Structural Robustness of Unidirectional Dependent Networks Based on Attack Strategies

Current works have been focused on the robustness of single network and interdependent networks. However, to be more correct, the dependence of many real systems should be described as unidirectional. To study the structural robustness of networks with unidirectional dependence, the dependent networks named UDN are proposed, the description of the propagation of failures in them is given, as well as the introduction of the attack strategies that the probability of a node being attacked depends on the degree (DP attack) or on the betweenness (BP attack) of this node. The simulated results show that UDN is more vulnerable to BP attack when is first attacked a node with high betweenness. Compared with the Interacting Networks (IN), the UDN is more fragile under the two attack’s strategies.