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arXiv · 0909.0450

Disassortative mixing in online social networks

Haibo Hu·Xiaofan Wang
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Abstract

The conventional wisdom is that social networks exhibit an assortative mixing pattern, whereas biological and technological networks show a disassortative mixing pattern. However, the recent research on the online social networks modifies the widespread belief, and many online social networks show a disassortative or neutral mixing feature. Especially, we found that an online social network, Wealink, underwent a transition from degree assortativity characteristic of real social networks to degree disassortativity characteristic of many online social networks, and the transition can be reasonably elucidated by a simple network model that we propose. The relations among network assortativity, clustering, and modularity are also discussed in the paper.

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Haibo Hu, Xiaofan Wang. 2009-09-02. Disassortative mixing in online social networks. https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/86/18003

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