TOPSIS centrality is a hybrid centrality measure that ranks nodes based on their similarity to an ideal solution using the TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) approach [2]. Let \(R\) denote the normalized \(N \times m\) decision matrix, where each entry characterizes the normalized influence of a node with respect to \(m\) centrality metrics. Du et al. [2] consider \(m=3\) (degree, closeness and betweenness/eigenvector centralities).
The positive ideal solution \(A^{+}\) and negative ideal solution \(A^{-}\) are defined as
\[
A^{+} = [\max_{i} w_1 r_{i1}, \dots, \max_{i} w_m r_{im}], \quad
A^{-} = [\min_{i} w_1 r_{i1}, \dots, \min_{i} w_m r_{im}],
\]
where \(w_j\) is the weight of the \(j\)-th centrality metric (e.g., \(w_j = 1/m\) for equal weighting).
The TOPSIS centrality of node \(i\) is then given by its relative closeness to the ideal solution:
\[
c_{\mathrm{TOPSIS}}(i) = \frac{S_i^{-}}{S_i^{-} + S_i^{+}},
\]
where \(S_i^{+}\) and \(S_i^{-}\) are the Euclidean distances from node \(i\) to the positive and negative ideal solutions, respectively:
\[
S_i^{+} = \sqrt{\sum_{j=1}^m (A_j^{+} - w_j r_{ij})^2}, \quad
S_i^{-} = \sqrt{\sum_{j=1}^m (A_j^{-} - w_j r_{ij})^2}.
\]
Nodes with higher TOPSIS centrality scores are simultaneously closer to the positive ideal solution and farther from the negative ideal solution, reflecting high overall importance across the selected centrality metrics.

References

[1] Shvydun, S. (2025). Zoo of Centralities: Encyclopedia of Node Metrics in Complex Networks. arXiv: 2511.05122 https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2511.05122
[2] Du, Y., Gao, C., Hu, Y., Mahadevan, S., & Deng, Y. (2014). A new method of identifying influential nodes in complex networks based on TOPSIS. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 399, 57-69. doi: 10.1016/j.physa.2013.12.031.