JANE: Just Another latent space NEtwork clustering algorithm

While latent space network models have been a popular approach for community detection for over 15 years, major computational challenges remain, limiting the ability to scale beyond small networks. The R statistical software package, JANE, introduces a new estimation algorithm with massive speedups derived from: (1) a low dimensional approximation approach to adjust for degree heterogeneity parameters; (2) an approximation of intractable likelihood terms; (3) a fast initialization algorithm; and (4) a novel set of convergence criteria focused on clustering performance. Additionally, the proposed method addresses limitations of current implementations, which rely on a restrictive spherical-shape assumption for the prior distribution on the latent positions; relaxing this constraint allows for greater flexibility across diverse network structures. A simulation study evaluating clustering performance of the proposed approach against state-of-the-art methods shows dramatically improved clustering performance in most scenarios and significant reductions in computational time — up to 45 times faster compared to existing approaches.