedy approaches.