Constructing spatial interaction (SI) networks from massive geographic flow data is an important method for understanding the correlation patterns and trends among regions. However, large-scale SI networks usually cause complex edge interleaving and a sharp increase in noise information. A network skeleton can represent the key structure of the corresponding complex network with generalized network data. However, the existing extraction methods only consider the topological information of networks and ignore spatial information, which may cause difficulty maintaining the spatial distribution characteristics and the exclusion of key spatial information. To address the issue, we have developed a skeleton extraction method for large-scale SI networks. First, the network nodes are divided into different clusters via adaptive spatial clustering. Second, an entropy weight method is used to define a comprehensive evaluation indicator of the network node importance, and the nodes in each cluster are sorted and selected according to the comprehensive evaluation indicator. Finally, the skeleton structure of the SI network is reconstructed according to the selected nodes and their adjacent edges. Compared with the existing methods for extracting network skeletons, the proposed method can maintain the spatial distribution characteristics of SI networks while preserving key topological features.
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