Introduction to Network

Theory
What is a Network?
 Network = graph
 Informally a graph is a set of nodes joined by a set of lines or
arrows.

1 1 2 3
2 3

4 5 6 4 5 6
 Graph-based representations

 Representing a problem as a graph can

provide a different point of view
 Representing a problem as a graph can
make a problem much simpler
 More accurately, it can provide the
appropriate tools for solving the problem
 What is network theory?
 Network theory provides a set of
techniques for analysing graphs
 Complex systems network theory provides
techniques for analysing structure in a
system of interacting agents, represented
as a network
 Applying network theory to a system
means using a graph-theoretic
representation
 What makes a problem graph-like?

 There are two components to a graph

 Nodes and edges
 In graph-like problems, these components
have natural correspondences to problem
elements
 Entities are nodes and interactions between
entities are edges
 Most complex systems are graph-like
Friendship Network
Scientific collaboration network
Business ties in US biotech-
industry
Genetic interaction network
Protein-Protein Interaction
Networks
Transportation Networks
Internet
Ecological Networks
Graph Theory - History

Leonhard Euler's paper on “Seven

Bridges of Königsberg” ,
published in 1736.
Graph Theory - History
Cycles in Polyhedra

Thomas P. Kirkman William R. Hamilton

Hamiltonian cycles in Platonic graphs

 Graph Theory - History
Trees in Electric Circuits

Gustav Kirchhoff
 Graph Theory - History
Enumeration of Chemical Isomers

Arthur Cayley James J. Sylvester George Polya

 Graph Theory - History
Four Colors of Maps

Francis Guthrie Auguste DeMorgan

Definition: Graph

 G is an ordered triple G:=(V, E, f)

 V is a set of nodes, points, or vertices.
 E is a set, whose elements are known as edges or lines.
 f is a function
 maps each element of E

 to an unordered pair of vertices in V.

Definitions

 Vertex
 Basic Element
 Drawn as a node or a dot.
 Vertex set of G is usually denoted by V(G), or V
 Edge
 A set of two elements
 Drawn as a line connecting two vertices, called end vertices, or
endpoints.
 The edge set of G is usually denoted by E(G), or E.
 Example

 V:={1,2,3,4,5,6}
 E:={{1,2},{1,5},{2,3},{2,5},{3,4},{4,5},{4,6}}
 Simple Graphs

Simple graphs are graphs without multiple edges or self-loops.

 Directed Graph (digraph)

 Edges have directions

 An edge is an ordered pair of nodes

loop
multiple arc

arc node
 Weighted graphs

 is a graph for which each edge has an associated weight, usually

given by a weight function w: E → R.

1.2 2
1 2 3 1 2 3
.2
.5 1.5 5 3
.3 1
4 5 6 4 5 6

.5
 Structures and structural
metrics
 Graph structures are used to isolate
interesting or important sections of a
graph
 Structural metrics provide a measurement
of a structural property of a graph
 Global metrics refer to a whole graph
 Local metrics refer to a single node in a graph
 Graph structures
 Identify interesting sections of a graph
 Interesting because they form a significant
domain-specific structure, or because they
significantly contribute to graph properties
 A subset of the nodes and edges in a
graph that possess certain characteristics,
or relate to each other in particular ways
Connectivity

 a graph is connected if
 you can get from any node to any other by following a sequence of edges
OR
 any two nodes are connected by a path.

 A directed graph is strongly connected if there is a directed path from

any node to any other node.
Component

 Every disconnected graph can be split up into a number of

connected components.
 Degree

 Number of edges incident on a node

The degree of 5 is 3
Degree (Directed Graphs)

 In-degree: Number of edges entering

 Out-degree: Number of edges leaving

 Degree = indeg + outdeg

outdeg(1)=2
indeg(1)=0

outdeg(2)=2
indeg(2)=2

outdeg(3)=1
indeg(3)=4
 Degree: Simple Facts

 If G is a graph with m edges, then

Σ deg(v) = 2m = 2 |E |

 If G is a digraph then
Σ indeg(v)=Σ outdeg(v) = |E |

 Number of Odd degree Nodes is even

 Walks

A walk of length k in a graph is a succession of k

(not necessarily different) edges of the form

uv,vw,wx,…,yz.

This walk is denote by uvwx…xz, and is referred to

as a walk between u and z.

A walk is closed is u=z.

 Path

 A path is a walk in which all the edges and all the nodes are different.

Walks and Paths

1,2,5,2,3,4 1,2,5,2,3,2,1 1,2,3,4,6
walk of length 5 CW of length 6 path of length 4
 Cycle

 A cycle is a closed path in which all the edges are different.

