The overall Wiener index--a new tool for characterization of molecular topology.

Recently, the concept of overall connectivity of a graph G, TC(G), was introduced as the sum of vertex degrees of all subgraphs of G. The approach of more detailed characterization of molecular topology by accounting for all substructures is extended here to the concept of overall distance OW(G) of a graph G, defined as the sum of distances in all subgraphs of G, as well as the sum of eth-order terms, (e)OW(G), with e being the number of edges in the subgraph. Analytical expressions are presented for OW(G) of several basic classes of graphs. The overall distance is analyzed as a measure of topological complexity in acyclic and cyclic structures. The potential usefulness of the components of this generalized Wiener index in QSPR/QSAR is evaluated by its correlation with a number of properties of C3-C8 alkanes and by a favorable comparison with models based on molecular connectivity indices.