English

Higher-order organization of complex networks

Social and Information Networks 2018-01-08 v1 Discrete Mathematics Physics and Society

Abstract

Networks are a fundamental tool for understanding and modeling complex systems in physics, biology, neuroscience, engineering, and social science. Many networks are known to exhibit rich, lower-order connectivity patterns that can be captured at the level of individual nodes and edges. However, higher-order organization of complex networks---at the level of small network subgraphs---remains largely unknown. Here we develop a generalized framework for clustering networks based on higher-order connectivity patterns. This framework provides mathematical guarantees on the optimality of obtained clusters and scales to networks with billions of edges. The framework reveals higher-order organization in a number of networks including information propagation units in neuronal networks and hub structure in transportation networks. Results show that networks exhibit rich higher-order organizational structures that are exposed by clustering based on higher-order connectivity patterns.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1612.08447,
  title  = {Higher-order organization of complex networks},
  author = {Austin R. Benson and David F. Gleich and Jure Leskovec},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1612.08447},
  year   = {2018}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T17:34:41.465Z