Enhancing Stability and Assessing Uncertainty in Community Detection through a Consensus-based Approach

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Morea, Fabio, De Stefano, Domenico
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Morea, Fabio
De Stefano, Domenico
author_facet Morea, Fabio
De Stefano, Domenico
contents Complex data in social and natural sciences find effective representation through networks, wherein quantitative and categorical information can be associated with nodes and connecting edges. The internal structure of networks can be explored using unsupervised machine learning methods known as community detection algorithms. The process of community detection is inherently subject to uncertainty as algorithms utilize heuristic approaches and randomised procedures to explore vast solution spaces, resulting in non-deterministic outcomes and variability in detected communities across multiple runs. Moreover, many algorithms are not designed to identify outliers and may fail to take into account that a network is an unordered mathematical entity. The main aim of our work is to address these issues through a consensus-based approach by introducing a new framework called Consensus Community Detection (CCD). Our method can be applied to different community detection algorithms, allowing the quantification of uncertainty for the whole network as well as for each node, and providing three strategies for dealing with outliers: incorporate, highlight, or group. The effectiveness of our approach is evaluated on artificial benchmark networks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_02959
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enhancing Stability and Assessing Uncertainty in Community Detection through a Consensus-based Approach
Morea, Fabio
De Stefano, Domenico
Social and Information Networks
Applications
Complex data in social and natural sciences find effective representation through networks, wherein quantitative and categorical information can be associated with nodes and connecting edges. The internal structure of networks can be explored using unsupervised machine learning methods known as community detection algorithms. The process of community detection is inherently subject to uncertainty as algorithms utilize heuristic approaches and randomised procedures to explore vast solution spaces, resulting in non-deterministic outcomes and variability in detected communities across multiple runs. Moreover, many algorithms are not designed to identify outliers and may fail to take into account that a network is an unordered mathematical entity. The main aim of our work is to address these issues through a consensus-based approach by introducing a new framework called Consensus Community Detection (CCD). Our method can be applied to different community detection algorithms, allowing the quantification of uncertainty for the whole network as well as for each node, and providing three strategies for dealing with outliers: incorporate, highlight, or group. The effectiveness of our approach is evaluated on artificial benchmark networks.
title Enhancing Stability and Assessing Uncertainty in Community Detection through a Consensus-based Approach
topic Social and Information Networks
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.02959