Hierarchical organization in complex networks

Erzsébet Ravasz and Albert-László Barabási
Phys. Rev. E 67, 026112 – Published 14 February 2003
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Abstract

Many real networks in nature and society share two generic properties: they are scale-free and they display a high degree of clustering. We show that these two features are the consequence of a hierarchical organization, implying that small groups of nodes organize in a hierarchical manner into increasingly large groups, while maintaining a scale-free topology. In hierarchical networks, the degree of clustering characterizing the different groups follows a strict scaling law, which can be used to identify the presence of a hierarchical organization in real networks. We find that several real networks, such as the Worldwideweb, actor network, the Internet at the domain level, and the semantic web obey this scaling law, indicating that hierarchy is a fundamental characteristic of many complex systems.

  • Received 31 August 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.67.026112

©2003 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Erzsébet Ravasz and Albert-László Barabási

  • Department of Physics, 225 Nieuwland Science Hall, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

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Issue

Vol. 67, Iss. 2 — February 2003

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