https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2004-00021-5
Exploration of scale-free networks
Do we measure the real exponents?
Laboratoire de Biophysique Statistique, ITP-FSB,
École Polytechnique Fédérale
de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Corresponding author: a paolo.delosrios@epfl.ch
Received:
16
October
2003
Published online:
17
February
2004
The increased availability of data on real networks has favoured an explosion of activity in the elaboration of models able to reproduce both qualitatively and quantitatively the measured properties. What has been less explored is the reliability of the data, and whether the measurement technique biases them. Here we show that tree-like explorations (similar in principle to traceroute) can indeed change the measured exponents of a scale-free network.
PACS: 89.75.-k – Complex systems / 87.23.Ge – Dynamics of social systems / 05.70.Ln – Nonequilibrium and irreversible thermodynamics
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2004