Non-Supervised Community Detection and Hierarchical Modularity Estimation in Complex Networks

Abstract

This work extends to complex networks a recently described methodology (A. Benatti and L. da F Costa, Detecting Hierarchical Clusters and Estimating their Modularity Directly from Dendrograms, May 2026) for non-supervised hierarchical cluster detection and hierarchical modularity estimation. First, the edge betweenness centrality of a given complex network (or graph) is estimated, and a dendrogram is obtained from these values by using some linkage criterion (average linkage is considered in the present work). The mentioned concepts and methods can then be applied to the obtained dendrogram associated with the hierarchical structure of the nodes interrelationship, paving the way to community detection and hierarchical modularity estimation. Promising results are presented and discussed respectively to varying types of modular networks, namely fractal networks (which are intrinsically hierarchical) and prime partition networks, as well as to modular networks presenting just one (or a few) hierarchical levels.

16 pages, 10 figures