clustAnalytics: An R package for assessing stability and significance of communities in networks

This paper introduces the R package clustAnalytics, which comprises a set of criteria for assessing the significance and stability of communities in networks found by any clustering algorithm. clustAnalytics works with graphs of class igraph from the R-package igraph, extended to handle weighted and/or directed graphs. clustAnalytics provides a set of community scoring functions, and methods to systematically compare their values to those of a suitable null model, which are of use when testing for cluster significance. It also provides a non parametric bootstrap method combined with similarity metrics derived from information theory and combinatorics, useful when testing for cluster stability, as well as a method to synthetically generate a weighted network with a ground truth community structure based on the preferential attachment model construction, producing networks with communities and scale-free degree distribution. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)