Identifying Central Nodes in Multiplex Networks by Embracing Layer-Specific Heterogeneity via DomiRank

Abstract: The robustness and resilience of complex systems are crucial for maintaining functionality amid disruptions or intentional attacks. Many such systems can be modeled as networks, where identifying structurally central nodes is essential for assessing their robustness and susceptibility to failure. Traditional centrality metrics often face challenges in identifying structurally important nodes in networks exhibiting heterogeneity at the network scale, with multilayer networks being a prime example of such networks. These metrics typically fail to balance the trade-off between capturing local layer-specific structures and integrating global multiplex connectivity. In this study, we extend DomiRank centrality, a metric that has been shown to effectively assess nodal importance across diverse monoplex topologies, to multiplex networks. Our approach combines layer-specific DomiRank calculations with a global contextualization step, incorporating multiplex-wide DomiRank scores to combine rankings. Through synthetic and real-world network studies, we demonstrate that our generalized DomiRank framework significantly improves the identification of key nodes in highly heterogeneous multiplex networks. This work advances centrality-based robustness assessments by addressing the fundamental trade-off between layer adaptability and multiplex-wide coherence.