title: Structural reducibility of multilayer networks.
abstract: Many complex systems can be represented as networks consisting of distinct types of interactions, which can be categorized as links belonging to different layers. For example, a good description of the full protein-protein interactome requires, for some organisms, up to seven distinct network layers, accounting for different genetic and physical interactions, each containing thousands of protein-protein relationships. A fundamental open question is then how many layers are indeed necessary to accurately represent the structure of a multilayered complex system. Here we introduce a method based on quantum theory to reduce the number of layers to a minimum while maximizing the distinguishability between the multilayer network and the corresponding aggregated graph. We validate our approach on synthetic benchmarks and we show that the number of informative layers in some real multilayer networks of protein-genetic interactions, social, economical and transportation systems can be reduced by up to 75%.
authors.affiliation: Departament d'Enginyeria Informática i Matemátiques, Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Avda Paisos Catalans 26, Tarragona 43007, Spain.
authors.forename: Manlio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: De Domenico
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK.
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Nicosia
authors.affiliation: Departament d'Enginyeria Informática i Matemátiques, Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Avda Paisos Catalans 26, Tarragona 43007, Spain.
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.identifier: 0000000309370334
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arenas
authors.affiliation: 1] School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK [2] Dipartimento di Fisica ed Astronomia, Università di Catania and INFN, Catania I-95123, Italy.
authors.forename: Vito
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Latora
mesh_terms: D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D018803:Models, Economic; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D060066:Protein Interaction Maps; D011789:Quantum Theory; D012944:Social Support; D014186:Transportation