Network pruning and growth: Probabilistic optimization

Being the backbone of many human-made systems, networks require both pruning and growth to adapt to changing demand. We develop a message passing-based framework for analyzing and addressing the two-level optimization problem of edge removal/addition for indirectly dependent objectives. As exemplar problem we use routing in optical communication networks to minimize capability loss (removal) or maximize capacity (addition). The methods developed result in lower path lengths and higher capacity topologies with respect to existing ones and are suitable for a broad range of network design tasks.