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Attack induced cascading breakdown in complex networks

Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society volume 13, pages 67–76 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The possibility that a complex network can be brought down by attack on a single or very few nodes through the process of cascading failures is of significant concern. In this paper, we investigate cascading failures in complex networks and uncover a phase-transition phenomenon in terms of the key parameter characterizing the node capacity. For parameter value below the phase-transition point, cascading failures can cause the network to disintegrate almost entirely. Then we show how to design networks of finite capacity that are safe against cascading breakdown. Our theory yields estimates for the maximally achievable network integrity via controlled removal of a small set of low-degree nodes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of São Paulo, Av. Trabalhador São-Carlense, 400, P.O.Box: 668, Zip 13560-970, São Carlos, SP, Brazil

    Liang Zhao & Thiago Henrique Cupertino

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, Arizona State University, 85287, Tempe, Arizona, USA

    Kwangho Park & Ying-Cheng Lai

Authors
  1. Liang Zhao
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  2. Kwangho Park
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  3. Ying-Cheng Lai
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  4. Thiago Henrique Cupertino
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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Zhao, L., Park, K., Lai, YC. et al. Attack induced cascading breakdown in complex networks. J Braz Comp Soc 13, 67–76 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03192546

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