A model for generating temporal networks with dynamic community structure guided by mutual information

Abstract

This paper introduces a generative model for temporal networks that jointly controls community evolution and dynamic node sets. The model represents community structure as a sequence of partitions and uses a genetic search guided by a similarity measure based on mutual information to regulate changes between snapshots. This allows explicit control of community evolution including splits and merges while handling node additions and removals. Temporal edges are then generated using intra- and inter-community probabilities derived from data or theoretical bounds to ensure connectivity. Simulation experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate the ability of the generative model to model the evolution of real dynamic communities. The model is used as a benchmark to study the impact of the rate at which nodes join/leave the network on the performance of dynamic community detection algorithms.