arXiv subjects

Silvia Noschese

Publications and source records attributed to Silvia Noschese.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Sensitivity of Perron and Fiedler eigenpairs to structural perturbations of a network

One can estimate the change of the Perron and Fiedler values for a connected network when the weight of an edge is perturbed by analyzing relevant entries of the Perron and Fiedler vectors. This is helpful for identifying edges whose weight perturbation causes the largest change in the Perron and Fiedler values. It also is important to investigate the sensitivity of the Perron and Fiedler vectors to perturbations. Applications of the perturbation analysis include the identification of edges that are critical for the structural robustness of the network.

math.NA↗

arXiv2025

Network connectivity analysis via shortest paths

Complex systems of interacting components often can be modeled by a simple graph $\mathcal{G}$ that consists of a set of $n$ nodes and a set of $m$ edges. Such a graph can be represented by an adjacency matrix $A\in\R^{n\times n}$, whose $(ij)$th entry is one if there is an edge pointing from node $i$ to node $j$, and is zero otherwise. The matrix $A$ and its positive integer powers reveal important properties of the graph and allow the construction of the path length matrix $L$ for the graph. The $(ij)$th entry of $L$ is the length of the shortest path from node $i$ to node $j$; if there is no path between these nodes, then the value of the entry is set to $\infty$. We are interested in how well information flows via shortest paths of the graph. This can be studied with the aid of the path length matrix. The path length matrix allows the definition of several measures of communication in the network defined by the graph such as the global $K$-efficiency, which considers shortest paths that are made up of at most $K$ edges for some $K<n$, as well as the number of such shortest paths. Novel notions of connectivity introduced in this paper help us understand the importance of specific edges for the flow of information through the graph. This is of interest when seeking to simplify a network by removing selected edges or trying to assess the sensitivity of the flow of information to changes due to exterior causes such as a traffic stoppage on a road network.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2024

Communication in Multiplex Transportation Networks

Complex networks are made up of vertices and edges. The edges, which may be directed or undirected, are equipped with positive weights. Modeling complex systems that consist of different types of objects leads to multilayer networks, in which vertices in distinct layers represent different kinds of objects. Multiplex networks are special vertex-aligned multilayer networks, in which vertices in distinct layers are identified with each other and inter-layer edges connect each vertex with its copy in other layers and have a fixed weight $γ>0$ associated with the ease of communication between layers. This paper discusses two different approaches to analyze communication in a multiplex. One approach focuses on the multiplex global efficiency by using the multiplex path length matrix, the other approach considers the multiplex total communicability. The sensitivity of both the multiplex global efficiency and the multiplex total communicability to structural perturbations in the network is investigated to help to identify intra-layer edges that should be strengthened to enhance communicability.

math.NA↗

arXiv2024

Edge Importance in Complex Networks

Complex networks are made up of vertices and edges. The latter connect the vertices. There are several ways to measure the importance of the vertices, e.g., by counting the number of edges that start or end at each vertex, or by using the subgraph centrality of the vertices. It is more difficult to assess the importance of the edges. One approach is to consider the line graph associated with the given network and determine the importance of the vertices of the line graph, but this is fairly complicated except for small networks. This paper compares two approaches to estimate the importance of edges of medium-sized to large networks. One approach computes partial derivatives of the total communicability of the weights of the edges, where a partial derivative of large magnitude indicates that the corresponding edge may be important. Our second approach computes the Perron sensitivity of the edges. A high sensitivity signals that the edge may be important. The performance of these methods and some computational aspects are discussed. Applications of interest include to determine whether a network can be replaced by a network with fewer edges with about the same communicability.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2023

Enhancing multiplex global efficiency

Modeling complex systems that consist of different types of objects leads to multilayer networks, in which vertices are connected by both inter-layer and intra-layer edges. In this paper, we investigate multiplex networks, in which vertices in different layers are identified with each other, and the only inter-layer edges are those that connect a vertex with its copy in other layers. Let the third-order adjacency tensor $\mathcal{A}\in\R^{N\times N\times L}$ and the parameter $γ\geq 0$, which is associated with the ease of communication between layers, represent a multiplex network with $N$ vertices and $L$ layers. To measure the ease of communication in a multiplex network, we focus on the average inverse geodesic length, which we refer to as the multiplex global efficiency $e_\mathcal{A}(γ)$ by means of the multiplex path length matrix $P\in\R^{N\times N}$. This paper generalizes the approach proposed in \cite{NR23} for single-layer networks. We describe an algorithm based on min-plus matrix multiplication to construct $P$, as well as variants $P^K$ that only take into account multiplex paths made up of at most $K$ intra-layer edges. These matrices are applied to detect redundant edges and to determine non-decreasing lower bounds $e_\mathcal{A}^K(γ)$ for $e_\mathcal{A}(γ)$, for $K=1,2,\dots,N-2$. Finally, the sensitivity of $e_\mathcal{A}^K(γ)$ to changes of the entries of the adjacency tensor $\mathcal{A}$ is investigated to determine edges that should be strengthened to enhance the multiplex global efficiency the most.

