Detection of Overlapping Communities in Dynamical Social Networks

Abstract

Community detection on networks is a well-known problem encountered in many fields, for which the existing algorithms are inefficient 1) at capturing overlaps in-between communities, 2) at detecting communities having disparities in size and density 3) at taking into account the networks' dynamics. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm (iLCD) for community detection using a radically new approach. Taking into account the dynamics of the network, it is designed for the detection of strongly overlapping communities. We first explain the main principles underlying the iLCD algorithm, introducing the two notions of intrinsic communities and longitudinal detection, and detail the algorithm. Then, we illustrate its efficiency in the case of a citation network, and then compare it with existing most efficient algorithms using a standard generator of community-based networks, the LFR benchmark.