5,731 research outputs found
Detecting hierarchical and overlapping network communities using locally optimal modularity changes
Agglomerative clustering is a well established strategy for identifying
communities in networks. Communities are successively merged into larger
communities, coarsening a network of actors into a more manageable network of
communities. The order in which merges should occur is not in general clear,
necessitating heuristics for selecting pairs of communities to merge. We
describe a hierarchical clustering algorithm based on a local optimality
property. For each edge in the network, we associate the modularity change for
merging the communities it links. For each community vertex, we call the
preferred edge that edge for which the modularity change is maximal. When an
edge is preferred by both vertices that it links, it appears to be the optimal
choice from the local viewpoint. We use the locally optimal edges to define the
algorithm: simultaneously merge all pairs of communities that are connected by
locally optimal edges that would increase the modularity, redetermining the
locally optimal edges after each step and continuing so long as the modularity
can be further increased. We apply the algorithm to model and empirical
networks, demonstrating that it can efficiently produce high-quality community
solutions. We relate the performance and implementation details to the
structure of the resulting community hierarchies. We additionally consider a
complementary local clustering algorithm, describing how to identify
overlapping communities based on the local optimality condition.Comment: 10 pages; 4 tables, 3 figure
The Network Improvement Problem for Equilibrium Routing
In routing games, agents pick their routes through a network to minimize
their own delay. A primary concern for the network designer in routing games is
the average agent delay at equilibrium. A number of methods to control this
average delay have received substantial attention, including network tolls,
Stackelberg routing, and edge removal.
A related approach with arguably greater practical relevance is that of
making investments in improvements to the edges of the network, so that, for a
given investment budget, the average delay at equilibrium in the improved
network is minimized. This problem has received considerable attention in the
literature on transportation research and a number of different algorithms have
been studied. To our knowledge, none of this work gives guarantees on the
output quality of any polynomial-time algorithm. We study a model for this
problem introduced in transportation research literature, and present both
hardness results and algorithms that obtain nearly optimal performance
guarantees.
- We first show that a simple algorithm obtains good approximation guarantees
for the problem. Despite its simplicity, we show that for affine delays the
approximation ratio of 4/3 obtained by the algorithm cannot be improved.
- To obtain better results, we then consider restricted topologies. For
graphs consisting of parallel paths with affine delay functions we give an
optimal algorithm. However, for graphs that consist of a series of parallel
links, we show the problem is weakly NP-hard.
- Finally, we consider the problem in series-parallel graphs, and give an
FPTAS for this case.
Our work thus formalizes the intuition held by transportation researchers
that the network improvement problem is hard, and presents topology-dependent
algorithms that have provably tight approximation guarantees.Comment: 27 pages (including abstract), 3 figure
Convexity and Robustness of Dynamic Traffic Assignment and Freeway Network Control
We study the use of the System Optimum (SO) Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA)
problem to design optimal traffic flow controls for freeway networks as modeled
by the Cell Transmission Model, using variable speed limit, ramp metering, and
routing. We consider two optimal control problems: the DTA problem, where
turning ratios are part of the control inputs, and the Freeway Network Control
(FNC), where turning ratios are instead assigned exogenous parameters. It is
known that relaxation of the supply and demand constraints in the cell-based
formulations of the DTA problem results in a linear program. However, solutions
to the relaxed problem can be infeasible with respect to traffic dynamics.
Previous work has shown that such solutions can be made feasible by proper
choice of ramp metering and variable speed limit control for specific traffic
networks. We extend this procedure to arbitrary networks and provide insight
into the structure and robustness of the proposed optimal controllers. For a
network consisting only of ordinary, merge, and diverge junctions, where the
cells have linear demand functions and affine supply functions with identical
slopes, and the cost is the total traffic volume, we show, using the maximum
principle, that variable speed limits are not needed in order to achieve
optimality in the FNC problem, and ramp metering is sufficient. We also prove
bounds on perturbation of the controlled system trajectory in terms of
perturbations in initial traffic volume and exogenous inflows. These bounds,
which leverage monotonicity properties of the controlled trajectory, are shown
to be in close agreement with numerical simulation results
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