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Advances in Complex Networks and Their Applications, from COMPLEX NETWORKS 2025

A special issue of Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300). This special issue belongs to the section "Complexity".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2026 | Viewed by 2017

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since 2012, the International Conference on Complex Networks and Their Applications (COMPLEX NETWORKS) has brought together researchers from different scientific communities working on areas related to network science. The fourteenth edition of this annual event will be held from 9 to 11 December 2025.

Authors of selected papers from the conference will be invited to submit extended versions of their original papers and contributions under the conference topics. They will reflect the latest problems, advances, and diversity within the network science community. New papers that are closely related to the conference themes are also welcome.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • structural network measures;
  • community structure;
  • link analysis and ranking;
  • motif discovery in complex networks;
  • network models;
  • diffusion and epidemics;
  • temporal networks;
  • multilayer networks;
  • dynamics on/of networks;
  • synchronization in networks;
  • resilience and robustness of networks;
  • controlling networks;
  • reputation, influence, and trust;
  • mobility;
  • networks in finance and economics;
  • ecological networks and food webs;
  • earth science applications;
  • biological networks;
  • brain networks;
  • urban systems and networks;
  • network medicine;
  • machine learning and networks

Prof. Dr. Hocine Cherifi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Entropy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • structural network measures
  • community structure
  • link analysis and ranking
  • motif discovery in complex networks
  • network models
  • diffusion and epidemics
  • temporal networks
  • multilayer networks
  • dynamics on/of networks
  • synchronization in networks
  • resilience and robustness of networks
  • controlling networks
  • reputation, influence, and trust
  • mobility
  • networks in finance and economics
  • ecological networks and food webs
  • earth science applications
  • biological networks
  • brain networks
  • urban systems and networks
  • network medicine
  • machine learning and networks

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

25 pages, 2523 KB  
Article
Link Prediction in Heterogeneous Information Networks: Improved Hypergraph Convolution with Adaptive Soft Voting
by Sheng Zhang, Yuyuan Huang, Ziqiang Luo, Jiangnan Zhou, Bing Wu, Ka Sun and Hongmei Mao
Entropy 2026, 28(2), 230; https://doi.org/10.3390/e28020230 - 16 Feb 2026
Viewed by 294
Abstract
Complex real-world systems are often modeled as heterogeneous information networks with diverse node and relation types, bringing new opportunities and challenges to link prediction. Traditional methods based on similarity or meta-paths fail to fully capture high-order structures and semantics, while existing hypergraph-based models [...] Read more.
Complex real-world systems are often modeled as heterogeneous information networks with diverse node and relation types, bringing new opportunities and challenges to link prediction. Traditional methods based on similarity or meta-paths fail to fully capture high-order structures and semantics, while existing hypergraph-based models homogenize all high-order information without considering their importance differences, diluting core associations with redundant noise and limiting prediction accuracy. Given these issues, we propose the VE-HGCN, a link prediction model for HINs that fuses hypergraph convolution with soft-voting ensemble strategy. The model first constructs multiple heterogeneous hypergraphs from HINs via network frequent subgraph pattern extraction, then leverages hypergraph convolution for node representation learning, and finally employs a soft-voting ensemble strategy to fuse multi-model prediction results. Extensive experiments on four public HIN datasets show that the VE-HGCN outperforms seven mainstream baseline models, thereby validating the effectiveness of the proposed method. This study offers a new perspective for link prediction in HINs and exhibits good generality and practicality, providing a feasible reference for addressing high-order information utilization issues in complex heterogeneous network analysis. Full article
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21 pages, 1514 KB  
Article
TaCD: Team-Aware Community Detection Based on Multi-View Modularity
by Chengzhou Fu, Feiyi Tang, Lingzhi Hu, Chengzhe Yuan and Ronghua Lin
Entropy 2026, 28(1), 21; https://doi.org/10.3390/e28010021 - 24 Dec 2025
Viewed by 385
Abstract
Community detection in social networks is one of the most important topics of network science. Researchers have developed numerous methods from various perspectives. However, the existing methods often overlook the team information encoded as a special type of user relation in the social [...] Read more.
Community detection in social networks is one of the most important topics of network science. Researchers have developed numerous methods from various perspectives. However, the existing methods often overlook the team information encoded as a special type of user relation in the social network, which plays an important role in community formation and evolution. In this paper, we propose a novel community detection algorithm called Team-aware Community Detection (TaCD). Our model constructs a multi-view network by encoding the user interaction information as the user view and the team information as the team view. To measure the consistency across the two views, we use the Jaccard similarity to establish a cross-view coupling. Based on the constructed 2-view network, we use multi-view modularity to discover team-aware community structure, and solve the optimization problem using the well-known Generalized Louvain approach. Another contribution of this paper is the collection of a new SCHOLAT dataset, which consists of several social networks with team information and is publicly available for testing purposes. Our experimental results on several SCHOLAT networks with team information demonstrate that TaCD outperforms the existing community detection algorithms. Full article
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34 pages, 2015 KB  
Article
Exploring the Digital Economy Innovation in the Yangtze River Delta: A Perspective of Complex Networks
by Luyun Sun, Pan Zhao and Benda Zhou
Entropy 2025, 27(12), 1241; https://doi.org/10.3390/e27121241 - 8 Dec 2025
Viewed by 687
Abstract
As a major economic engine of China, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region is pivotal in driving innovation across the scientific, technological, and digital economies. This study constructs the spatial associative network for digital economy innovation by treating 41 cities as nodes and [...] Read more.
As a major economic engine of China, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region is pivotal in driving innovation across the scientific, technological, and digital economies. This study constructs the spatial associative network for digital economy innovation by treating 41 cities as nodes and applying a gravity model adjusted for institutional distance. Subsequently, the structural characteristics of the spatial associative network and their effects were empirically explored by using complex network analysis and regression models. The findings indicate that: (1) The linkages in digital economy innovation among cities are becoming increasingly closer, and the network structure exhibits an annual increasing trend in density, connectivity, and efficiency, while hierarchy decreases; (2) The examination of network node characteristics discloses that different cities possess diverse capabilities in terms of resource aggregation, regulation, and communication. The block model analysis further categorizes the cities into four functional groups. Among them, Block I (including cities like Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou) holds the “primary” status and acts as the “core city” for digital economy innovation; (3) The attributes of the spatial associative network have a remarkable effect on both the degree of digital economy innovation and the variations among cities. Full article
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