Community detection by graph Voronoi diagrams
This is a modal window.
The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.
Formal Metadata
Title |
| |
Title of Series | ||
Number of Parts | 49 | |
Author | ||
License | CC Attribution 3.0 Unported: You are free to use, adapt and copy, distribute and transmit the work or content in adapted or unchanged form for any legal purpose as long as the work is attributed to the author in the manner specified by the author or licensor. | |
Identifiers | 10.5446/38708 (DOI) | |
Publisher | ||
Release Date | ||
Language |
Content Metadata
Subject Area | ||
Genre | ||
Abstract |
|
16
00:00
Electric power distributionSensorPlain bearingParticle physicsVideoComputer animation
00:03
Sensor
00:08
KopfstützeSpeckle imagingDrehmasseGroup delay and phase delayCrystal structureTransportPattern (sewing)Lunar nodeSensorDiagram
00:54
Cell (biology)TypesettingPartition of a set
01:00
TypesettingSEEDElectric generatorCell (biology)Diagram
01:05
RulerPartition of a setTypesettingPhotodissoziationElectric generator
01:16
Lunar nodeCosmic distance ladderLunar node
01:22
Lunar node
01:27
RulerEGPRSLunar nodeCell (biology)Electric generatorRulerComputer animation
01:35
Electronic mediaPlane (tool)Group delay and phase delayShip classDensityBlackTypesettingDiagram
01:57
Diagram
02:02
Black holeGreen politicsCell (biology)SEEDDensityComputer animation
02:13
YearSEEDMeasurementPlane (tool)Partition of a setComputer animationDiagram
02:32
Lunar nodeLastLunar nodeGenerationCartridge (firearms)Speise <Technik>SensorCosmic distance ladderKette <Zugmittel>Electric generatorDensityScale (map)MeasurementDiagram
03:05
EGPRSPagerElectric generatorLunar nodeCosmic distance ladderComputer animation
03:14
GeokoronaCylinder blockGeokorona
03:33
SensorBand gapQuality (business)Computer animation
03:50
Computer animation
03:58
Computer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:03
We present a novel community detection algorithm using graph Voronoi diagrams. Many complex systems can be represented as networks. Social networks, transportation networks, networks defined on biological systems are just a few examples. A common challenge in studying complex networks is the identification of community structure.
00:24
In general, communities are defined as groups of nodes which are more densely connected to each other than with the rest of the network. However, this is a qualitative description and no common mathematical definition has been agreed upon. There are many different approaches. Clustering problems similar to graph community detection also occur in
00:44
data mining, pattern recognition, machine learning and statistical data analysis. These problems, however, are defined on continuous metric spaces simplifying their formulation. Voronoi diagrams are a common way of partitioning metric spaces into regions or cells around a given set of points
01:03
called seeds or generator points such that each point of the space belongs to the cell of the closest seed. A similar partitioning can be applied on graphs if we set a few generator nodes, associate positive values to edges and define the distance between any pair of nodes as the shortest path connecting the two nodes.
01:22
We have shown that graph Voronoi diagrams can be used to detect communities. We need rules for setting the lengths of edges and choosing the generator nodes. Then communities can be identified as the graph Voronoi cells. To explain the basic concept of our algorithm, we illustrated on a clustering problem defined in Euclidean space.
01:44
Imagine a set of points thrown onto a two-dimensional plane, unevenly distributed to form local groups. The question is, how can we partition the space to separate these clusters? First, we define a square lattice across the plane and calculate the local density in each small square as the number of black dots included in it.
02:06
Green stands for low, red for high density values. Second, we choose squares with the largest density within the neighborhood of a given radius r as Voronoi cell seeds. In this example, choosing the radius to be of four units yields seven seeds and corresponding neighborhoods.
02:23
Third, we assign each point of the plane to the seed closest to it. This yields a Voronoi partitioning diagram. Similar principles can be applied to obtain graph partitioning. We define the distance measure as the inverse of the edge clustering coefficient. This coefficient is large when two nodes connected have many common neighbors.
02:43
For detecting communities, larger clustering coefficient will indicate smaller distance. In graphs, each node is characterized by the link density of its neighborhood. For generator points, we choose nodes with the highest local density within a region of a given radius.
03:01
Varying this radius allows community detection at different scales. Overall, the algorithm has three main steps. Assigning distances to edges, identifying generator nodes and constructing the Voronoi diagram. When applying the algorithm, the best strategy is to gradually increase the radius. For example, this is how the clustering changes in the American political Bloch sphere network as the radius grows.
03:26
We tested the algorithm on many other real and benchmark networks, also discussing its computational efficiency. In summary, our method shows that a topology-based metric on graphs can open new ways to approach graph community detection,
03:41
narrowing the gap between the relatively young field of community detection and the well-explored realm of cluster analysis in data mining.