The concept of temporal networks is an extension of complex networks as a modeling framework to include information on when interactions between nodes happen. Many studies of the last decade examine how the static network structure affect dynamic systems on the network. In this traditional approach the temporal aspects are pre-encoded in the dynamic system model. Temporal-network methods, on the other hand, lift the temporal information from the level of system dynamics to the mathematical representation of the contact network itself. This framework becomes particularly useful for cases where there is a lot of structure and heterogeneity both in the timings of interaction events and the network topology. The advantage compared to common static network approaches is the ability to design more accurate models in order to explain and predict large-scale dynamic phenomena (such as, e.g., epidemic outbreaks and other spreading phenomena). On the other hand, temporal network methods are mathematically and conceptually more challenging. This book is intended as a first introduction and state-of-the art overview of this rapidly emerging field.

This book focuses on the theoretical side of temporal network research and gives an overview of the state of the art in the field. Curated by two pioneers in the field who have helped to shape it, the book contains contributions from many leading researchers. Temporal networks fill the border area between network science and time-series analysis and are relevant for epidemic modeling, optimization of transportation and logistics, as well as understanding biological phenomena. Over the past 20 years, network theory has proven to be one of the most powerful tools for studying and analyzing complex systems. Temporal network theory is perhaps the most recent significant development in the field in recent years, with direct applications to many of the “big data” sets. This book appeals to students, researchers, and professionals interested in theory and temporal networks—a field that has grown tremendously over the last decade. This second edition of Temporal Network Theory extends the first with three chapters highlighting recent developments in the interface with machine learning.

Network science offers a powerful language to represent and study complex systems composed of interacting elements — from the Internet to social and biological systems. A Guide to Temporal Networks presents recent theoretical and modelling progress in the emerging field of temporally varying networks and provides connections between the different areas of knowledge required to address this multi-disciplinary subject. After an introduction to key concepts on networks and stochastic dynamics, the authors guide the reader through a coherent selection of mathematical and computational tools for network dynamics. Perfect for students and professionals, this book is a gateway to an active field of research developing between the disciplines of applied mathematics, physics and computer science, with applications in others including social sciences, neuroscience and biology.This second edition extensively expands upon the coverage of the first edition as the authors expertly present recent theoretical and modelling progress in the emerging field of temporal networks, providing the keys to (and connections between) the different areas of knowledge required to address this multi-disciplinary problem.

Spatio-temporal networks (STN)are spatial networks whose topology and/or attributes change with time. These are encountered in many critical areas of everyday life such as transportation networks, electric power distribution grids, and social networks of mobile users. STN modeling and computations raise significant challenges. The model must meet the conflicting requirements of simplicity and adequate support for efficient algorithms. Another challenge is to address the change in the semantics of common graph operations, such as, shortest path computation assuming different semantics, or when temporal dimension is added. Also paradigms (e.g. dynamic programming) used in algorithm design may be ineffective since their assumptions (e.g. stationary ranking of candidates) may be violated by the dynamic nature of STNs. In recent years, STNs have attracted attention in research. New representations have been proposed along with algorithms to perform key STN operations, while accounting for their time dependence. Designing a STN database would require the development of data models, query languages, and indexing methods to efficiently represent, query, store, and manage time-variant properties of the network. The purpose of Spatio-temporal Networks: Modeling and Algorithms is to explore this design at the conceptual, logical, and physical level. Models used to represent STNs are explored and analyzed. STN operations, with an emphasis on their altered semantics with the addition of temporal dimension, are also addressed.

This book covers recent developments in epidemic process models and related data on temporally varying networks. It is widely recognized that contact networks are indispensable for describing, understanding, and intervening to stop the spread of infectious diseases in human and animal populations; “network epidemiology” is an umbrella term to describe this research field. More recently, contact networks have been recognized as being highly dynamic. This observation, also supported by an increasing amount of new data, has led to research on temporal networks, a rapidly growing area. Changes in network structure are often informed by epidemic (or other) dynamics, in which case they are referred to as adaptive networks. This volume gathers contributions by prominent authors working in temporal and adaptive network epidemiology, a field essential to understanding infectious diseases in real society.

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)

This book explores new methods and techniques for research about merchant networks and maritime routes of trade during the First Global Age through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a tool to visualize the formation of trading systems, database management, cartography and spatio-temporal analysis in Historical GIS. In doing so, the book focuses on key issues in understanding the birth of the so-called First Global Age (16th to 18th centuries): the integration of spatial economies; the regionalization of markets; the organization of maritime trade routes; and the evolution of self-organizing networks of merchants, producers, communities, and other social agents during the age of expansion. The essays collected here deal with relevant information about historical problems including maritime connections, the organization of oceanic trade and the use of digital cartography and metric analysis of old maps, and social network analysis – commercial networks involved a high level of cooperation and served to move goods and people within a highly open system over an expanding geographic space.

Many decision problems in Operations Research are defined on temporal networks, that is, workflows of time-consuming tasks whose processing order is constrained by precedence relations. For example, temporal networks are used to model projects, computer applications, digital circuits and production processes. Optimization problems arise in temporal networks when a decision maker wishes to determine a temporal arrangement of the tasks and/or a resource assignment that optimizes some network characteristic (e.g. the time required to complete all tasks). The parameters of these optimization problems (e.g. the task durations) are typically unknown at the time the decision problem arises. This monograph investigates solution techniques for optimization problems in temporal networks that explicitly account for this parameter uncertainty. We study several formulations, each of which requires different information about the uncertain problem parameters.

Project planning, scheduling, and control are regularly used in business and the service sector of an economy to accomplish outcomes with limited resources under critical time constraints. To aid in solving these problems, network-based planning methods have been developed that now exist in a wide variety of forms, cf. Elmaghraby (1977) and Moder et al. (1983). The so-called "classical" project networks, which are used in the network techniques CPM and PERT and which represent acyclic weighted directed graphs, are able to describe only projects whose evolution in time is uniquely specified in advance. Here every event of the project is realized exactly once during a single project execution and it is not possible to return to activities previously carried out (that is, no feedback is permitted). Many practical projects, however, do not meet those conditions. Consider, for example, a production process where some parts produced by a machine may be poorly manufactured. If an inspection shows that a part does not conform to certain specifications, it must be repaired or replaced by a new item. This means that we have to return to a preceding stage of the production process. In other words, there is feedback. Note that the result of the inspection is that a certain percentage of the parts tested do not conform. That is, there is a positive probability (strictly less than 1) that any part is defective.

This book highlights some of the unique aspects of spatio-temporal graph data from the perspectives of modeling and developing scalable algorithms. The authors discuss in the first part of this book, the semantic aspects of spatio-temporal graph data in two application domains, viz., urban transportation and social networks. Then the authors present representational models and data structures, which can effectively capture these semantics, while ensuring support for computationally scalable algorithms. In the first part of the book, the authors describe algorithmic development issues in spatio-temporal graph data. These algorithms internally use the semantically rich data structures developed in the earlier part of this book. Finally, the authors introduce some upcoming spatio-temporal graph datasets, such as engine measurement data, and discuss some open research problems in the area. This book will be useful as a secondary text for advanced-level students entering into relevant fields of computer science, such as transportation and urban planning. It may also be useful for researchers and practitioners in the field of navigational algorithms.