Graph Algorithm to Find Core Periphery Structures using Mutual K-nearest Neighbors

Core periphery structures exist naturally in many complex networks in the real-world like social, economic, biological and metabolic networks. Most of the existing research efforts focus on the identification of a meso scale structure called community structure. Core periphery structures are another equally important meso scale property in a graph that can help to gain deeper insights about the relationships between different nodes. In this paper, we provide a definition of core periphery structures suitable for weighted graphs. We further score and categorize these relationships into different types based upon the density difference between the core and periphery nodes. Next, we propose an algorithm called CP-MKNN (Core Periphery-Mutual K Nearest Neighbors) to extract core periphery structures from weighted graphs using a heuristic node affinity measure called Mutual K-nearest neighbors (MKNN). Using synthetic and real-world social and biological networks, we illustrate the effectiveness of developed core periphery structures.