Graph spectral analysis can yield meaningful embeddings of graphs by providing insight into distributed features not directly accessible in nodal domain. Recent efforts in graph signal processing have proposed new decompositions—for example, based on wavelets and Slepians—that can be applied to filter signals defined on the graph. In this work, we take inspiration from these constructions to define a new guided spectral embedding that combines maximizing energy concentration with minimizing modified embedded distance for a given importance weighting of the nodes. We show that these optimization goals are intrinsically opposite, leading to a well-defined and stable spectral decomposition. The importance weighting allows us to put the focus on particular nodes and tune the trade-off between global and local effects. Following the derivation of our new optimization criterion, we exemplify the methodology on the C. elegans structural connectome. The results of our analyses confirm known observations on the nematode’s neural network in terms of functionality and importance of cells. Compared with Laplacian embedding, the guided approach, focused on a certain class of cells (sensory neurons, interneurons, or motoneurons), provides more biological insights, such as the distinction between somatic positions of cells, and their involvement in low- or high-order processing functions.

he emerging field of graph signal processing (GSP) allows one to transpose classical signal processing operations (e.g., filtering) to signals on graphs. The GSP framework is generally built upon the graph Laplacian, which plays a crucial role in studying graph properties and measuring graph signal smoothness. Here, instead, we propose the graph modularity matrix as the centerpiece of GSP to incorporate knowledge about graph community structure when processing signals on the graph but without the need for community detection. We study this approach in several generic settings, such as filtering, optimal sampling and reconstruction, surrogate data generation, and denoising. Feasibility is illustrated by a small-scale example and a transportation network data set as well as one application in human neuroimaging where community-aware GSP reveals relationships between behavior and brain features that are not shown by Laplacian-based GSP. This work demonstrates how concepts from network science can lead to new, meaningful operations on graph signals.

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