  Degree correlation is a crucial measure in networks, significantly impacting
network topology and dynamical behavior. The degree sequence of a network is a
significant characteristic, and altering network degree correlation through
degree-preserving rewiring poses an interesting problem. In this paper, we
define the problem of maximizing network degree correlation through a finite
number of rewirings and use the assortativity coefficient to measure it. We
analyze the changes in assortativity coefficient under degree-preserving
rewiring and establish its relationship with the s-metric. Under our
assumptions, we prove the problem to be monotonic and submodular, leading to
the proposal of the GA method to enhance network degree correlation. By
formulating an integer programming model, we demonstrate that the GA method can
effectively approximate the optimal solution and validate its superiority over
other baseline methods through experiments on three types of real-world
networks. Additionally, we introduce three heuristic rewiring strategies, EDA,
TA and PEA, and demonstrate their applicability to different types of networks.
Furthermore, we extend our investigation to explore the impact of these
rewiring strategies on several spectral robustness metrics based on the
adjacency matrix. Finally, we examine the robustness of various centrality
metrics in the network while enhancing network degree correlation using the GA
method.
