Patent ID: 8456472

Claim:
A computer program product comprising a tangible computer readable recordable storage medium including computer useable program code for ranking nodes in a graph, the computer program product including: computer useable program code for computing resultant path strength between each pair of nodes in a polynomial time; computer useable program code for determining a first node based on resultant path strength such that total path strength to the first node is a maximum value, wherein the resultant path strength is the sum total of strengths of all possible paths in the graph between two nodes, and wherein the first node is the node that is connected to a maximum number of nodes in the graph, said determining comprising: determining a sequence (S) of nodes (i), S={i 1 , i 2 , i 3 , . . . , i n }, such that ∑ p ⁢ W ^ i p ⁢ i p + 1 is a maximum value, wherein Ŵ is a matrix representing connectivity between nodes in the graph, and p represents node position in the graph; computer useable program code for iteratively determining a next node from the first node to which the resultant path strength is a maximum value and the node is not visited, said iteratively determining being carried out until completion of the path; and computer useable program code for providing each determined node a unique rank value, and ranking the nodes in an order determined by the unique rank value of each node.