Community detection by signaling on complex networks

Based on a signaling process of complex networks, a method for identification of community structure is proposed. For a network with n nodes, every node is assumed to be a system which can send, receive, and record signals. Each node is taken as the initial signal source to excite the whole network one time. Then the source node is associated with an n-dimensional vector which records the effects of the signaling process. By this process, the topological relationship of nodes on the network could be transferred into a geometrical structure of vectors in n-dimensional Euclidean space. Then the best partition of groups is determined by F statistics and the final community structure is given by the K-means clustering method. This method can detect community structure both in unweighted and weighted networks. It has been applied to ad hoc networks and some real networks such as the Zachary karate club network and football team network. The results indicate that the algorithm based on the signaling process works well.