The study of networks, including computer networks, social networks, and biological networks, has attracted enormous interest in the last few years. The rise of the Internet and the wide availability of inexpensive computers have made it possible to gather and analyze network data on an unprecedented scale, and the development of new theoretical tools has allowed us to extract knowledge from networks of many different kinds. The study of networks is broadly interdisciplinary and central developments have occurred in many fields, including mathematics, physics, computer and information sciences, biology, and the social sciences. This book brings together the most important breakthroughs in each of these fields and presents them in a coherent fashion, highlighting the strong interconnections between work in different areas.

Topics covered include the measurement of networks; methods for analyzing network data, including methods developed in physics, statistics, and sociology; fundamentals of graph theory; computer algorithms; mathematical models of networks, including random graph models and generative models; and theories of dynamical processes taking place on networks.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction

Part I. The Empirical study of networks

Chapter 2. Technological networks

Chapter 3. Networks of information

Chapter 4. Social networks

Chapter 5. Biological networks

Part II. Fundamentals of network theory

Chapter 6. Mathematics of networks

Chapter 7. Measures and metrics

Chapter 8. Computer algorithms

Chapter 9. Network statistics and measurement error

Chapter 10. The structure of real-world networks

Part III. Network models

Chapter 11. Random graphs

Chapter 12. The configuration model

Chapter 13. Models of network formation

Part IV. Applications

Chapter 14. Community structure

Chapter 15. Percolation and network resilience

Chapter 16. Epidemics on networks

Chapter 17. Dynamical systems on networks

Chapter 18. Network search 

About the Author

Mark Newman, Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics, University of Michigan, USA

Mark Newman received a D.Phil. in physics from the University of Oxford in 1991 and conducted postdoctoral research at Cornell University before joining the staff of the Santa Fe Institute, a think-tank in New Mexico devoted to the study of complex systems. In 2002 he left Santa Fe for the University of Michigan, where he is currently Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics and a professor in the university's Center for the Study of Complex Systems.