Modularity Optimization

This feature is in the beta tier. For more information on feature tiers, see API Tiers.

Glossary

Directed

Directed trait. The algorithm is well-defined on a directed graph.

Directed

Directed trait. The algorithm ignores the direction of the graph.

Directed

Directed trait. The algorithm does not run on a directed graph.

Undirected

Undirected trait. The algorithm is well-defined on an undirected graph.

Undirected

Undirected trait. The algorithm ignores the undirectedness of the graph.

Heterogeneous nodes

Heterogeneous nodes fully supported. The algorithm has the ability to distinguish between nodes of different types.

Heterogeneous nodes

Heterogeneous nodes allowed. The algorithm treats all selected nodes similarly regardless of their label.

Heterogeneous relationships

Heterogeneous relationships fully supported. The algorithm has the ability to distinguish between relationships of different types.

Heterogeneous relationships

Heterogeneous relationships allowed. The algorithm treats all selected relationships similarly regardless of their type.

Weighted relationships

Weighted trait. The algorithm supports a relationship property to be used as weight, specified via the relationshipWeightProperty configuration parameter.

Weighted relationships

Weighted trait. The algorithm treats each relationship as equally important, discarding the value of any relationship weight.

1. Introduction

The Modularity Optimization algorithm tries to detect communities in the graph based on their modularity. Modularity is a measure of the structure of a graph, measuring the density of connections within a module or community. Graphs with a high modularity score will have many connections within a community but only few pointing outwards to other communities. The algorithm will explore for every node if its modularity score might increase if it changes its community to one of its neighboring nodes.

For more information on this algorithm, see:

Running this algorithm requires sufficient memory availability. Before running this algorithm, we recommend that you read Memory Estimation.

2. Syntax

Modularity Optimization syntax per mode
Run Modularity Optimization in stream mode on a named graph.
CALL gds.beta.modularityOptimization.stream(graphName: String, configuration: Map)
YIELD
  nodeId: Integer,
  communityId: Integer
Table 1. Parameters
Name Type Default Optional Description

graphName

String

n/a

no

The name of a graph stored in the catalog.

configuration

Map

{}

yes

Configuration for algorithm-specifics and/or graph filtering.

Table 2. General configuration
Name Type Default Optional Description

concurrency

Integer

4

yes

The number of concurrent threads used for running the algorithm. Also provides the default value for 'readConcurrency' and 'writeConcurrency'.

writeConcurrency

Integer

value of 'concurrency'

yes

The number of concurrent threads used for writing the result (applicable in WRITE mode).

logProgress

Boolean

true

yes

If disabled the progress percentage will not be logged.

Table 3. Algorithm specific configuration
Name Type Default Optional Description

maxIterations

Integer

10

yes

The maximum number of iterations to run.

tolerance

Float

0.0001

yes

Minimum change in modularity between iterations. If the modularity changes less than the tolerance value, the result is considered stable and the algorithm returns.

seedProperty

String

n/a

yes

Used to define initial set of labels (must be a non-negative number).

consecutiveIds

Boolean

false

yes

Flag to decide whether component identifiers are mapped into a consecutive id space (requires additional memory).

relationshipWeightProperty

String

null

yes

Name of the relationship property to use as weights. If unspecified, the algorithm runs unweighted.

minCommunitySize

Integer

0

yes

Only nodes inside communities larger or equal the given value are returned.

Table 4. Results
Name Type Description

nodeId

Integer

Node ID

communityId

Integer

Community ID

Run Modularity Optimization in mutate mode on a named graph.
CALL gds.beta.modularityOptimization.mutate(graphName: String, configuration: Map})
YIELD
  preProcessingMillis: Integer,
  computeMillis: Integer,
  postProcessingMillis: Integer,
  mutateMillis: Integer,
  communityCount: Integer,
  communityDistribution: Map,
  modularity: Float,
  ranIterations: Integer,
  didConverge: Boolean,
  nodes: Integer,
  configuration: Map
Table 5. Parameters
Name Type Default Optional Description

graphName

String

n/a

no

The name of a graph stored in the catalog.

configuration

Map

{}

yes

Configuration for algorithm-specifics and/or graph filtering.

The configuration for the mutate mode is similar to the write mode. Instead of specifying a writeProperty, we need to specify a mutateProperty. Also, specifying writeConcurrency is not possible in mutate mode.

Table 6. Results
Name Type Description

preProcessingMillis

Integer

Milliseconds for preprocessing the data.

computeMillis

Integer

Milliseconds for running the algorithm.

mutateMillis

Integer

Milliseconds for adding properties to the projected graph.

postProcessingMillis

Integer

Milliseconds for computing percentiles and community count.

nodes

Integer

The number of nodes considered.

didConverge

Boolean

True if the algorithm did converge to a stable modularity score within the provided number of maximum iterations.

ranIterations

Integer

The number of iterations run.

modularity

Float

The final modularity score.

communityCount

Integer

The number of communities found.

communityDistribution

Map

The containing min, max, mean as well as 50, 75, 90, 95, 99 and 999 percentile of community size.

configuration

Map

The configuration used for running the algorithm.

Run Modularity Optimization in write mode on a named graph.
CALL gds.beta.modularityOptimization.write(graphName: String, configuration: Map})
YIELD
  preProcessingMillis: Integer,
  computeMillis: Integer,
  postProcessingMillis: Integer,
  writeMillis: Integer,
  communityCount: Integer,
  communityDistribution: Map,
  modularity: Float,
  ranIterations: Integer,
  didConverge: Boolean,
  nodes: Integer,
  configuration: Map
Table 7. Parameters
Name Type Default Optional Description

graphName

String

n/a

no

The name of a graph stored in the catalog.

configuration

Map

{}

yes

Configuration for algorithm-specifics and/or graph filtering.

