Many, if not most network analysis algorithms have been designed specifically
for single-relational networks; that is, networks in which all edges are of the
same type. For example, edges may either represent "friendship," "kinship," or
"collaboration," but not all of them together. In contrast, a multi-relational
network is a network with a heterogeneous set of edge labels which can
represent relationships of various types in a single data structure. While
multi-relational networks are more expressive in terms of the variety of
relationships they can capture, there is a need for a general framework for
transferring the many single-relational network analysis algorithms to the
multi-relational domain. It is not sufficient to execute a single-relational
network analysis algorithm on a multi-relational network by simply ignoring
edge labels. This article presents an algebra for mapping multi-relational
networks to single-relational networks, thereby exposing them to
single-relational network analysis algorithms.Comment: ISSN:1751-157