title: Emergence of scale-free networks from local connectivity and communication trade-offs.
abstract: We suggest a mechanism of connectivity evolution in networks to account for the emergence of scale-free behavior. The mechanism works on a fixed set of nodes and promotes growth from a minimally connected initial topology by the addition of edges. A new edge is added between two nodes depending on the trade-off between a gain and a cost function of local connectivity and communication properties. We report on simulation results that indicate the appearance of power-law distributions of node degrees for selected parameter combinations.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computação, COPPE, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Caixa Postal 68511, 21941-972 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
authors.forename: Valmir C
authors.initials: VC
authors.lastname: Barbosa
authors.forename: Raul
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Donangelo
authors.forename: Sergio R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Souza