Mining diversity subgraph in multidisciplinary scientific collaboration networks: A meso perspective

This paper proposes a framework to analyze the interdisciplinary collaboration in a coauthorship network from a meso perspective using topic modeling: (1) a customized topic model is developed to capture and formalize the interdisciplinary feature; and (2) the two algorithms Diversity Subgraph Extraction (DSE) and Constraint-based Diversity Subgraph Extraction (CDSE) are designed and implemented to extract a meso view, i.e. a diversity subgraph of the interdisciplinary collaboration. The proposed framework is demonstrated using a coauthorship network in the field of computer science. A comparison between DSE and Breadth First Search (BSF)- based subgraph extraction favors DSE in capturing the diversity in interdisciplinary collaboration. Potential possibilities for studying various research topics based on the proposed framework of analysis are discussed. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.