The Topology and Motif Analysis of Journal Citation Networks

Basing on the journal database indexed by CSTPC from year 2003 to 2006, we abstract these journals and their citing or cited correlations into journal citation networks. It appears to be a highly-clustering and small-world network, which are common characteristics in complex networks. Motifs, first proposed in biological networks, are subgraphs with high occurrence to be found tightly relate with local network structures. We present the idea of using motifs to analyze the entire citation pattern and develop trend on journal networks in recent years. We also address the problem of network communities with the granularity of three-node motifs, on which it is discovered of much differences from in and between communities.