Unknown

Dataset Information

0

Using arborescences to estimate hierarchicalness in directed complex networks.


ABSTRACT: Complex networks are a useful tool for the understanding of complex systems. One of the emerging properties of such systems is their tendency to form hierarchies: networks can be organized in levels, with nodes in each level exerting control on the ones beneath them. In this paper, we focus on the problem of estimating how hierarchical a directed network is. We propose a structural argument: a network has a strong top-down organization if we need to delete only few edges to reduce it to a perfect hierarchy-an arborescence. In an arborescence, all edges point away from the root and there are no horizontal connections, both characteristics we desire in our idealization of what a perfect hierarchy requires. We test our arborescence score in synthetic and real-world directed networks against the current state of the art in hierarchy detection: agony, flow hierarchy and global reaching centrality. These tests highlight that our arborescence score is intuitive and we can visualize it; it is able to better distinguish between networks with and without a hierarchical structure; it agrees the most with the literature about the hierarchy of well-studied complex systems; and it is not just a score, but it provides an overall scheme of the underlying hierarchy of any directed complex network.

SUBMITTER: Coscia M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5790222 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

altmetric image

Publications

Using arborescences to estimate hierarchicalness in directed complex networks.

Coscia Michele M  

PloS one 20180130 1


Complex networks are a useful tool for the understanding of complex systems. One of the emerging properties of such systems is their tendency to form hierarchies: networks can be organized in levels, with nodes in each level exerting control on the ones beneath them. In this paper, we focus on the problem of estimating how hierarchical a directed network is. We propose a structural argument: a network has a strong top-down organization if we need to delete only few edges to reduce it to a perfec  ...[more]

Similar Datasets

| S-EPMC8216510 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7581767 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5784837 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7038820 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5662738 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5374550 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC2585631 | biostudies-other
| S-EPMC3587567 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5103263 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC4747761 | biostudies-literature