Information Theory of Networks

By Ginestra Bianconi

Abstract

Information theory is one of the most fundamental theoretical frameworks of network science and machine learning. However, the current information theory frameworks for understanding networks, based on maximum entropy network ensembles, are not able to explain the emergence of heterogeneity in complex networks. Here, we fill this gap of knowledge by developing a  information theoretical framework for networks based on finding a trade-off between the information content of a compressed representation of the ensemble and the information content of the actual network ensemble.