Katz centrality computes the relative influence of a node within a network by measuring the number of the immediate neighbors (first degree nodes) and also all other nodes in the network that connect to the node under consideration through these immediate neighbors. Connections made with distant neighbors are, however, penalized by an attenuation factor \alpha. Each path or connection between a pair of nodes is assigned a weight determined by \alpha and the distance between nodes as \alpha^d.