math.NA↗

arXiv2023

A tensor formalism for multilayer network centrality measures using the Einstein product

Complex systems that consist of different kinds of entities that interact in different ways can be modeled by multilayer networks. This paper uses the tensor formalism with the Einstein tensor product to model this type of networks. Several centrality measures, that are well known for single-layer networks, are extended to multilayer networks using tensors and their properties are investigated. In particular, subgraph centrality based on the exponential and resolvent of a tensor are considered. Krylov subspace methods are introduced for computing approximations of different measures for large multilayer networks.

math.NA↗

arXiv2023

Network analysis with the aid of the path length matrix

Let a network be represented by a simple graph $\mathcal{G}$ with $n$ vertices. A common approach to investigate properties of a network is to use the adjacency matrix $A=[a_{ij}]_{i,j=1}^n\in\R^{n\times n}$ associated with the graph $\mathcal{G}$, where $a_{ij}>0$ if there is an edge pointing from vertex $v_i$ to vertex $v_j$, and $a_{ij}=0$ otherwise. Both $A$ and its positive integer powers reveal important properties of the graph. This paper proposes to study properties of a graph $\mathcal{G}$ by also using the path length matrix for the graph. The $(ij)^{th}$ entry of the path length matrix is the length of the shortest path from vertex $v_i$ to vertex $v_j$; if there is no path between these vertices, then the value of the entry is $\infty$. Powers of the path length matrix are formed by using min-plus matrix multiplication and are important for exhibiting properties of $\mathcal{G}$. We show how several known measures of communication such as closeness centrality, harmonic centrality, and eccentricity are related to the path length matrix, and we introduce new measures of communication, such as the harmonic $K$-centrality and global $K$-efficiency, where only (short) paths made up of at most $K$ edges are taken into account. The sensitivity of the global $K$-efficiency to changes of the entries of the adjacency matrix also is considered.

math.NA↗

arXiv2023

The structured distance to singularity of a symmetric tridiagonal Toeplitz matrix

This paper is concerned with the distance of a symmetric tridiagonal Toeplitz matrix $T$ to the variety of similarly structured singular matrices, and with determining the closest matrix to $T$ in this variety. Explicit formulas are presented, that exploit the analysis of the sensitivity of the spectrum of $T$ with respect to structure-preserving perturbations of its entries.

math.NA↗

arXiv2022

Perron communicability and sensitivity of multilayer networks

Modeling complex systems that consist of different types of objects leads to multilayer networks, where nodes in the different layers represent different kind of objects. Nodes are connected by edges, which have positive weights. A multilayer network is associated with a supra-adjacency matrix. This paper investigates the sensitivity of the communicability in a multilayer network to perturbations of the network by studying the sensitivity of the Perron root of the supra-adjacency matrix. Our analysis sheds light on which edge weights to make larger to increase the communicability of the network, and which edge weights can be made smaller or set to zero without affecting the communicability significantly.

math.NA↗

arXiv2022

On the banded Toeplitz structured distance to symmetric positive semidefiniteness

This paper is concerned with the determination of a close real banded positive definite Toeplitz matrix in the Frobenius norm to a given square real banded matrix. While it is straightforward to determine the closest banded Toeplitz matrix to a given square matrix, the additional requirement of positive definiteness makes the problem difficult. We review available theoretical results and provide a simple approach to determine a banded positive definite Toeplitz matrix.

math.NA↗

arXiv2021

Communication in Complex Networks

One of the properties of interest in the analysis of networks is \emph{global communicability}, i.e., how easy or difficult it is, generally, to reach nodes from other nodes by following edges. Different global communicability measures provide quantitative assessments of this property, emphasizing different aspects of the problem. This paper investigates the sensitivity of global measures of communicability to local changes. In particular, for directed, weighted networks, we study how different global measures of communicability change when the weight of a single edge is changed; or, in the unweighted case, when an edge is added or removed. The measures we study include the \emph{total network communicability}, based on the matrix exponential of the adjacency matrix, and the \emph{Perron network communicability}, defined in terms of the Perron root of the adjacency matrix and the associated left and right eigenvectors. Finding what local changes lead to the largest changes in global communicability has many potential applications, including assessing the resilience of a system to failure or attack, guidance for incremental system improvements, and studying the sensitivity of global communicability measures to errors in the network connection data.

math.NA↗

arXiv2021

Estimating and increasing the structural robustness of a network

The capability of a network to cope with threats and survive attacks is referred to as its robustness. This paper discusses one kind of robustness, commonly denoted structural robustness, which increases when the spectral radius of the adjacency matrix associated with the network decreases. We discuss computational techniques for identifying edges, whose removal may significantly reduce the spectral radius. Nonsymmetric adjacency matrices are studied with the aid of their pseudospectra. In particular, we consider nonsymmetric adjacency matrices that arise when people seek to avoid being infected by Covid-19 by wearing facial masks of different qualities.

