Research Article
ComparisonandAnalysisofNetworkConstructionMethodsfor
SeismicityBasedonComplexNetworks
XuanHe ,
1
SyedBilalHussainShah,
2
BoWei ,
3
andZhengLiu
4
1
College of Medicine & Biological Information Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110169, China
2
School of Software, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
3
Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK
4
School of Computer Science & Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110169, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Xuan He; hexuan@bmie.neu.edu.cn
Received 22 December 2020; Revised 12 January 2021; Accepted 20 January 2021; Published 2 February 2021
Academic Editor: Wei Wang
Copyright©2021XuanHeetal.isisanopenaccessarticledistributedundertheCreativeCommonsAttributionLicense,which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
eapproachofthecomplexnetworkhaswelldescribedseismiccomplexsystems.Inthispaper,thisisthefirsttimethreeclassical
network construction methods for seismicity are compared. By using the same dataset from the Southern California Seismic
Network, three networks are constructed. ey all present the scale-free, small-world properties, a strength-degree correlation,
and an assortative mixing feature. However, they show some differences in the hierarchical clustering feature. On observing the
evolution results, three measures show a similar correlation with seismicity dynamics, but one measure shows a different result.
ese results show that different network construction methods will present some similarities and differences in network
properties. is situation needs to be considered, especially when discussing a predictive indicator of seismicity.
1.Introduction
Network science is widely used in many fields in the real
world to describe complex systems’ characteristics. In order
torepresentacomplexsystemasagraph,nodesareusually
usedtorepresentresearchobjects,whileedgesrepresentthe
relationships between research objects. Scientists represent
complex systems as graphs from different perspectives in
various fields, such as brain networks [1], protein-protein
networks[2],socialnetworks[3],Internettopology[4],and
transportation networks [5–7]. Complex networks prove to
be an effective method to study the complex system.
Due to some unknown dynamics of the earth’s crust,
seismicactivityhasbeenproventobeacomplexsystemwith
temporal and spatial characteristics [8]. Recently, seismic
complexsystemshavebeendescribedbytheapproachofthe
complexnetwork[9].emostsignificantadvantageisthat
we no longer study seismic activity from some small local
areas or study one big shock but consider the relationships
between seismic events from a broader geographical scope.
Most of the proposed methods [9–13] can construct a
complex earthquake network only from the main elements
ofmagnitude,time,andlocationandhaveachievedprecious
results. ey discovered that the earthquake network is
scale-free and small-world. ey also discovered that the
networks’ topological characteristics change over time,
correspondingtothelargeearthquakes[14–16].Resaeietal.
[17] found that the PageRank value is an appropriate
alarming clue before the event’s occurrence, which is
worthwhile in hazard probabilistic evaluation of earth-
quakes. However, the discovery of these laws is based on
different network construction methods. Our recent study
found that the conclusions drawn by different network
constructionmethodswillbedifferenttosomeextent.Asfar
as we know, no researchers have compared and analyzed
these differences.
Abe and SuzukiAbe proposed the earthquake network
constructionmethodforthefirsttimein2004[9].eyfirst
dividedthegeographicalregionintomanysmallequal-sized
cells.Ifanyeventoccurredinthecell,thecellisrepresented
by a node in the network. Two successive events defined an
edgefromtheformertothelatterbetweentwonodes.Inthis
Hindawi
Complexity
Volume 2021, Article ID 6691880, 11 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6691880