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What is a Network?

Networks are the basic data structure in BeGraph. A network is a set of N entities called nodes, related by a set of L links that represent binary relationships. In a more mathematical notation, networks are called graphs and nodes/links are denoted by vertices/edges. Nodes and links can have associated properties, either imported from a Datasource or calculated with BeGraph. Nodes are always identified with a node property called NodeLabel.

The networks treated in BeGraph have two main properties:

Is Directed: when the edges have a direction associated with them (directed network). Otherwise, the network is called undirected.

Parallel links: whether to allow several links between two nodes or merge them into one. In the latter case, a link property called Weight represents the multiplicity of the link.

The following figure shows an undirected network (a), part of a directed network (b) and two nodes with parallel links and self-loops (c):

Directed links are drawn indicating the directionality with arrow tips:

The books Network Science, Cambridge University Press, 2016. ISBN: 978-1-107-07626-6, by Albert-László Barabási and Networks, an Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN:978-0-19-920665-0 by Mark Newmann are excellent references to dig further into the field of complex networks.