DyA Package
Dyneta
SexNet
DyA Package
Recently many important programming tools have been developed to facilitate network analysis, but few of these programming tools take into account the dynamic behavior of the network. The R package iGraph is a useful collection to do analysis of a graph in the statical sense.
We are developing a new R package, Dya, which allows the user to perform analysis on a series of graphs, thus focusing on the dynamic trends of the networks. We use three approaches of these dynamic trends.
- Global level analysis,
- Local level analysis, and
- Analysis of network clusters
In the global level approach (1) we are trying to find the answers to such questions, as "How does the average path length of the network change?". So we are focusing on the whole graph. In the local level approach (2), we are looking at the local nodes of the networks, or some selected local nodes. As a graph may have many vertices, often we are focusing on just some 'relevant' local nodes. For these importance measures we currently use the iGraph centrality calculation functions (although other local measures are possible). Also we do stability tests of the neighborhood of relevant nodes. In the cluster level approach (3) we are trying to visualize the evolution of the network clusters. We are trying to find out if a cluster at a given time has developed from another cluster in the previous slice of time.
The functions of the package Dya were prepared to visualize the dynamic network trends. To help expressive visualization the functions make diagrams. In the package we also provide functions for building dynamic networks from CSV files.
The DyA Package and documentation can be downloaded here.
Dyneta
Dyneta is a program that generates networks (big, usually sparse graphs), runs an event on them and collects some statistics.
Dyneta is highly configurable - that means that it includes a wide range of network models and several events and statistics as well. The network models and events may have parameters as well. Also, Dyneta has a plugin-based architecture and thus it can be extended easily.
The Dyneta Package and documentation can be downloaded here.
SexNet (in NetLogo 4.1)
SexNet is a flexible agent based (individual based) model for the generative study of human sexual contact networks and infections (such as HIV) spreading on them. This is the first general model we know of that offers a systematic study of various contact regimes (ie. random, preferential, and assortative), as well as the use of different temporal sampling (aggregation) windows for the study of dynamic behavior. Despite the many different combinations it offers, this is a baseline model only than should be extended in a number of relevant dimensions.
Download here.
