Vertex Centrality Reconstruction in an Inverse Problem for Information Diffusion

Abstract

We consider an inverse problem in information diffusion modeled by random walks on combinatorial graphs. The problem concerns reconstruction of vertex centrality from the distribution of the first passage times observed on a subset of vertices. We adapt the boundary control method to obtain a direct algorithm that computes the unobserved vertex centrality. The algorithm is numerically implemented and validated on small graphs.

20 pages, 6 figures