Schaub Michael T, Delvenne Jean-Charles, Rosvall Martin, Lambiotte Renaud
1Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA, Cambridge, 02139 USA.
2ICTEAM, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, B-1348 Belgium.
Appl Netw Sci. 2017;2(1):4. doi: 10.1007/s41109-017-0023-6. Epub 2017 Feb 15.
Community detection, the decomposition of a graph into essential building blocks, has been a core research topic in network science over the past years. Since a precise notion of what constitutes a community has remained evasive, community detection algorithms have often been compared on benchmark graphs with a particular form of assortative community structure and classified based on the mathematical techniques they employ. However, this comparison can be misleading because apparent similarities in their mathematical machinery can disguise different goals and reasons for why we want to employ community detection in the first place. Here we provide a focused review of these different motivations that underpin community detection. This problem-driven classification is useful in applied network science, where it is important to select an appropriate algorithm for the given purpose. Moreover, highlighting the different facets of community detection also delineates the many lines of research and points out open directions and avenues for future research.
社区检测,即将图分解为基本构建块,在过去几年一直是网络科学的核心研究主题。由于构成社区的精确概念一直难以捉摸,社区检测算法通常在具有特定形式的 assortative 社区结构的基准图上进行比较,并根据它们所采用的数学技术进行分类。然而,这种比较可能会产生误导,因为它们数学机制中的明显相似性可能掩盖了我们最初想要使用社区检测的不同目标和原因。在这里,我们对支撑社区检测的这些不同动机进行了重点回顾。这种以问题为驱动的分类在应用网络科学中很有用,在应用网络科学中,为给定目的选择合适的算法很重要。此外,突出社区检测的不同方面也描绘了众多研究方向,并指出了未来研究的开放方向和途径。