Detecting Overlapping Link Communities by Finding Local Minima of a Cost Function with a Memetic Algorithm. Part 1: Problem and Method

We propose an algorithm for detecting communities of links in networks which uses local information, is based on a new evaluation function, and allows for pervasive overlaps of communities. The complexity of the clustering task requires the application of a memetic algorithm that combines probabilistic evolutionary strategies with deterministic local searches. In Part 2 we will present results of experiments with with citation networks.