On approximate equivalence of modularity, D and non-negative matrix factorization

Community structures detection is one of the fundamental problems in complex network analysis towards understanding the topology structures of the network and the functions of it. Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) is a widely used method for community detection, and modularity Q and modularity density D are criteria to evaluate the quality of community structures. In this paper, we establish the connections between Q, D and NMF for the first time. Q maximization can be approximately reformulated under the framework of NMF with Frobenius norm, especially when $n$ is large, and D maximization can also be reformulated under the framework of NMF. Q minimization can be reformulated under the framework of NMF with Kullback-Leibler divergence. We propose new methods for community structures detection based on the above findings, and the experimental results on synthetic networks demonstrate their effectiveness.