An improved algorithm for finding community structure in networks with an application to IPv6 backbone network

Abstract

The discovery of community structure in a large number of complex networks has attracted lots of interest in recent years. One category of algorithms for detecting community structure, the divisive algorithms, has been proposed and improved impressively. In this paper, we propose an improved divisive algorithm, the basic idea of which is to take more than one parameters into consideration to describe the networks from different points of view. Although its basic idea appears to be a little simple, it is shown experimentally that it outperforms some other algorithms when it is applied to the networks with a relatively obscure community structure. We also demonstrate its effectiveness by applying it to IPv6 backbone network. The communities detected by our algorithm indicate that although underdeveloped compared with IPv4 network, IPv6 network has already exhibited a preliminary community structure. Moreover, our algorithm can be further extended and adapted in the future. In fact, it suggests a simple yet possibly efficient way to improve algorithms.