Jérôme Kunegis ; Fariba Karimi ; Sun Jun - The Problem of Action at a Distance in Networks and the Emergence of Preferential Attachment from Triadic Closure

jimis:2022 - Journal of Interdisciplinary Methodologies and Issues in Sciences, April 25, 2017, Vol. 2 - Graphs and social systems - https://doi.org/10.18713/JIMIS-140417-2-4
The Problem of Action at a Distance in Networks and the Emergence of Preferential Attachment from Triadic ClosureArticle

Authors: Jérôme Kunegis 1,2; Fariba Karimi 2,3; Sun Jun 2

  • 1 Université de Namur [Namur]
  • 2 University of Koblenz-Landau
  • 3 Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences [Mannheim]

In this paper, we characterise the notion of preferential attachment in networks as action at a distance, and argue that it can only be an emergent phenomenon – the actual mechanism by which networks grow always being the closing of triangles. After a review of the concepts of triangle closing and preferential attachment, we present our argument, as well as a simplified model in which preferential attachment can be derived mathematically from triangle closing. Additionally, we perform experiments on synthetic graphs to demonstrate the emergence of preferential attachment in graph growth models based only on triangle closing.


Volume: Vol. 2 - Graphs and social systems
Section: Subject Area 3: Graphs and Networks
Published on: April 25, 2017
Accepted on: April 25, 2017
Submitted on: April 25, 2017
Keywords: action,preferential attachment,triangle closing,Networks,[INFO.INFO-SI] Computer Science [cs]/Social and Information Networks [cs.SI]

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