English

Deciphering the global organization of clustering in real complex networks

Physics and Society 2014-10-21 v1 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks Social and Information Networks

Abstract

We uncover the global organization of clustering in real complex networks. As it happens with other fundamental properties of networks such as the degree distribution, we find that real networks are neither completely random nor ordered with respect to clustering, although they tend to be closer to maximally random architectures. We reach this conclusion by comparing the global structure of clustering in real networks with that in maximally random and in maximally ordered clustered graphs. The former are produced with an exponential random graph model that maintains correlations among adjacent edges at the minimum needed to conform with the expected clustering spectrum; the later with a random model that arranges triangles in cliques inducing highly ordered structures. To compare the global organization of clustering in real and model networks, we compute mm-core landscapes, where the mm-core is defined, akin to the kk-core, as the maximal subgraph with edges participating at least in mm triangles. This property defines a set of nested subgraphs that, contrarily to kk-cores, is able to distinguish between hierarchical and modular architectures. To visualize the mm-core decomposition we developed the LaNet-vi 3.0 tool.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1306.0112,
  title  = {Deciphering the global organization of clustering in real complex networks},
  author = {Pol Colomer-de-Simon and M. Angeles Serrano and Mariano G. Beiro and J. Ignacio Alvarez-Hamelin and Marian Boguna},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1306.0112},
  year   = {2014}
}