Collapsed Structured Block Models for Community Detection in Complex Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a collapsed Bayesian stochastic block model framework for community detection in complex networks, enabling faster inference, better complexity control, and applicability to various network types.

Contribution

It develops a collapsed Bayesian SBM approach that analytically integrates out nuisance parameters, improving inference speed and interpretability across multiple network models.

Findings

Accurate community detection in synthetic and real networks.

Faster inference due to closed-form likelihood ratios.

Applicable to diverse network types including directed, signed, and multilayer.

Abstract

Community detection seeks to recover mesoscopic structure from network data that may be binary, count-valued, signed, directed, weighted, or multilayer. The stochastic block model (SBM) explains such structure by positing a latent partition of nodes and block-specific edge distributions. In Bayesian SBMs, standard MCMC alternates between updating the partition and sampling block parameters, which can hinder mixing and complicate principled comparison across different partitions and numbers of communities. We develop a collapsed Bayesian SBM framework in which block-specific nuisance parameters are analytically integrated out under conjugate priors, so the marginal likelihood p(Y|z) depends only on the partition z and blockwise sufficient statistics. This yields fast local Gibbs/Metropolis updates based on ratios of closed-form integrated likelihoods and provides evidence-based complexity control that discourages gratuitous over-partitioning. We derive exact collapsed marginals for the most common SBM edge types-Beta-Bernoulli (binary), Gamma-Poisson (counts), and Normal-Inverse-Gamma (Gaussian weights)-and we extend collapsing to gap-constrained SBMs via truncated conjugate priors that enforce explicit upper bounds on between-community connectivity. We further show that the same collapsed strategy supports directed SBMs that model reciprocity through dyad states, signed SBMs via categorical block models, and multiplex SBMs where multiple layers contribute additive evidence for a shared partition. Across synthetic benchmarks and real networks (including email communication, hospital contact counts, and citation graphs), collapsed inference produces accurate partitions and interpretable posterior block summaries of within- and between-community interaction strengths while remaining computationally simple and modular.