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Self-similar community structure in a network of human interactions

R. Guimerà1,2, L. Danon3,4, A. Díaz-Guilera3,1, F. Giralt1, and A. Arenas4

  • 1Departament d’Enginyeria Química, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43007 Tarragona, Catalunya, Spain
  • 2Department of Chemical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA
  • 3Departament de Física Fonamental, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain
  • 4Departament d’Enginyeria Informàtica i Matemàtiques, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43007 Tarragona, Catalunya, Spain

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Phys. Rev. E 68, 065103(R) – Published 17 December, 2003

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.68.065103

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.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. E 68, 065103(R)– Published 17 December, 2003
  • Received 14 January 2003

© 2003 American Physical Society

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