Interactive Visualization of Robustness Enhancement in Scale-free Networks with Limited Edge Addition (RENEA)

Error tolerance and attack vulnerability of scale-free networks are usually used to evaluate the robustness of these networks. While new forms of attacks are developed everyday to compromise infrastructures, service providers are expected to develop strategies to mitigate the risk of extreme failures. Recently, much work has been devoted to design networks with optimal robustness, whereas little attention has been paid to improve the robustness of existing ones. Herein we present RENEA, a method to improve the robustness of a scale-free network by adding a limited number of edges. While adding an edge to a network is an expensive task, our system, during each iteration, allows the user to select the best option based on the cost, amongst all proposed ones. The edge-addition interactions are performed through a visual user interface while the algorithm is running. RENEA is designed based on the evolution of the network’s largest component during a sequence of targeted attacks. Through experiments on synthetic and real-life data sets, we conclude that applying RENEA on a scale-free network while interacting with the user can significantly improve its attack survivability at the

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