Developments in the theory of randomized shortest paths with a comparison of graph node distances

TL;DR

This paper develops and compares a family of graph node distances, including the new free energy distance, which better captures global graph structure and improves clustering and classification tasks.

Contribution

It introduces the free energy distance, a new metric derived from randomized shortest paths, with straightforward computation and enhanced properties for graph analysis.

Findings

Free energy distance performs best in clustering tasks.

Parametrized distances outperform traditional measures.

Closed-form computation simplifies practical application.

Abstract

There have lately been several suggestions for parametrized distances on a graph that generalize the shortest path distance and the commute time or resistance distance. The need for developing such distances has risen from the observation that the above-mentioned common distances in many situations fail to take into account the global structure of the graph. In this article, we develop the theory of one family of graph node distances, known as the randomized shortest path dissimilarity, which has its foundation in statistical physics. We show that the randomized shortest path dissimilarity can be easily computed in closed form for all pairs of nodes of a graph. Moreover, we come up with a new definition of a distance measure that we call the free energy distance. The free energy distance can be seen as an upgrade of the randomized shortest path dissimilarity as it defines a metric, in addition to which it satisfies the graph-geodetic property. The derivation and computation of the free energy distance are also straightforward. We then make a comparison between a set of generalized distances that interpolate between the shortest path distance and the commute time, or resistance distance. This comparison focuses on the applicability of the distances in graph node clustering and classification. The comparison, in general, shows that the parametrized distances perform well in the tasks. In particular, we see that the results obtained with the free energy distance are among the best in all the experiments.