The spatial preferential attachment (SPA) is a model for complex networks. In the SPA model, nodes are embedded in a metric space, and each node has a sphere of influence whose size increases if the node gains an in-link, and otherwise decreases with time. In this paper, we study the behaviour of the SPA model when the distribution of the nodes is non-uniform. Specifically, the space is divided into dense and sparse regions, where it is assumed that the dense regions correspond to coherent communities. We prove precise theoretical results regarding the degree of a node, the number of common neighbours, and the average out-degree in a region. Moreover, we show how these theoretically derived results about the graph properties of the model can be used to formulate a reliable estimator for the distance between certain pairs of nodes, and to estimate the density of the region containing a given node.
The spatial preferred attachment (SPA) model is a model for networked information spaces such as domains of the World Wide Web, citation graphs, and on-line social networks. It uses a metric space to model the hidden attributes of the vertices. Thus, vertices are elements of a metric space, and link formation depends on the metric distance between vertices. We show, through theoretical analysis and simulation, that for graphs formed according to the SPA model it is possible to infer the metric distance between vertices from the link structure of the graph. Precisely, the estimate is based on the number of common neighbours of a pair of vertices, a measure known as co-citation. To be able to calculate this estimate, we derive a precise relation between the number of common neighbours and metric distance. We also analyse the distribution of edge lengths, where the length of an edge is the metric distance between its end points. We show that this distribution has three different regimes, and that the tail of this distribution follows a power law. We investigate a stochastic model for complex networks, based on a spatial embedding of the nodes, called the Spatial Preferred Attachment (SPA) model. In the SPA model, nodes have spheres of influence of varying size, and new nodes may only link to a node if they fall within its influence region. The spatial embedding of the nodes models the background knowledge or identity of the node, which influences its link environment. In this paper, we focus on the (directed) diameter, small separators, and the (weak) giant component of the model. 