Distributed rewiring model for complex networking: The effect of local rewiring rules on final structural properties

• Published in: PloS one 2017-11, Vol.12 (11), p.e0187538-e0187538
• Main Authors: López Chavira, Magali Alexander, Marcelín-Jiménez, Ricardo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Binomial distribution; Clustering; Communications networks; Computer and Information Sciences; Computer Communication Networks; Computer engineering; Computer networks; Computer simulation; Distributed processing; Electrical engineering; Engineering and Technology; Evolution; Fault tolerance; Fragility; Informatics; Information systems; International conferences; Models, Theoretical; Networking; Networks; Peer to peer computing; Physical Sciences; Properties (attributes); Research and Analysis Methods; Rewiring; Routing; Simulation; Social Sciences; Structure; Topology
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0187538

The study of complex networks has become an important subject over the last decades. It has been shown that these structures have special features, such as their diameter, or their average path length, which in turn are the explanation of some functional properties in a system such as its fault tolerance, its fragility before attacks, or the ability to support routing procedures. In the present work, we study some of the forces that help a network to evolve to the point where structural properties are settled. Although our work is mainly focused on the possibility of applying our ideas to Information and Communication Technologies systems, we consider that our results may contribute to understanding different scenarios where complex networks have become an important modeling tool. Using a discrete event simulator, we get each node to discover the shortcuts that may connect it with regions away from its local environment. Based on this partial knowledge, each node can rewire some of its links, which allows modifying the topology of the entire underlying graph to achieve new structural properties. We proposed a distributed rewiring model that creates networks with features similar to those found in complex networks. Although each node acts in a distributed way and seeking to reduce only the trajectories of its packets, we observed a decrease of diameter and an increase in clustering coefficient in the global structure compared to the initial graph. Furthermore, we can find different final structures depending on slight changes in the local rewiring rules.