The importance of structure: Using targeted rewiring to explore social networks property interdependencies

TL;DR

This paper explores how different properties of social networks, like clustering and assortativity, are related by manipulating them in real-world network data.

Contribution

The study introduces targeted rewiring methods to investigate conditional interdependencies among social network properties.

Findings

Only a few property pairs showed significant relationships.

Interdependencies are conditional and limited to specific value ranges or subsets of networks.

Abstract

Social networks typically have skewed degree distributions and relatively high clustering and assortativity coefficients. Some studies have explored the relationships between these properties, but have given limited attention to social networks and have found conflicting evidence. To expand our understanding of the ways that properties constrain each other in social networks we use separate degree-preserving rewiring algorithms to manipulate assortativity, clustering coefficient and mean geodesic of networks constructed from seven diverse empirical degree sequences. We measured centrality (mean and Gini coefficient of several measures), clustering, assortativity and network distances. Only a small number of property pairs showed a relationship. Further, where interdependencies do exist, they are conditional and occur only for specific value ranges or a subset of the tested networks.

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