## Goals

• Examine the characteristics of five different real world graphs
• These graphs all come from different domains
• Most were not designed to have specific properties
• All grew organically
• You would not expect them to have structure or be similar to each other
• Evaluation metrics
• Degree distribution, assortativity
• Clustering coefficient
• Shortest paths distances, eccentricity
• Resiliency against node removal
• Compare against a synthetic baseline

## Cast of Characters

• Facebook: Snapshot of Mexico regional network
• Nodes: 598140, Edges: 4552493, Collected: 2009
• Web: Web graph subsample from Google
• Nodes: 875713, Edges: 5105039, Collected: 2002
• Email: Complete email communication network from Enron
• Nodes: 36692, Edges: 183831, Collected: 2004
• P2P: Complete Gnutella peer to peer network
• Nodes: 62586, Edges: 147892, Collected: August 31 2002
• Citations: Complete Arxiv high energy physics citation graph
• Nodes: 34546, Edges: 421578, Collected: 2003

## Choosing a Baseline for Comparison

Which graph type best corresponds with real world graphs?

Complete graph
Ring
Star

Tree
Bipartite
Random

## Random Graphs

• Graphs we will study are considered to be random graphs
• Very sparse (i.e. not complete)
• Not "designed" to have structure (i.e. not a ring or star)
• Not heirarchical (i.e. not a tree)
• Not divided into classes of nodes (i.e. not bipartite)
• Random graph generation
• Known as an Erdős-Rényi graphs, or binomial graphs
• $$G_{n, p}$$: Choose number of nodes $$n$$ and probability $$p$$
• Form each edge $$(u, v) \in G$$ with probability $$p$$
• Graph used in these experiments
• $$G_{10000, 0.001}$$ -- Nodes: 10000, Edges: 100000

## Takeaways So Far...

• Real world graphs are significantly different from random graphs
• Degree distributions have long tails
• Many, many low degree nodes...
• But also a small core of high-degree super-nodes
• Small-world phenomenon
• More clustering than a random graph...
• But also relatively short average path lengths
• Known as the tightly-clustered fringe
• Significant variations of characteristics among real world graphs
• No single metric tells the whole story about a graph

## What is so important about the degree distribution?

• Great deal of focus in the literature on the degree distribution
• Especially power-law degree distributions
• Are other metrics "linked" to the degree distribution?
• Conduct an experiment
• Take real graphs and re-wire them
• Each node maintains its original degree...
• But the endpoints of all the edges change

## Takeaways

• Long tailed degree distributions are prevelent in real world graphs
• We would not expect real world graphs to have this feature
• That so many graphs do tells us this is an important, emergent characteristic
• But degree distribution is not the whole story
• Clustering, path lengths, assortativity, etc. are equally important
• These metrics are not dependent on the degree distribution

## Understanding Emergent Graph Properties

• Real world graphs have many unexpected features
• Long tailed degree distributions
• Tightly clustered fringes
• Short average path lengths
• Resiliency against random destruction
• What natural process creates graphs with these characteristics?
• Understanding this process can lead to great insight about the natural world
• Applicable to many domains, e.g. biology, sociology, computer science, etc.

## Graph Models

• Key idea:
• Create a simple model that generates graphs with desired characteristics
• Intuition behind algorithm (hopefully) reflects real world processes
• Example from physics: $$F = m * a$$
• Extremely simple model, only three variables
• Enables us to predict projectile motion, celestial orbits, etc.
• Imparts fundamental understanding about the laws and relationships in nature

## Erdős-Rényi Model

• Introduced in 1959
• Generate a uniformly random graph
• $$G_{n, p} = (V, E)$$
• $$n = |V|$$
• Form each edge $$(u, v) \in E$$ with probability $$p$$
• Not a good fit for real world graphs
• Short-tailed degree distribution
• Zero clustering
• Assortativity is zero
• Path lengths are too short

