5,906 research outputs found
Sizing the length of complex networks
Among all characteristics exhibited by natural and man-made networks the
small-world phenomenon is surely the most relevant and popular. But despite its
significance, a reliable and comparable quantification of the question `how
small is a small-world network and how does it compare to others' has remained
a difficult challenge to answer. Here we establish a new synoptic
representation that allows for a complete and accurate interpretation of the
pathlength (and efficiency) of complex networks. We frame every network
individually, based on how its length deviates from the shortest and the
longest values it could possibly take. For that, we first had to uncover the
upper and the lower limits for the pathlength and efficiency, which indeed
depend on the specific number of nodes and links. These limits are given by
families of singular configurations that we name as ultra-short and ultra-long
networks. The representation here introduced frees network comparison from the
need to rely on the choice of reference graph models (e.g., random graphs and
ring lattices), a common practice that is prone to yield biased interpretations
as we show. Application to empirical examples of three categories (neural,
social and transportation) evidences that, while most real networks display a
pathlength comparable to that of random graphs, when contrasted against the
absolute boundaries, only the cortical connectomes prove to be ultra-short
Switching Reconstruction of Digraphs
Switching about a vertex in a digraph means to reverse the direction of every
edge incident with that vertex. Bondy and Mercier introduced the problem of
whether a digraph can be reconstructed up to isomorphism from the multiset of
isomorphism types of digraphs obtained by switching about each vertex. Since
the largest known non-reconstructible oriented graphs have 8 vertices, it is
natural to ask whether there are any larger non-reconstructible graphs. In this
paper we continue the investigation of this question. We find that there are
exactly 44 non-reconstructible oriented graphs whose underlying undirected
graphs have maximum degree at most 2. We also determine the full set of
switching-stable oriented graphs, which are those graphs for which all
switchings return a digraph isomorphic to the original
Infinite primitive and distance transitive directed graphs of finite out-valency
We give certain properties which are satisfied by the descendant set of a vertex in an infinite, primitive, distance transitive digraph of finite out-valency and provide a strong structure theory for digraphs satisfying these properties. In particular, we show that there are only countably many possibilities for the isomorphism type of such a descendant set, thereby confirming a conjecture of the first Author. As a partial converse, we show that certain related conditions on a countable digraph are sufficient for it to occur as the descendant set of a primitive, distance transitive digraph
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