Fractal Analysis of Complex Networks Based on the Resistance Distance Box-Covering Algorithm

The fractal property is one of the three fundamental topological features of complex networks, and revealing this interesting feature is of profound significance. The classical box-covering algorithm for calculating the fractal dimension adopts the conventional distance measure function, considering only the shortest path between nodes, which leads to ignoring a lot of local information, lack of interpretability between the nodes. To solve this problem, from the view of the resistance distance and the closeness of the connection between the nodes, proposed the Resistance Distance Box-covering Algorithm to analyze the fractal property of complex networks. By applying the proposed algorithm to two Newman-Watts small-world networks and three real complex networks, the experimental simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can perfectly observe the fractal property of the complex networks.