1,2,5,1 2,3,4,5,2
3-cycle 4-cycle
Special Types of Graphs

 Empty Graph / Edgeless graph

 No edge

 Null graph
 No nodes
 Obviously no edge
 Trees

 Connected Acyclic Graph

 Two nodes have exactly one path

between them
Special Trees

Paths

Stars
 Regular

Connected Graph

All nodes have the same

degree
Special Regular Graphs: Cycles

C3 C4 C5
Bipartite graph

 V can be partitioned into 2 sets V1

and V2
such that (u,v)∈E implies
 either u ∈V1 and v ∈V2
 OR v ∈V1 and u∈V2.
 Complete Graph

 Every pair of vertices are adjacent

 Has n(n-1)/2 edges
Complete Bipartite Graph

 Bipartite Variation of Complete Graph

 Every node of one set is connected to every other node on the
other set

Stars
 Planar Graphs

 Can be drawn on a plane such that no two edges intersect

 K4 is the largest complete graph that is planar
Subgraph

 Vertex and edge sets are subsets of those of G

 a supergraph of a graph G is a graph that contains G as a
subgraph.
Special Subgraphs: Cliques

A clique is a maximum complete

connected subgraph.
A B C

D E F

G H I
 Spanning subgraph

 Subgraph H has the same vertex set as G.

 Possibly not all the edges
 “H spans G”.
 Spanning tree
 Let G be a connected graph. Then a
spanning tree in G is a subgraph of G
that includes every node and is also a
tree.
Isomorphism

 Bijection, i.e., a one-to-one mapping:

f : V(G) -> V(H)
u and v from G are adjacent if and only if f(u) and f(v) are
adjacent in H.
 If an isomorphism can be constructed between two graphs, then
we say those graphs are isomorphic.
 Isomorphism Problem

 Determining whether two graphs are

isomorphic
 Although these graphs look very different,
they are isomorphic; one isomorphism
between them is
f(a)=1 f(b)=6 f(c)=8 f(d)=3
f(g)=5 f(h)=2 f(i)=4 f(j)=7
 Representation (Matrix)

 Incidence Matrix
 VxE
 [vertex, edges] contains the edge's data
 Adjacency Matrix
 VxV
 Boolean values (adjacent or not)
 Or Edge Weights
Matrices
1,2 1,5 2,3 2,5 3,4 4,5 4,6
1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
2 1 0 1 1 0 0 0
3 0 0 1 0 1 0 0
4 0 0 0 0 1 1 1
5 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
6 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 0 1 0 0 1 0
2 1 0 1 0 1 0
3 0 1 0 1 0 0
4 0 0 1 0 1 1
5 1 1 0 1 0 0
6 0 0 0 1 0 0
Representation (List)

 Edge List
 pairs (ordered if directed) of vertices
 Optionally weight and other data
 Adjacency List (node list)
Implementation of a Graph.

 Adjacency-list representation
 an array of |V | lists, one for each vertex in V.
 For each u ∈ V , ADJ [ u ] points to all its adjacent vertices.
Edge and Node Lists

Edge List Node List

12 122
12 235
23 33
25 435
33 534
43
45
53
54
Edge Lists for Weighted
Graphs

Edge List
1 2 1.2
2 4 0.2
4 5 0.3
4 1 0.5
5 4 0.5
6 3 1.5
 Topological Distance

A shortest path is the minimum path

connecting two nodes.

The number of edges in the shortest path

connecting p and q is the topological
distance between these two nodes, dp,q
 Distance Matrix

|V | x |V | matrix D = ( dij ) such that

dij is the topological distance between i and j.

1 2 3 4 5 6
1 0 1 2 2 1 3
2 1 0 1 2 1 3
3 2 1 0 1 2 2
4 2 2 1 0 1 1
5 1 1 2 1 0 2
6 3 3 2 1 2 0
 N = 12
Random Graphs
Erdős and Renyi (1959)
p = 0.0 ; k = 0

N nodes

A pair of nodes has probability p of

being connected.

Average degree, k ≈ pN p = 0.09 ; k = 1

What interesting things can be said for

different values of p or k ?
(that are true as N  ∞)

p = 1.0 ; k ≈ ½N2
 Random Graphs
Erdős and Renyi (1959)
p = 0.0 ; k = 0

p = 0.09 ; k = 1

p = 0.045 ; k = 0.5

Let’s look at…

Size of the largest connected cluster
p = 1.0 ; k ≈ ½N2
Diameter (maximum path length between nodes) of the largest cluster
Average path length between nodes (if a path exists)
 Random Graphs
Erdős and Renyi (1959)

p = 0.0 ; k = 0 p = 0.045 ; k = 0.5 p = 0.09 ; k = 1 p = 1.0 ; k ≈ ½N2

Size of largest component

1 5 11 12
Diameter of largest component
0 4 7 1
Average path length between nodes
0.0 2.0 4.2 1.0
 Random Graphs
Erdős and Renyi (1959)

Diameter of largest component (not to scale)

Percentage of nodes in largest component
If k < 1:
 small, isolated clusters
 small diameters
 short path lengths
1.0
At k = 1:
 a giant component appears
 diameter peaks
 path lengths are high

For k > 1:
 almost all nodes connected
 diameter shrinks
 path lengths shorten

0 1.0 k

phase transition
Random Graphs
David Kentaro
Mumford Peter Toyama
Erdős and Renyi (1959) Belhumeur
Fan
Chung

What does this mean?

 If connections between people can be modeled as a random graph, then…

then…

 Because the average person easily knows more than one person (k >> 1),

 We live in a “small world”

world” where within a few links, we are connected to anyone in the world.