## Watts-Strogatz Model

• Introduced in 1998
• Key ideas
• Randomly rewire edges to introduce "shortcuts"
• Resulting graph is still highly clustered, but also has short path lengths
• Model parameters
• $$G_{n, k, p} = (V, E)$$
• $$n = |V|$$
• Connect each node to its $$k$$ nearest neighbors in the ring
• Rewire each edge $$(u, v) \in E$$ to $$(u, v')$$ where $$v' \in V$$ with probability $$p$$
• Resulting graphs is small-world
• But does not have a power-law degree distribution

## Example Watts-Strogatz Graph

Parameters: $$G_{30, 4, 0}$$

Avg. Path Len: 4.14
Avg. Clustering: 0.5

## Barabási-Albert Model

• Introduced in 1999
• Sometimes called Preferential Attachment
• Exhibits a rich-get-richer pattern
• Model parameters
• $$G_{n, m} = (V, E)$$
• $$n = |V|$$
• Connect each node to $$m$$ other nodes
• Probability of connecting to node $$i$$ with degree $$k_i$$: $$\Pi(k_i) = \frac{k_i}{\sum\limits_{j \in V} k_j}$$
• Resulting graphs has:
• Power-law degree distribution $$P(k) \sim k^{-\gamma}$$
• Scale-free behavior

## Nearest Neighbor Model

• Introduced in 2003
• Based on intuition about social dynamics
• Your friends are likely to be friends with each other
• Model parameters
• $$G_{n, u} = (V, E)$$
• $$n = |V|$$
• With probability $$u$$, add a new node and connect it to a random node
• Otherwise, randomly close a triangle in the graph
• Resulting graphs has:
• Power-law degree distribution with $$\gamma > 2$$
• Tighly-clustered fringe

## Many, Many Graph Models

• Random Walk Model (2003)
• Emulates pattern of friend discovery in social networks
• Add a new node $$v$$, and begin a random walk starting at a random node
• At each step of the walk, connect $$v$$ to that node with probability $$q_v$$
• Forest Fire Model (2005)
• Builds graphs with diameters that shrink as they grow larger
• Add a new node $$v$$, and randomly connect it to a node $$w$$
• With probability $$p$$, "burn" (i.e. connect) $$v$$ to each of $$w$$'s neighbors
• Continue this process recursively from each burned node

## Fitting Models to Real World Graphs

• d$$k$$ Model (2006)
• Precisely captures real world graphs using joint degree distributions
• d$$k$$-1: degree distribution
• d$$k$$-2: joint degree distribution
• d$$k$$-3: tri-degree distribution (captures clustering)
• etc.
• Very accurate, but very costly
• State-space (i.e. memory) explodes as $$k$$ increases
• Graph generators for $$k \ge 3$$ do not currently exist
• Kronecker Graphs (2007)
• Uses Kronecker multiplication to recursively "evolve" an initiator graph
• Use MLE to fit the evolved graph to a real world graphs

## Microscopic Model

• Introduced in 2008
• Models dynamic graphs that grow over time
• Model parameters: $$N()$$, $$\lambda$$, $$\alpha$$, $$\beta$$
• Node arrival function $$N()$$, typically a quadratic over time $$t$$
• On arrival, node $$v$$ samples its lifetime $$a_v = \lambda \mathrm{e}^{-\lambda}$$
• Attach $$v$$ using preferential attachment
• Node $$v$$ with degree $$d_v$$ samples it sleep-time from $$p_v = d_v^{-\alpha} * \beta d_v \mathrm{e}^{-\beta d_v}$$
• When $$v$$ wakes up, if its lifetime has not expired, close a triangle that includes $$v$$
• Complicated model, but produces power-law, tightly clustered graphs
• One of very few models that models dynamic graphs over time

## Microscopic Model In Action

Comparing Preferential Attachment (PA) and Microscopic Model (RR) to the actual Flickr social graph

## Discussion

• Which model produces the most realistic graphs?
• That depends on what kind of graph you want
• Different models produce graphs that emphasize different metrics
• Power-law degree distribution
• Clustered fringe
• Shrinking diameter
• etc.