Limitation of multi-resolution methods in community detection

Ju Xiang and Ke Hu

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2012, vol. 391, issue 20, 4995-5003

Abstract: Community detection is of considerable interest for analyzing the structure and function of complex networks. Recently, a type of multi-resolution methods in community detection was introduced, which can adjust the resolution of modularity by modifying the modularity function with tunable resolution parameters, such as those proposed by Arenas, Fernández and Gómez and by Reichardt and Bornholdt. In this paper, we show that these methods still have the intrinsic limitation–large communities may have been split before small communities become visible–because it is at the cost of the community stability that the enhancement of the modularity resolution is obtained. The theoretical results indicated that the limitation depends on the degree of interconnectedness of small communities and the difference between the sizes of small communities and of large communities, while independent of the size of the whole network. These findings have been confirmed in several example networks, where communities even are full-completed sub-graphs.

Keywords: Complex networks; Community detection; Modularity; Resolution limit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:391:y:2012:i:20:p:4995-5003

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2012.05.006

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