A Goodness-of-Fit Test for Sampled Subgraphs

TL;DR

This paper develops a new goodness-of-fit test for graph degree distributions based on sampled subgraphs, using a bootstrap approach to account for sampling distortion, and demonstrates its effectiveness through simulations and an application to yeast protein interaction networks.

Contribution

It introduces a novel bootstrap method for goodness-of-fit testing of degree distributions from sampled subgraphs, addressing sampling bias and validating the approach with real network data.

Findings

Bootstrap method attains correct test size

Test effectively rejects incorrect degree distribution models

Application to yeast PIN rejects Erdős-Rényi hypothesis

Abstract

We consider the problem of testing whether a graph's degree distribution belongs to a particular family, such as poisson or scale-free, given that we only observe a sampled subgraph. In particular, we focus on induced subgraph sampling, a sampling design which systematically distorts the degree distribution of interest. We estimate the parameter indexing the hypothesized family by generalized method of moments and utilize the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test statistic to assess goodness-of-fit. Since the distribution in the null hypothesis has been estimated, critical values for the test statistic must be simulated. We propose a novel bootstrap in which we construct a graph whose degree distribution conforms to the null hypothesis from which we may draw pseudo-samples in the form of induced subgraphs. We investigate the properties of this procedure with a monte carlo study which confirms that the bootstrap is able to attain size close to the nominal level while exhibiting power under the alternative hypothesis. We present an application of this test to the protein interaction network (PIN) of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Accounting for the high rates of false negatives present in PIN measurement, we are able to reject the hypothesis that the PIN of S. cerevisiae follows an Erdos-Renyi random graph family of degree distributions.