 Erdő
Erdős and Renyi showed that average
path length between connected nodes is
Random Graphs
David Kentaro
Mumford Peter Toyama
Erdős and Renyi (1959) Belhumeur
Fan
Chung

What does this mean?

BIG “IF”!!!
 If connections between people can be modeled as a random graph, then…
then…

 Because the average person easily knows more than one person (k >> 1),

 We live in a “small world”

world” where within a few links, we are connected to anyone in the world.

 Erdő
Erdős and Renyi computed average
path length between connected nodes to be:
 The Alpha Model

Watts (1999)

The people you know arenʼ

arenʼt randomly chosen.

People tend to get to know those who are two

links away (Rapoport
(Rapoport *, 1957).

The real world exhibits a lot of clustering.

The Personal Map

by MSR Redmond’s Social Computing Group

* Same Anatol Rapoport, known for TIT FOR TAT!

 The Alpha Model

Watts (1999)

α model: Add edges to nodes, as in random

graphs, but makes links more likely when
two nodes have a common friend.

For a range of α values:

 The world is small (average path length is

short), and

 Groups tend to form (high clustering

coefficient).
Probability of linkage as a function
of number of mutual friends
(α is 0 in upper left,
1 in diagonal,
and ∞ in bottom right curves.)
 The Alpha Model

Watts (1999)

α model: Add edges to nodes, as in random

graphs, but makes links more likely when
two nodes have a common friend.
Normalized path length
Clustering coefficient /

For a range of α values:

 The world is small (average path length is

short), and

 Groups tend to form (high clustering

coefficient).

Clustering coefficient (C) and

average path length (L)
plotted against α

α
 The Beta Model

Watts and Strogatz (1998)

β=0 β = 0.125 β=1

People know People know People know

their neighbors. their neighbors, others at
and a few distant people. random.

Clustered, but Clustered and Not clustered,

not a “small world” “small world” but “small world”
The Beta Model
Jonathan
Donner
Kentaro
Toyama
Watts and Strogatz (1998) Nobuyuki
Hanaki

First five random links reduce the average path

length of the network by half, regardless of N!

Normalized path length

Clustering coefficient /
Both α and β models reproduce short-path results
of random graphs, but also allow for clustering.

Small-world phenomena occur at threshold

between order and chaos.

Clustering coefficient (C) and average

path length (L) plotted against β
 Power Laws
Albert and Barabasi (1999)

Whatʼ
Whatʼs the degree (number of edges) distribution
over a graph, for real-world graphs?

Random-graph model results in Poisson

distribution.

But, many real-world networks exhibit a power-law

distribution.

Degree distribution of a random graph,

N = 10,000 p = 0.0015 k = 15.
(Curve is a Poisson curve, for comparison.)
Power Laws
Albert and Barabasi (1999)

Whatʼ
Whatʼs the degree (number of edges) distribution
over a graph, for real-world graphs?

Random-graph model results in Poisson

distribution.

But, many real-world networks exhibit a power-law

distribution.

Typical shape of a power-law distribution.

Power Laws
Albert and Barabasi (1999)

Power-law distributions are straight lines in log-log

space.

How should random graphs be generated to create

a power-law distribution of node degrees?

Hint:
Paretoʼ
Paretoʼs* Law: Wealth distribution follows a
power law.
Power laws in real networks:
(a) WWW hyperlinks
(b) co-starring in movies
(c) co-authorship of physicists
(d) co-authorship of neuroscientists

* Same Velfredo Pareto, who defined Pareto optimality in game theory.

Power Laws
Anandan
Kentaro
Toyama
Albert and Barabasi (1999) Jennifer
Chayes

“The rich get richer!”

richer!”

Power-law distribution of node distribution arises if

 Number of nodes grow;
 Edges are added in proportion to the number of edges
a node already has.

Additional variable fitness coefficient allows for some

nodes to grow faster than others.

“Map of the Internet” poster

Searchable Networks

Kleinberg (2000)

Just because a short path exists, doesnʼ

doesnʼt mean
you can easily find it.

You donʼ
donʼt know all of the people whom your
friends know.

Under what conditions is a network searchable?

searchable?
Searchable Networks
Kleinberg (2000)

a) Variation of Wattsʼ
Wattsʼs β model:
 Lattice is d-dimensional (d
(d=2).
 One random link per node.
 Parameter α controls probability of random link – greater for closer nodes.

b) For d=2, dip in time-to-search at α=2

 For low α, random graph; no “geographic”
geographic” correlation in links
 For high α, not a small world; no short paths to be found.

c) Searchability dips at α=2, in simulation

Searchable Networks
Kentaro
Toyama
Kleinberg (2000) Ramin
Zabih

Watts, Dodds,
Dodds, Newman (2002) show that for d = 2
or 3, real networks are quite searchable.

Killworth and Bernard (1978) found that people

tended to search their networks by d = 2:
geography and profession.

The Watts-Dodds-Newman model

closely fitting a real-world experiment
 References

ldous & Wilson, Graphs and Applications. An

Introductory Approach, Springer, 2000.

Wasserman & Faust, Social Network Analysis,

Cambridge University Press, 2008.