Time Scale Degree Centrality: A Time-Variant Approach to Degree Centrality Measures

In this paper, we introduce a time-variant approach to degree centrality measure - time scale degree centrality (TSDC), which considers both presence and duration of links among actors within a network, whereas, the traditional degree centrality approach regards only the presence or absence of links. We illustrate the difference between traditional and time scale degree centrality measure by applying these two approaches to explore the impact of ´degree´ attributes of doctor-patient network that evolves during patient hospitalization period on the hospital length of stay (LOS) both in macro- and micro-level. In macro-level, both the traditional and time-scale approaches to degree centrality can explain the relationship between the ´degree´ attribute of doctor-patient network and LOS. However, at micro-level or small cluster level, TSDC provides better explanation while traditional degree centrality approach is impotent to explain the relationship between them.