Self-similar community structure in a network of human interactions
Abstract
We propose a procedure for analyzing and characterizing complex networks. We apply this to the social network as constructed from email communications within a medium sized university with about 1700 employees. Email networks provide an accurate and nonintrusive description of the flow of information within human organizations. Our results reveal the self-organization of the network into a state where the distribution of community sizes is self-similar. This suggests that a universal mechanism, responsible for emergence of scaling in other self-organized complex systems, as, for instance, river networks, could also be the underlying driving force in the formation and evolution of social networks.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review E
- Pub Date:
- December 2003
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevE.68.065103
- arXiv:
- arXiv:cond-mat/0211498
- Bibcode:
- 2003PhRvE..68f5103G
- Keywords:
-
- 89.75.Fb;
- 89.75.Da;
- 89.75.Hc;
- Structures and organization in complex systems;
- Systems obeying scaling laws;
- Networks and genealogical trees;
- Condensed Matter - Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
- E-Print:
- Physical Review E 68, 065103 (2003)