math.NA↗

arXiv2020

Functions and eigenvectors of partially known matrices with applications to network analysis

Matrix functions play an important role in applied mathematics. In network analysis, in particular, the exponential of the adjacency matrix associated with a network provides valuable information about connectivity, as well as about the relative importance or centrality of nodes. Another popular approach to rank the nodes of a network is to compute the left Perron vector of the adjacency matrix for the network. The present article addresses the problem of evaluating matrix functions, as well as computing an approximation to the left Perron vector, when only some of the columns and/or some of the rows of the adjacency matrix are known. Applications to network analysis are considered, when only some sampled columns and/or rows of the adjacency matrix that defines the network are available. A sampling scheme that takes the connectivity of the network into account is described. Computed examples illustrate the performance of the methods discussed.

math.NA↗

arXiv2019

Eigenvector sensitivity under general and structured perturbations of tridiagonal Toeplitz-type matrices

The sensitivity of eigenvalues of structured matrices under general or structured perturbations of the matrix entries has been thoroughly studied in the literature. Error bounds are available and the pseudospectrum can be computed to gain insight. Few investigations have focused on analyzing the sensitivity of eigenvectors under general or structured perturbations. The present paper discusses this sensitivity for tridiagonal Toeplitz and Toeplitz-type matrices.

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

Arnoldi decomposition, GMRES, and preconditioning for linear discrete ill-posed problems

GMRES is one of the most popular iterative methods for the solution of large linear systems of equations that arise from the discretization of linear well-posed problems, such as Dirichlet boundary value problems for elliptic partial differential equations. The method is also applied to iteratively solve linear systems of equations that are obtained by discretizing linear ill-posed problems, such as many inverse problems. However, GMRES does not always perform well when applied to the latter kind of problems. This paper seeks to shed some light on reasons for the poor performance of GMRES in certain situations, and discusses some remedies based on specific kinds of preconditioning. The standard implementation of GMRES is based on the Arnoldi process, which also can be used to define a solution subspace for Tikhonov or TSVD regularization, giving rise to the Arnoldi-Tikhonov and Arnoldi-TSVD methods, respectively. The performance of the GMRES, the Arnoldi-Tikhonov, and the Arnoldi-TSVD methods is discussed. Numerical examples illustrate properties of these methods.

math.NA↗

arXiv2017

Regularization matrices for discrete ill-posed problems in several space-dimensions

Many applications in science and engineering require the solution of large linear discrete ill-posed problems that are obtained by the discretization of a Fredholm integral equation of the first kind in several space-dimensions. The matrix that defines these problems is very ill-conditioned and generally numerically singular, and the right-hand side, which represents measured data, typically is contaminated by measurement error. Straightforward solution of these problems generally is not meaningful due to severe error propagation. Tikhonov regularization seeks to alleviate this difficulty by replacing the given linear discrete ill-posed problem by a penalized least-squares problem, whose solution is less sensitive to the error in the right-hand side and to round-off errors introduced during the computations. This paper discusses the construction of penalty terms that are determined by solving a matrix-nearness problem. These penalty terms allow partial transformation to standard form of Tikhonov regularization problems that stem from the discretization of integral equations on a cube in several space-dimensions.

math.NA↗

arXiv2017

Computing Unstructured and Structured Polynomial Pseudospectrum Approximations

In many applications it is important to understand the sensitivity of eigenvalues of a matrix polynomial to perturbations of the polynomial. The sensitivity commonly is described by condition numbers or pseudospectra. However, the computation of pseudospectra of matrix polynomials is very demanding computationally. This paper describes a new approach to computing approximations of pseudospectra of matrix polynomials by using rank-one or projected rank-one perturbations. These perturbations are inspired by Wilkinson's analysis of eigenvalue sensitivity. This approach allows the approximation of both structured and unstructured pseudospectra. Computed examples show the method to perform much better than a method based on random rank-one perturbations both for the approximation of structured and unstructured (i.e., standard) polynomial pseudospectra.

math.NA↗

arXiv2016

Approximated structured pseudospectra

Pseudospectra and structured pseudospectra are important tools for the analysis of matrices. Their computation, however, can be very demanding for all but small matrices. A new approach to compute approximations of pseudospectra and structured pseudospectra, based on determining the spectra of many suitably chosen rank-one or projected rank-one perturbations of the given matrix is proposed. The choice of rank-one or projected rank-one perturbations is inspired by Wilkinson's analysis of eigenvalue sensitivity. Numerical examples illustrate that the proposed approach gives much better insight into the pseudospectra and structured pseudospectra than random or structured random rank-one perturbations with lower computational burden. The latter approach is presently commonly used for the determination of structured pseudospectra.

math.NA↗