J4 ›› 2010, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (5): 916-920+965.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1001-2400.2010.05.025

• Original Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Spectral approach to finding communities in networks based on the modularity density

FU Li-dong1,2;GAO Lin1   

  1. (1. School of Computer Science and Technology, Xidian Univ., Xi'an  710071, China;
    2. The School of Computer, Xi'an Univ. of Science and Tech., Xi'an  710054, China)
  • Received:2009-10-12 Online:2010-10-20 Published:2010-10-11
  • Contact: FU Li-dong E-mail:fulidong2005@163.com

Abstract:

To detect the community structure in complex networks effectively, the modularity density function (D value) is optimized by the optimizing process, how the optimization of the D function can be reformulated as a spectral relaxation problem is proved and a new spectral clustering algorithm is proposed. The algorithm allows automatic selection of the number of community structures. The approach is illustrated and compared with the direct kernel approach based on the modularity density and spectral clustering based on modularity (Q) by using a classic computer generated networks and a real world network. Experimental results show the significance of the proposed approach, particularly, in the cases when the community structure is obscure.

Key words: complex networks, community structures, modularity density, spectral approach