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Growing network model for community with group structure

Jae Dong Noh1, Hyeong-Chai Jeong2, Yong-Yeol Ahn3, and Hawoong Jeong3

  • 1Department of Physics, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, Korea
  • 2Department of Physics and IFP, Sejong University, Seoul 143-747, Korea
  • 3Department of Physics, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 305-701, Korea

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Phys. Rev. E 71, 036131 – Published 23 March, 2005

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.71.036131

Abstract

We propose a growing network model for a community with a group structure. The community consists of individual members and groups, gatherings of members. The community grows as a new member is introduced by an existing member at each time step. The new member then creates a new group or joins one of the groups of the introducer. We investigate the emerging community structure analytically and numerically. The group size distribution shows a power-law distribution for a variety of growth rules, while the activity distribution follows an exponential or a power law depending on the details of the growth rule. We also present an analysis of empirical data from online communities the “Groups” in http://www.yahoo.com and the “Cafe” in http://www.daum.net, which show a power-law distribution for a wide range of group sizes.

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References (24)

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Phys. Rev. E 71, 036131– Published 23 March, 2005
  • Received 7 December 2004

© 2005 American Physical Society

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