Optimal defense resource allocation in scale-free networks

The robustness research of networked systems has drawn widespread attention in the past decade, and one of the central topics is to protect the network from external attacks through allocating appropriate defense resource to different nodes. In this paper, we apply a specific particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to optimize the defense resource allocation in scale-free networks. Results reveal that PSO based resource allocation shows a higher robustness than other resource allocation strategies such as uniform, degree-proportional, and betweenness-proportional allocation strategies. Furthermore, we find that assigning less resource to middle-degree nodes under small-scale attack while more resource to low degree nodes under large-scale attack is conductive to improving the network robustness. Our work provides an insight into the optimal defense resource allocation pattern in scale free networks and is helpful for designing a more robust network. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.