Alignment and Comparison of Directed Networks via Transition Couplings of Random Walks

We describe and study a transport based procedure called NetOTC (network optimal transition coupling) for the comparison and alignment of two networks. The networks of interest may be directed or undirected, weighted or unweighted, and may have distinct vertex sets of different sizes. Given two networks and a cost function relating their vertices, NetOTC finds a transition coupling of their associated random walks having minimum expected cost. The minimizing cost quantifies the difference between the networks, while the optimal transport …

alignment comparison cs.lg network networks random stat.ml study transition transport vertex via