Differences between the patients in average PLI can influence C and L when it is computed for a threshold T, because a lower PLI trivially results in less edges. To control for the influence of the number of edges, we applied several fixed values of k (k = 3, k = 4, k = 5), where k denotes the average number of edges per vertex. By using this method, graphs in both groups are guaranteed to have the same number of edges. We followed the suggestion of [17] for the minimal k value for a network with size N (here 20), such that a random network generated by using this k will still be fully connected: N≥k≥Ln(N). In the current study, this was true for k≥3. K values between 3 and 5 have been used in previous studies with a similar network size [25], [26].
