A novel community detection method based on discrete particle swarm optimization algorithms in complex networks

Abstract

The community structure is one of the most common and important attributes in complex networks. Community detection in complex networks has attracted much attention in recent years. As an effective evolutionary computation technique, particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm has become a candidate for many optimization applications. However, PSO algorithm was originally designed for continuous optimization. In this paper, an improved simple discrete particle swarm optimization (ISPSO) algorithm and a discrete particle swarm optimization with redefined operator (IDPSO-RO) algorithm are proposed in the discrete context of community detection problem. Furthermore, a community correcting strategy is used to optimize the results. The performance of the two algorithms is tested on three real networks with known community structures. The experiment results show that ISPSO and IDPSO-RO algorithms using community correcting strategy can detect community structures more efficiently without prior knowledge about the size of communities and the number of communities.