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Using Community Structure Information to Improve Complex Networks Robustness

Authors:
Cinara Guellner Ghedini
Carlos Henrique Costa Ribeiro

Keywords: attacks and failures tolerance; community structure; adaptive mechanisms

Abstract:
This paper discusses the relation between two emergent features of most complex networks: community structure and high sensitivity to attacks. More specifically, we consider how the former can support mechanisms to mitigate the latter. The main point stressed here is that information about the community structure can be useful to detect and mitigate vulnerable topological configurations w.r.t network connectivity. We demonstrate this through an attack and failure protocol that considers the importance of central nodes regarding their roles connecting nodes, either inside or outside communities. We also propose local mechanisms for evaluating topological configurations based on community information. The strategy for minimizing the impact of central node failures to network connectivity relies on the creation of redundant paths between communities. The networks evaluated exhibited a significant improvement in their robustness regarding connectivity maintenance, being almost unaffected by failures of central nodes. The experimental benchmark encompasses both real complex network datasets and networks generated by well-established construction methods.

Pages: 8 to 14

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2015

Publication date: April 19, 2015

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-3700

ISBN: 978-1-61208-401-5

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Dates: from April 19, 2015 to April 24, 2015