Patterns of interactions in complex social networks based on coloured motifs analysis

Abstract

Coloured network motifs are small subgraphs that enable to discover and interpret the patterns of interaction within the complex networks. The analysis of three-nodes motifs where the colour of the node reflects its high - white node or low - black node centrality in the social network is presented in the paper. The importance of the vertices is assessed by utilizing two measures: degree prestige and degree centrality. The distribution of motifs in these two cases is compared to mine the interconnection patterns between nodes. The analysis is performed on the social network derived from email communication. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.