E-Book Overview
‘Network’ is a heavily overloaded term, so that ‘network analysis’ means different things to different people. Specific forms of network analysis are used in the study of diverse structures such as the Internet, interlocking directorates, transportation systems, epidemic spreading, metabolic pathways, the Web graph, electrical circuits, project plans, and so on. There is, however, a broad methodological foundation which is quickly becoming a prerequisite for researchers and practitioners working with network models.
From a computer science perspective, network analysis is applied graph theory. Unlike standard graph theory books, the content of this book is organized according to methods for specific levels of analysis (element, group, network) rather than abstract concepts like paths, matchings, or spanning subgraphs. Its topics therefore range from vertex centrality to graph clustering and the evolution of scale-free networks.
In 15 coherent chapters, this monograph-like tutorial book introduces and surveys the concepts and methods that drive network analysis, and is thus the first book to do so from a methodological perspective independent of specific application areas.
E-Book Content
Lecture Notes in Computer Science Commenced Publication in 1973 Founding and Former Series Editors: Gerhard Goos, Juris Hartmanis, and Jan van Leeuwen
Editorial Board David Hutchison Lancaster University, UK Takeo Kanade Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Josef Kittler University of Surrey, Guildford, UK Jon M. Kleinberg Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Friedemann Mattern ETH Zurich, Switzerland John C. Mitchell Stanford University, CA, USA Moni Naor Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel Oscar Nierstrasz University of Bern, Switzerland C. Pandu Rangan Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India Bernhard Steffen University of Dortmu