A game-theoretic framework to identify overlapping communities in social networks

In this paper, we introduce a game-theoretic framework to address the community detection problem based on the structures of social networks. We formulate the dynamics of community formation as a strategic game called community formation game: Given an underlying social graph, we assume that each node is a selfish agent who selects communities to join or leave based on her own utility measurement. A community structure can be interpreted as an equilibrium of this game. We formulate the agents' utility by the combination of a gain function and a loss function. We allow each agents to select multiple communities, which naturally captures the concept of "overlapping communities". We propose a gain function based on the modularity concept introduced by Newman (2006), and a simple loss function that reflects the intrinsic costs incurred when people join the communities. We conduct extensive experiments under this framework, and our results show that our algorithm is effective...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: DATAMINE
• Authors: Wei Chen, Zhenming Liu, Xiaorui Sun, Yajun Wang
• Keywords: Community, Community Detection Problem, Community Formation, DATAMINE 2010