Table 8. General configuration
Name Type Default Optional Description

concurrency

Integer

4

yes

The number of concurrent threads used for running the algorithm. Also provides the default value for 'readConcurrency' and 'writeConcurrency'.

writeConcurrency

Integer

value of 'concurrency'

yes

The number of concurrent threads used for writing the result (applicable in WRITE mode).

logProgress

Boolean

true

yes

If disabled the progress percentage will not be logged.

Table 9. Algorithm specific configuration
Name Type Default Optional Description

seedProperty

String

n/a

yes

Used to set the initial community for a node. The property value needs to be a number.

writeProperty

String

n/a

yes

The property name written back the ID of the partition particular node belongs to.

maxIterations

Integer

10

yes

The maximum number of iterations that the modularity optimization will run for each level.

tolerance

Float

0.0001

yes

Minimum change in modularity between iterations. If the modularity changes less than the tolerance value, the result is considered stable and the algorithm returns.

consecutiveIds

Boolean

false

yes

Flag to decide whether component identifiers are mapped into a consecutive id space (requires additional memory).

relationshipWeightProperty

String

null

yes

Name of the relationship property to use as weights. If unspecified, the algorithm runs unweighted.

minCommunitySize

Integer

0

yes

Only community ids of communities with a size greater than or equal to the given value are written to Neo4j.

Table 10. Results
Name Type Description

preProcessingMillis

Integer

Milliseconds for preprocessing the data.

computeMillis

Integer

Milliseconds for running the algorithm.

writeMillis

Integer

Milliseconds for writing result data back.

postProcessingMillis

Integer

Milliseconds for computing percentiles and community count.

nodes

Integer

The number of nodes considered.

didConverge

Boolean

True if the algorithm did converge to a stable modularity score within the provided number of maximum iterations.

ranIterations

Integer

The number of iterations run.

modularity

Float

The final modularity score.

communityCount

Integer

The number of communities found.

communityDistribution

Map

The containing min, max, mean as well as 50, 75, 90, 95, 99 and 999 percentile of community size.

configuration

Map

The configuration used for running the algorithm.

3. Examples

Consider the graph created by the following Cypher statement:

CREATE
  (a:Person {name:'Alice'})
, (b:Person {name:'Bridget'})
, (c:Person {name:'Charles'})
, (d:Person {name:'Doug'})
, (e:Person {name:'Elton'})
, (f:Person {name:'Frank'})
, (a)-[:KNOWS {weight: 0.01}]->(b)
, (a)-[:KNOWS {weight: 5.0}]->(e)
, (a)-[:KNOWS {weight: 5.0}]->(f)
, (b)-[:KNOWS {weight: 5.0}]->(c)
, (b)-[:KNOWS {weight: 5.0}]->(d)
, (c)-[:KNOWS {weight: 0.01}]->(e)
, (f)-[:KNOWS {weight: 0.01}]->(d)

This graph consists of two center nodes "Alice" and "Bridget" each of which have two more neighbors. Additionally, each neighbor of "Alice" is connected to one of the neighbors of "Bridget". Looking at the weights of the relationships, it can be seen that the connections from the two center nodes to their neighbors are very strong, while connections between those groups are weak. Therefore the Modularity Optimization algorithm should detect two communities: "Alice" and "Bob" together with their neighbors respectively.

In the examples below we will use named graphs and native projections as the norm. However, Cypher projections can also be used.

The following statement will project the graph and store it in the graph catalog.
CALL gds.graph.project(
    'myGraph',
    'Person',
    {
        KNOWS: {
            orientation: 'UNDIRECTED',
            properties: ['weight']
        }
    })

The following example demonstrates using the Modularity Algorithm on this weighted graph.

Running the Modularity Optimization algorithm in stream mode:
CALL gds.beta.modularityOptimization.stream('myGraph', { relationshipWeightProperty: 'weight' })
YIELD nodeId, communityId
RETURN gds.util.asNode(nodeId).name AS name, communityId
ORDER BY name
Table 11. Results
name communityId

"Alice"

4

"Bridget"

1

"Charles"

1

"Doug"

1

"Elton"

4

"Frank"

4

It is also possible to write the assigned community ids back to the database using the write mode.

Running the Modularity Optimization algorithm in write mode:
CALL gds.beta.modularityOptimization.write('myGraph', { relationshipWeightProperty: 'weight', writeProperty: 'community' })
YIELD nodes, communityCount, ranIterations, didConverge
Table 12. Results
nodes communityCount ranIterations didConverge

6

2

2

true

When using write mode the procedure will return information about the algorithm execution. In this example we return the number of processed nodes, the number of communities assigned to the nodes in the graph, the number of iterations and information whether the algorithm converged.

Running the algorithm without specifying the relationshipWeightProperty will default all relationship weights to 1.0.

To instead mutate the in-memory graph with the assigned community ids, the mutate mode is used.

Running the Modularity Optimization algorithm in mutate mode:
CALL gds.beta.modularityOptimization.mutate('myGraph', { relationshipWeightProperty: 'weight', mutateProperty: 'community' })
YIELD nodes, communityCount, ranIterations, didConverge
Table 13. Results
nodes communityCount ranIterations didConverge

6

2

2

true

When using mutate mode the procedure will return information about the algorithm execution as in write mode.