Network Analysis

Network data are currently generated and collected to an increasing extent from different fields. In this chapter, we show how network data analysis allows us to gain insight into the data that would be hard to acquire by other means. We introduce some tools in network analysis and visualization. We present important concepts such as connected components, centrality measures and egonetworks, as well as community detection. We use a Python toolbox (NetworkX) to build graphs easily and analyze them. We motivate concepts in network analysis by a real problem dealing with a Facebook network dataset and answering a set of questions. For instance: Which is the most representative member of the network in terms of the most “connected”, the most “circulated”, the “closest” or the most “accessible” to the rest of the members?