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Extracting Meaning From the Structure of Networks
Posted by
timothy
on Sat May 03, 2008 03:43 PM
from the which-outhouse-is-on-top dept.
from the which-outhouse-is-on-top dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Networks are used to represent the structure of complex systems, including the Internet or social networks, but often these descriptions are biased or incomplete. Now, researchers at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) have shown that it's possible to extract automatically the hierarchical structure of networks. The researchers say their results 'suggest that hierarchy is a central organizing principle of complex networks, capable of offering insight into many network phenomena.' They also think that their algorithms can be applied to almost every kind of networks, from biochemical networks (protein interaction networks, metabolic networks or genetic regulatory networks) to communities in social networks. But read more for additional references and some pictures about hierarchical networks and their applications."
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Omygosh what baloney (Score:1, Funny)
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Let me see... *tap tap tap* .. hmmm...
.. Computer says no I'm afraid.
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Skeptics and arrogance. (Score:3, Informative)
The thing we should all be 'shocked' by is the number of so called geeks who dismiss genuine science/math with nothing more than vauge handwaves and ad-homs. I think it might be connected to a general lack of understanding of scientific skepticisim [wikipedia.org] or perhaps it's just plain old arrogance.
The novel finding in the paper is that they can use the properties of networks to automatically predict mis
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So, to the P&GP: enough with vague denunciations. If you have a problem
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Roland the Plogger again (Score:4, Informative)
As is typical of a Roland the Plogger article, there's no link to the original article, but there's a link to his ad-laden blog. Here's the abstract [nanounion.net]:
Hierarchical structure and the prediction of missing links in networks
Nature 453, 98 (2008). doi:10.1038/nature06830
Authors: Aaron Clauset, Cristopher Moore & M. E. J. Newman
Networks have in recent years emerged as an invaluable tool for describing and quantifying complex systems in many branches of science. Recent studies suggest that networks often exhibit hierarchical organization, in which vertices divide into groups that further subdivide into groups of groups, and so forth over multiple scales. In many cases the groups are found to correspond to known functional units, such as ecological niches in food webs, modules in biochemical networks (protein interaction networks, metabolic networks or genetic regulatory networks) or communities in social networks. Here we present a general technique for inferring hierarchical structure from network data and show that the existence of hierarchy can simultaneously explain and quantitatively reproduce many commonly observed topological properties of networks, such as right-skewed degree distributions, high clustering coefficients and short path lengths. We further show that knowledge of hierarchical structure can be used to predict missing connections in partly known networks with high accuracy, and for more general network structures than competing techniques. Taken together, our results suggest that hierarchy is a central organizing principle of complex networks, capable of offering insight into many network phenomena.
So now, unlike Roland, we now have a clue what's being talked about. It's a scheme for finding some structure in networks and inferring what links might be missing.
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The problem is that the Slashdot article has links to places that get Roland the Plogger ad revenue, but doesn't have a link to the original paper. This is typical Roland the Plogger behavior.
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And this is the point where any sensible person would get a distinct paranoid feeling. It's not hard to imagine how this might be misused.
Thus, I have a large number of connections to other software developers. I also have a lot of connections to other musicians. I have a CS degree from the U of Wisc
A more rational world (Score:3, Insightful)
Parinoia is an ally of irrationality.
Your argument boils down to "a tool can be used for good or evil", now since good and evil are subjective that reduces to "a tool can be used". Taken in the context of your post, this implies you are a Ludite but I don't think you are since a Ludite would not have the means to post on slashdot, ergo your post is irrational not the world.
"It's not hard to imagine how this might be misused [by the US administra
Pencilnecked foureyed plagiarist (Score:1)
Nature? (Score:1, Offtopic)
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You know, like we used to have [a filter] for Jon Katz? So we don't have to even see anything he submits, since it's mostly old news or just recycled from a more credible source?
I was about to take offence at that statement, but then I realized I'm not Roland Pipe.. pip.. something.
But I had to laugh at the title. The meaning of the structure of networks is a stupid idea. The purpose maybe, the philosophy behind the structure maybe. But the meaning of? Go ask a Dadaist.
Re:Can we get a Roland filter? (Score:4, Interesting)
In the context of the research (using known parts of a network's structure to predict unknown parts), I don't think the word "meaning" is out of place at all. A hierarchical clustering algorithm will extract some kind of hierarchy from any network you throw at it - but does that hierarchy mean anything? Does it contain information? This new research suggests that, for certain kinds of network, the extracted hierarchy is meaningful, because it allows us to make predictions about unknown parts of the network that we could not make without first extracting the hierarchy.
That's actually quite a profound discovery, because in the last ten years, complex networks (especially small-world and scale-free networks) have been held up as models of natural decentralisation and non-hierarchical self-organisation in many fields, from ecology to politics to communications to epidemiology. If such networks turn out to contain meaningful hierarchies (i.e. hierarchies that actually tell us something about how they function) then much of the rhetoric about complex systems will be turned on its head.
Parent
Article PDF (Score:3, Informative)
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I've having trouble seeing meat there, however. I.e., I haven't detected enough detail to tell me what to think about the generality of their claims.
CAM
Piqued interest (Score:1)
Is the hierarchical character intrinsic? (Score:2)
Danger of becoming another quantum theory (Score:1)
I'm just imagining we'll have researchers wanting venture capital to create networks that can re-organise themselves simply by changing the hierarchy model used (perspective)
The danger I see in this is people confusing the network in reality with a model of how we might perceive it, or perhaps of people being confused long enough to cough up the dough.
or perhaps people thinking that t
Aren't hierarchies old hat? Plus another example. (Score:1)