Shannon entropy of the distribution of hop distances from a node to every
node it can reach (Stella & De Domenico 2018), normalized so that a
uniform spread over the node's distance range scores 1:
$$h(i) = -\frac{1}{\log(M_i - m_i + 1)} \sum_{k = m_i}^{M_i}
p_k^{(i)} \log p_k^{(i)}, \qquad p_k^{(i)} = n_k^{(i)} / R_i,$$
where \(n_k^{(i)}\) is the number of nodes at distance \(k\) from
\(i\), \(R_i\) the number of reachable nodes, and \(m_i, M_i\) the
minimum and maximum distance. High values mark nodes whose reach is
spread evenly across many network layers; a node whose reachable nodes
all sit at one distance scores 0. Closeness summarizes the mean of the
same distribution; distance entropy summarizes its spread.
Usage
centrality_distance_entropy(x, mode = "all", ...)
Value
Named numeric vector, one value per node, in [0, 1].
NaN for a node that reaches no other node.
For directed networks: "all" (default), "out"
(distances along out-edges), or "in".
...
Additional arguments passed to centrality.
Details
Distances are hop counts (edge weights are ignored). The original paper
normalizes by \(\log(M_i - m_i)\), which is undefined when only two
distinct distances occur; \(\log(M_i - m_i + 1)\) is used here so the
index is bounded by 1 for a uniform distribution.
References
Stella, M., & De Domenico, M. (2018). Distance entropy
cartography characterises centrality in complex networks. Entropy,
20(4), 268.
See Also
centrality for computing multiple measures at once,
centrality_local_dimension for the growth-rate view of the
same distance profile.