Patent Document ID: 8914491
Application ID: 13932652
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for assigning network nodes to community of interest clusters, the method comprising: selecting, with a processor, two seed points in a network, each seed point representing a cluster; adding, with the processor, a node to a particular cluster based on a distance between the node and one of the two seed points representing the particular cluster; computing, with the processor, a clustering metric representative of an affinity that each of a plurality of nodes adjacent to the particular cluster has for the particular cluster, the clustering metric based on a distance between the plurality of nodes and the one of the two seed points; adding, with a processor, one of the plurality of nodes to the particular cluster when the clustering metric for the one of the plurality of nodes exceeds a predetermined value; identifying, with the processor, a particular node in the particular cluster as a pinch-point if a sub-network formed by nodes in the particular cluster would be disconnected if the particular node were removed from the sub-network; identifying, with the processor, boundary nodes in the particular cluster if a particular node is determined to be a pinch-point; selecting, with the processor, a boundary cluster based on the boundary nodes, to generate a selected boundary cluster; and moving, with the processor, the particular node identified as a pinch-point to the selected boundary cluster.