Edge Importance in Complex Networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Noschese, Silvia, Reichel, Lothar
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Noschese, Silvia
Reichel, Lothar
author_facet Noschese, Silvia
Reichel, Lothar
contents Complex networks are made up of vertices and edges. The latter connect the vertices. There are several ways to measure the importance of the vertices, e.g., by counting the number of edges that start or end at each vertex, or by using the subgraph centrality of the vertices. It is more difficult to assess the importance of the edges. One approach is to consider the line graph associated with the given network and determine the importance of the vertices of the line graph, but this is fairly complicated except for small networks. This paper compares two approaches to estimate the importance of edges of medium-sized to large networks. One approach computes partial derivatives of the total communicability of the weights of the edges, where a partial derivative of large magnitude indicates that the corresponding edge may be important. Our second approach computes the Perron sensitivity of the edges. A high sensitivity signals that the edge may be important. The performance of these methods and some computational aspects are discussed. Applications of interest include to determine whether a network can be replaced by a network with fewer edges with about the same communicability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_16862
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Edge Importance in Complex Networks
Noschese, Silvia
Reichel, Lothar
Physics and Society
Social and Information Networks
05C82, 15A16, 65F15
Complex networks are made up of vertices and edges. The latter connect the vertices. There are several ways to measure the importance of the vertices, e.g., by counting the number of edges that start or end at each vertex, or by using the subgraph centrality of the vertices. It is more difficult to assess the importance of the edges. One approach is to consider the line graph associated with the given network and determine the importance of the vertices of the line graph, but this is fairly complicated except for small networks. This paper compares two approaches to estimate the importance of edges of medium-sized to large networks. One approach computes partial derivatives of the total communicability of the weights of the edges, where a partial derivative of large magnitude indicates that the corresponding edge may be important. Our second approach computes the Perron sensitivity of the edges. A high sensitivity signals that the edge may be important. The performance of these methods and some computational aspects are discussed. Applications of interest include to determine whether a network can be replaced by a network with fewer edges with about the same communicability.
title Edge Importance in Complex Networks
topic Physics and Society
Social and Information Networks
05C82, 15A16, 65F15
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.16862