The origin of preferential attachment and the generalized preferential attachment for weighted networks

Abstract

In this paper, we first discuss the origin of preferential attachment. Then we establish the generalized preferential attachment which has two new properties; first, it encapsulates both the topological and weight aspects of a network, which makes it is neither entirely degree preferential nor entirely weight preferential. Second, it can tell us not only the chance that each already-existing vertex being connected but also how much weight each new edge has. The generalized preferential attachment can generate four power-law distributions, besides the three for vertex degrees, vertex strengths, and edge weights, it yield a new power-law distribution for the subgraph degrees.