Spatial Networks

This book provides a complete introduction into spatial networks. It offers the mathematical tools needed to characterize these structures and how they evolve in time and presents the most important models of spatial networks. The book puts a special emphasis on analyzing complex systems which are organized under the form of networks where nodes and edges are embedded in space. In these networks, space is relevant, and topology alone does not contain all the information. Characterizing and understanding the structure and the evolution of spatial networks is thus crucial for many different fields, ranging from urbanism to epidemiology. This subject is therefore at the crossroad of many fields and is of potential interest to a broad audience comprising physicists, mathematicians, engineers, geographers or urbanists. In this book, the author has expanded his previous book ("Morphogenesis of Spatial Networks") to serve as a textbook and reference on this topic for a wide range of students and professional researchers.

This book develops a morphodynamical approach of spatial networks with a particular emphasis on infrastructure networks such as streets, roads and transportation networks (subway, train). The author presents the mathematical tools needed to characterize these structures and how they evolve in time. The book discusses the most important empirical results and stylized facts, and will present the most important models of spatial networks. The target audience primarily comprises research scientists interested in this rapidly evolving and highly interdisciplinary field, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students interested in large networks.

Complex systems analysis has become a fascinating topic in modern research on non-linear dynamics, not only in the physical sciences but also in the life sciences and the social sciences. After the era of bifurcation theory, chaos theory, syn- getics, resilience analysis, network dynamics and evolutionary thinking, currently we observe an increasing interest in critical transitions of dynamic real-world systems in many disciplines, such as demography, biology, psychology, economics, earth sciences, geology, seismology, medical sciences, and so on. The relevance of this approach is clearly re?ected in such phenomena as traf?c congestion, ?nancial crisis, ethnic con?icts, eco-system breakdown, health failures, etc. This has prompted a world-wide interest in complex systems. Geographical space is one of the playgrounds for complex dynamics, as is witnessed by population movements, transport ?ows, retail developments, urban expansion, lowland ?ooding and so forth. All such dynamic phenomena have one feature in common: the low predictability of uncertain interrelated events occurring at different interconnected spatio-temporal scale levels and often originating from different disciplinary backgrounds. The study of the associated non-linear (fast and slow) dynamic transition paths calls for a joint research effort of scientists from different disciplines in order to understand the nature, the roots and the con- quences of unexpected or unpredictable changes in complex spatial systems.

Percolation theory is a well studied process utilized by networks theory to understand the resilience of networks under random or targeted attacks. Despite their importance, spatial networks have been less studied under the percolation process compared to the extensively studied non-spatial networks. In this Element, the authors will discuss the developments and challenges in the study of percolation in spatial networks ranging from the classical nearest neighbors lattice structures, through more generalized spatial structures such as networks with a distribution of edge lengths or community structure, and up to spatial networks of networks.

This book explores social mechanisms that drive network change and link them to computationally sound models of changing structure to detect patterns. This text identifies the social processes generating these networks and how networks have evolved. Reviews: "this book is easy to read and entertaining, and much can be learned from it. Even if you know just about everything about large-scale and temporal networks, the book is a worthwhile read; you will learn a lot about SNA literature, patents, the US Supreme Court, and European soccer." (Social Networks) "a clear and accessible textbook, balancing symbolic maths, code, and visual explanations. The authors’ enthusiasm for the subject matter makes it enjoyable to read" (JASSS)

Cities can be considered to be among the largest and most complex artificial networks created by human beings. Due to the numerous and diverse human-driven activities, urban network topology and dynamics can differ quite substantially from that of natural networks and so call for an alternative method of analysis. The intent of the present monograph is to lay down the theoretical foundations for studying the topology of compact urban patterns, using methods from spectral graph theory and statistical physics. These methods are demonstrated as tools to investigate the structure of a number of real cities with widely differing properties: medieval German cities, the webs of city canals in Amsterdam and Venice, and a modern urban structure such as found in Manhattan. Last but not least, the book concludes by providing a brief overview of possible applications that will eventually lead to a useful body of knowledge for architects, urban planners and civil engineers.

In the past half century, we have experienced two major waves of methodological development in the study of human behavior in space and time. The fIrst wave was the well known "quantitative revolution" which propelled geography from a mainly descriptive discipline to a scientifIc discipline using formalism such as probability, statistics, and a large-number of mathematical methods for analyzing spatial structures and processes under certainty and uncertainty. The second wave is the recent advancement of geographical information systems which equips geographers with automation in the storage, retrieval, analysis, and display of data. Both developments have significant impacts on geographical studies in general and solutions to real life spatio-temporal problems in particular. They have found applications in urban and regional planning, automated mapping and facilities management, transportation planning and management, as well as environmental planning and management, to name but a few examples. Both developments have one thing in common. They one way or the other use computer to process and analyze data. However, not until recently, there has been very little interaction between the two. Quantitative models have largely been developed independent of the underlying data models and structures representing the spatial phenomena or processes under study. Display of analysis results has been primitive in terms of the utilization of computer graphic technologies. Formal models, in addition to their technical difficulties, have poor capability in communication with users. Geographical information systems, on the other hand, have originally been developed with a slight intention to entertain powerful analytical models.