Enhancing space-aware community detection using degree constrained spatial null model

Abstract

Null models have many applications on networks, from testing the significance of observations to the conception of algorithms such as community detection. They usually preserve some network properties, such as degree distribution. Recently, some null-models have been proposed for spatial networks, and applied to the community detection problem. In this article, we propose a new null-model adapted to spatial networks, that, unlike previous ones, preserves both the spatial structure and the degrees of nodes. We show the efficacy of this null-model in the community detection case on synthetic networks.