  The assessment of node importance has been a fundamental issue in the
research of complex networks. In this paper, we propose to use the
Shannon-Parry measure (SPM) to evaluate the importance of a node
quantitatively, because SPM is the stationary distribution of the most
unprejudiced random walk on the network. We demonstrate the accuracy and
robustness of SPM compared with several popular methods in the Zachary karate
club network and three toy networks. We apply SPM to analyze the city
importance of China Railways High-speed (CRH) network, and obtain reasonable
results. Since SPM can be used effectively in weighted and directed network, we
believe it is a relevant method to identify key nodes in networks.
