Cartography of complex networks: modules and universal roles

By Roger Guimerà, Luís A. Nunes Amaral. Journal of statistical mechanics, 2005

778 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Integrative approaches to the study of complex systems demand that one knows the manner in which the parts comprising the system are connected. The structure of the complex network defining the interactions provides insight into the function and evolution of the components of the system. Unfortunately, the large size and intricacy of these networks implies that such insight is usually difficult to extract. Here, we propose a method that allows one to systematically extract and display information contained in complex networks. Specifically, we demonstrate that one can (i) find modules in complex networks and (ii) classify nodes into universal roles according to their pattern of within- and between-module connections. The method thus yields a ‘cartographic representation’ of complex networks.

Subfields: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/97671ccc37574f6064a7513a155d307e2e7983a8

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Citations in the corpus

Weight-conserving characterization of complex functional brain networks (2011, result): “Our measures of centrality have clear parallels, but also important differences, with the commonly used “cartographic” classification of node roles in complex networks (Guimera and Amaral, 2005).”
Analysis of the structure of complex networks at different resolution levels (2007, methodology): “Heuristics for the optimization of modularity [17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22] have become the only feasible (in computational time), and accurate method to detect modular structure up to now.”
Functional cartography of complex metabolic networks (2005, methodology): “Our approach is based on the idea that nodes with the same role should have similar topological propertie”
Decreased segregation of brain systems across the healthy adult lifespan (2014, methodology): “Older Adults (65-89) Older adults with better memory performance and higher association system segregation”
Molecular ecological network analyses (2012, methodology): “The algorithm of simulated annealing approach usually produces the best separation of the modules by direct maximization of M [58].”
Classes of complex networks defined by role-to-role connectivity profiles. (2007, methodology): “two strict conditions is fulﬁlled: (i) the network lacks a modular structure 9,10,11,12,13,14 , or (ii) the network has a modular structure but (ii.a) all modules were formed according to the same mechanisms, and therefore have similar properties, and (ii.b) the interface between modules is…”
Biodiversity, species interactions and ecological networks in a fragmented world (2012, background): “Roles can then be assigned to species and fragments according to their topological role and position in the network (Carstensen and Olesen, 2009; Guimerà and Amaral, 2005).”
Community Structure in Graphs (2007, methodology): “A nice classiﬁcation has been proposed by Guimer´a and Amaral [12, 97].”