Exploring Fusion Centrality in Developer Social Networks

Centrality analysis is pivotal for comprehending the dynamics within social networks. In the realm of developer social networks, it aims to identify the top k nodes or developers within the network. This paper introduces a novel centrality measure called fusion centrality, which expands upon traditional centrality metrics by emphasizing the integration and connectivity between diverse communities or groups of developers within the network. To assess both the global influence and local impact of developers, fusion centrality combines the local degree distribution of a node with its connections to other influential nodes across the entire network. This approach is bolstered by weighting coefficients <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$a$</tex> and β, which are used to calibrate the influence within the overall fusion centrality score. The findings underscore how fusion centrality can effectively pinpoint important nodes in the network. By employing various centrality measures, this framework enhances our understanding of network dynamics and supports strategic decision-making across different network applications.