The Absence of a Weak-Tie Effect When Predicting Large-Weight Links in Complex Networks

Abstract

Link prediction is a hot issue in information filtering. Link prediction algorithms, based on local similarity indices, are widely used in many fields due to their high efficiency and high prediction accuracy. However, most existing link prediction algorithms are available for unweighted networks, and there are relatively few studies for weighted networks. In the previous studies on weighted networks, some scholars pointed out that links with small weights play a more important role in link prediction and emphasized that weak-ties theory has a significant impact on prediction accuracy. On this basis, we studied the edges with different weights, and we discovered that, for edges with large weights, this weak-ties theory actually does not work; Instead, the weak-ties theory works in the prediction of edges with small weights. Our discovery has instructive implications for link predictions in weighted networks.