Ripple-Spreading Network Model Optimization by Genetic Algorithm

Small-world and scale-free properties are widely acknowledged in many real-world complex network systems, and many network models have been developed to capture these network properties. The ripple-spreading network model (RSNM) is a newly reported complex network model, which is inspired by the natural ripple-spreading phenomenon on clam water surface. The RSNM exhibits good potential for describing both spatial and temporal features in the development of many real-world networks where the influence of a few local events spreads out through nodes and then largely determines the final network topology. However, the relationships between ripple-spreading related parameters (RSRPs) of RSNM and small-world and scale-free topologies are not as obvious or straightforward as in many other network models. This paper attempts to apply genetic algorithm (GA) to tune the values of RSRPs, so that the RSNM may generate these two most important network topologies. The study demonstrates that, once RSRPs are properly tuned by GA, the RSNM is capable of generating both network topologies and therefore has a great flexibility to study many real-world complex network systems.