566 research outputs found
On the influence of topological characteristics on robustness of complex networks
In this paper, we explore the relationship between the topological
characteristics of a complex network and its robustness to sustained targeted
attacks. Using synthesised scale-free, small-world and random networks, we look
at a number of network measures, including assortativity, modularity, average
path length, clustering coefficient, rich club profiles and scale-free exponent
(where applicable) of a network, and how each of these influence the robustness
of a network under targeted attacks. We use an established robustness
coefficient to measure topological robustness, and consider sustained targeted
attacks by order of node degree. With respect to scale-free networks, we show
that assortativity, modularity and average path length have a positive
correlation with network robustness, whereas clustering coefficient has a
negative correlation. We did not find any correlation between scale-free
exponent and robustness, or rich-club profiles and robustness. The robustness
of small-world networks on the other hand, show substantial positive
correlations with assortativity, modularity, clustering coefficient and average
path length. In comparison, the robustness of Erdos-Renyi random networks did
not have any significant correlation with any of the network properties
considered. A significant observation is that high clustering decreases
topological robustness in scale-free networks, yet it increases topological
robustness in small-world networks. Our results highlight the importance of
topological characteristics in influencing network robustness, and illustrate
design strategies network designers can use to increase the robustness of
scale-free and small-world networks under sustained targeted attacks
Identifying the community structure of the international food-trade multi network
Achieving international food security requires improved understanding of how
international trade networks connect countries around the world through the
import-export flows of food commodities. The properties of food trade networks
are still poorly documented, especially from a multi-network perspective. In
particular, nothing is known about the community structure of food networks,
which is key to understanding how major disruptions or 'shocks' would impact
the global food system. Here we find that the individual layers of this network
have densely connected trading groups, a consistent characteristic over the
period 2001 to 2011. We also fit econometric models to identify social,
economic and geographic factors explaining the probability that any two
countries are co-present in the same community. Our estimates indicate that the
probability of country pairs belonging to the same food trade community depends
more on geopolitical and economic factors -- such as geographical proximity and
trade agreements co-membership -- than on country economic size and/or income.
This is in sharp contrast with what we know about bilateral-trade determinants
and suggests that food country communities behave in ways that can be very
different from their non-food counterparts.Comment: 47 pages, 19 figure
Stochastic network formation and homophily
This is a chapter of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on the Economics of
Networks
Spatial effects in real networks: measures, null models, and applications
Spatially embedded networks are shaped by a combination of purely topological
(space-independent) and space-dependent formation rules. While it is quite easy
to artificially generate networks where the relative importance of these two
factors can be varied arbitrarily, it is much more difficult to disentangle
these two architectural effects in real networks. Here we propose a solution to
the problem by introducing global and local measures of spatial effects that,
through a comparison with adequate null models, effectively filter out the
spurious contribution of non-spatial constraints. Our filtering allows us to
consistently compare different embedded networks or different historical
snapshots of the same network. As a challenging application we analyse the
World Trade Web, whose topology is expected to depend on geographic distances
but is also strongly determined by non-spatial constraints (degree sequence or
GDP). Remarkably, we are able to detect weak but significant spatial effects
both locally and globally in the network, showing that our method succeeds in
retrieving spatial information even when non-spatial factors dominate. We
finally relate our results to the economic literature on gravity models and
trade globalization
Identifying and exploiting homogeneous communities in labeled networks
AbstractAttribute-aware community discovery aims to find well-connected communities that are also homogeneous w.r.t. the labels carried by the nodes. In this work, we address such a challenging task presenting Eva, an algorithmic approach designed to maximize a quality function tailoring both structural and homophilic clustering criteria. We evaluate Eva on several real-world labeled networks carrying both nominal and ordinal information, and we compare our approach to other classic and attribute-aware algorithms. Our results suggest that Eva is the only method, among the compared ones, able to discover homogeneous clusters without considerably degrading partition modularity.We also investigate two well-defined applicative scenarios to characterize better Eva: i) the clustering of a mental lexicon, i.e., a linguistic network modeling human semantic memory, and (ii) the node label prediction task, namely the problem of inferring the missing label of a node
Complex Network Analysis of Crypto Currencies
Analysis of the traditional currencies is not easy as the transactions are not centralized but rather take place over a large number of banks and commercial entities. Digital crypto currencies, however, require a public ledger to work. A crypto currency is a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure the trans- actions and to control the creation of new units. In this thesis, we analyze some of the popular crypto currencies. As the transaction data of crypto currencies are publicly available, we construct a network of transactions and extract the time and date of each payment for the analyzed crypto currencies. We investigate the structure of transaction network by measuring the network characteristics. In par- ticular, we compare the evolution of Bitcoin and Litecoin currency systems, two of the currently most popular systems; analyze the wealth correlation with degree distribution for Bitcoin and litecoin; and investigate the transactions by the top 100 richest people in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Dogecoin, Peercoin, and Namecoin crypto currencies. Additionally, as the price of digital currencies are highly volatile, we perform a regression analysis on factors that affect the price of the Bitcoin currency in USD and derive a model with the factors that affects Bitcoin price
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