NALPA: A Node Ability Based Label Propagation Algorithm for Community Detection

Community is an important topological characteristic of complex networks, which is significant for understanding the structural feature and organizational function of networks, and community detection has recently attracted considerable research effort. Among community detection methods, label propagation technology is widely used because of its linear time complexity. However, due to the randomness of the node order of label updating and the order of label launching in label propagation, the instability of community detection approaches based on label propagation becomes a challenge. In this paper, a new label propagation algorithm, Node Ability based Label Propagation Algorithm (NALPA), is proposed to discover communities in networks. Inspired from human society and radar transmission, we design four node abilities (propagation ability, attraction ability, launch ability and acceptance ability), label influence and a new label propagation mechanism to deal with the instability and enhance the efficiency. Experimental results on 42 synthetic and 14 real-world networks demonstrate that NALPA outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in most cases. In a case study, NALPA is applied to a drug network in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and can discover the drug communities where drugs have similar efficacy for treating Chronic GlomeruloNephritis (CGN).