Motifs of Complex Networks: Methods and Applications

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Background

In the last decades, network theory has been successfully applied to explore a great variety of complex systems. Particularly interesting is the study of local network patterns that can shed light on the emergence of global properties offering insights into the system organization and functional mechanisms. Network motifs represent a fruitful example of this perspective. Motifs are relatively small, local patterns of interconnection detectable in complex networks in significantly higher numbers than in randomized networks.

Since the first introduction of “motifs as building blocks” in 2002, motifs analysis has received increasing attention with a number of applications in different fields: from brain connections to protein–protein interactions to transportation congestion and power grids. Many studies show that network motifs play a key role in understanding the organization principles and hidden mechanisms behind several complex systems coming from different fields. Motif analysis has been extended to temporal and multilayered networks; refined to identify network communities; applied to better understand the relationship between network structure and dynamical processes; and finally, efficient algorithms for their detection have been developed.

However, the generality of the motif concept leaves much space for further research. For example, fewer studies have proposed methods for studying motifs defined for edge-weighted networks, with some simply associating weights to the well-defined binary patterns, while other more recent works focus on random walks and sequentiality to introduce novel weighted motifs. Further, many techniques have either been developed for particular empirical contexts without thorough methodological exploration or developed as methodologies without in-depth applications beyond proofs of concept, thus leaving many possibilities for further research on both existing and newly developed techniques.

This Research Topic aims to bring together researchers from different intercorrelated fields focused on theoretical aspects and empirical applications of motifs. Contributions are encouraged to explore, but not limited to, (i) techniques for motif detection paying attention to the role played by edge-weights; (ii) insightful applications to real systems; (iii) comparisons between binary and weighted motifs in characterizing and classifying systems; (iv) possible extensions of motif analysis to better characterize complex networks; (v) focus on motifs applied to temporal networks; (vi) application to specific topics such as transportation, ecological, environmental, economic and financial, social networks.

Original Research and Reviews are welcome.

Keywords: complex systems, networks, binary and weighted motifs, sequential motifs, building blocks, functional mechanisms

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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