Identifying Key Opinion Leaders in Evolving Co-authorship Networks - A Descriptive Study of a Proxy Variable for Betweenness Centrality

Many researchers identify influentials in a network by their betweenness centrality. Whereas betweenness centrality can be calculated in small, static, connected networks, its calculation in complex, large, evolving networks frequently causes some problems. Hence, we propose a proxy variable for a node’s betweenness centrality that can be calculated in large, evolving networks. We illustrate our approach using the example of Key Opinion Leader (KOL) identification in an evolving co-authorship network of researchers who have published articles about PCSK9 (a protein that regulates cholesterol levels).

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