A wide variety of systems with high technological and intellectual importance, like the World Wide Web, society, or cells, can be described as networks of nodes connected pairwise by edges. The past few years have brought dramatic advances in analyzing and modeling the topology of these networks, and network theory has become a very active interdisciplinary field. Our paper reviews the advances in network modeling and gives a resource for scientists working in this field.

I would say our review contains both. We present the discovery that large-scale networks show evidence of universal organizing principles. In describing the models and theories proposed to explain these universal features, we aimed to give a clear and accessible description of the methodology, so they could be easily applied to other questions as well.

When we first started to study networks, we had to search the literature in mathematics, physics, computer science, and sociology to find relevant results. We wanted to make the search easier for the researchers now entering the field.

Many complex systems have an underlying network structure. Describing the topology of the network brings us one step closer to understanding the dynamic behavior of the system, and its response to perturbations and noise. The next step is to study the interplay between topology and dynamics.

Reka Albert, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Associate
School of Mathematics
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN, USA