Stability in flux: community structure in dynamic networks |
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Authors: | John Bryden Sebastian Funk Nicholas Geard Seth Bullock Vincent A A Jansen |
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Affiliation: | 1School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK;2Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent''s Park, London NW1 4RY, UK;3School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK |
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Abstract: | The structure of many biological, social and technological systems can usefully be described in terms of complex networks. Although often portrayed as fixed in time, such networks are inherently dynamic, as the edges that join nodes are cut and rewired, and nodes themselves update their states. Understanding the structure of these networks requires us to understand the dynamic processes that create, maintain and modify them. Here, we build upon existing models of coevolving networks to characterize how dynamic behaviour at the level of individual nodes generates stable aggregate behaviours. We focus particularly on the dynamics of groups of nodes formed endogenously by nodes that share similar properties (represented as node state) and demonstrate that, under certain conditions, network modularity based on state compares well with network modularity based on topology. We show that if nodes rewire their edges based on fixed node states, the network modularity reaches a stable equilibrium which we quantify analytically. Furthermore, if node state is not fixed, but can be adopted from neighbouring nodes, the distribution of group sizes reaches a dynamic equilibrium, which remains stable even as the composition and identity of the groups change. These results show that dynamic networks can maintain the stable community structure that has been observed in many social and biological systems. |
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Keywords: | coevolutionary networks opinion formation modularity dynamic equilibrium protein–protein interaction |
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