Random graphs with fixed numbers of neighbours
In connection with Le Monde puzzle #46, I eventually managed to write an R program that generates graphs with a given number n of nodes and a given number k of edges leaving each of those nodes. (My early attempt was simply too myopic to achieve any level of success when n was larger than 10!) Here is the core of the R code:
A=42 #number of nodes L=13 #number of edges ApL=A+L if ((A*L)%%2==1){ print("impossible graph") }else{ con=matrix(0,A,A) diag(con)=A #eliminate self-connection suma=apply(con,1,sum)-A while (min(suma)<L){ if (sum(suma<L)==1){ #bad news: no correspondence! #go back: con=aclrtr(con,L) diag(con)=A suma=apply(con,1,sum)-A }else{ j=sample((1:A)[suma<L],1) slots=(1:A)[con[j,]==0] #remaining connections if (length(slots)==1){ vali=slots if (sum(con[vali,]>ApL-1)) vali=NULL }else{ vali=slots[apply(con[slots,],1,sum)<ApL] } if (length(vali)==0){ con=aclrtr(con,L) diag(con)=A suma=apply(con,1,sum)-A }else{ if (length(vali)==1){ k=vali[1] }else{ k=sample(slots[apply(con[slots,],1,sum)<ApL],1) } con[k,j]=con[j,k]=1 suma=apply(con,1,sum)-A }}}}
and it uses a sort of annealed backward step to avoid simulating a complete new collection of neighbours when reaching culs-de-sac….
aclrtr=function(con,L){ #removes a random number of links among the nodes with L links A=dim(con)[1] ApL=A+L while (max(apply(con,1,sum))==ApL){ don=sample(1:(L-1),1) if (sum(apply(con,1,sum)==ApL)==1){ i=(1:A)[apply(con,1,sum)==ApL] }else{ i=sample((1:A)[apply(con,1,sum)==ApL],1) } off=sample((1:A)[con[i,]==1],don) con[i,off]=0 con[off,i]=0 } con }
There is nothing fancy or optimised about this code so I figure there are much better versions to be found elsewhere…
Ps-As noticed previously, sample does not work on a set of length one, which is a bug in my opinion…. Instead, sample(4.5,1) returns a random permutation of (1,2,3,4).
> sample(4.5)
[1] 4 3 1 2
Pps-Following a suggestion by Pierre, I used the R command hcl for a graduation of the colours on the nodes, but besides mimicking the examples in the help documentation, I have trouble producing colours I want (like yellows…) Maybe I should read the whole vignette by the (well-recognised) authors as the abilities to play with colour gradients sound awesome!
December 2, 2010 at 12:22 am
[…] Le Monde puzzle [48] This week(end), the Le Monde puzzle can be (re)written as follows (even though it is presented as a graph problem): […]
November 26, 2010 at 3:40 am
Hmm. How about putting A and L in a double loop – and add in animation using a gif. What do you think?
Cool art!
Ajay Ohri
November 26, 2010 at 6:17 am
Thanks, Ajay! My daughter also suggested to move this post to the “Art brut” posts (she is kindly making fun of!. How would you produce this animation in R?
November 25, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Can’t the igraph package do this for you?
November 25, 2010 at 10:39 pm
As mentioned on the main post, there must be dozens of good packages doing this. Including igraph indeed. Thanks for the reference. (I did not want to start building a competitor to those packages, just to solve a small puzzle suggested by the original problem.) Again, thanks for pointing out the package. It looks great and I hope I can find there a way to improve display from my circle representation (using the Fruchterman-Reingold layout algorithm)… Actually, igraph showed me that the problem of generating a graph with a fixed number of vertices and of edges is called the Erdös-Rényi problem.
November 25, 2010 at 6:31 am
So that explains the question about hcl! Great plots!