Freeman’s Approach to Degree Centrality:
- Centrality is based on connections between nodes in the network
- Measure in-degree and the out-degree and degree percentage of entire network for each node
- Can measure network statistics such as mean, standard deviation, etc.
- Network Centralization calculation compares a network to the perfect star network of the same size
- A star network of size N (nodes)
- Has one node whose in-degree is N-1 and whose out-degree is 0
- Other N-1 nodes have out-degree 1 and in-degree 0
- Network Centralization = (N * D – m) / ((N-1)(N-2)) where N is the number of nodes, D is the max degree whether that is in or out, and m is the number of edges
- A star network of size N (nodes)
For more information:
- http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/nettext/C10_Centrality.html#Freeman
- http://sna.cs.ccu.edu.tw/centrality_slide.pdf
References to use of this measure in literature:
- Collaboration and Integration of Community-Based Health and Human Services in a Nonprofit Managed Care System
- Interorganization Relationships Among HIV/AIDS Service Organizations in Baltimore: A Network Analysis
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Cheryl Alexander, Marina Piazza, Debra Mekos, Thomas Valente, Peers, schools, and adolescent cigarette smoking, Journal of Adolescent Health, Volume 29, Issue 1, July 2001, Pages 22-30, ISSN 1054-139X, DOI: 10.1016/S1054-139X(01)00210-5.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6T80-43B290W-4/2/8290dfdd3eb3d2e76e0fc7ec07681abd)