Today's lecture focused primarily on the fundamentals and basic structure(nodes and links) of complex networks.
nodes:A collection of entities (not computers) which have properties that are somehow related to each other.
links:connection between nodes.
As a computer science student i was thinking that complex networks have only focused on computer networks! We first began discussing about basic structures of the networks (not only computer but also other networks that form connections inside themselves). So, a complex network does not consist of computers or machines but also it can consist of people, forks in rivers, proteins, web pages, organisms etc. It is not simple and straightforward. It is made of multiple parts.Complex networks are large, sparse and they are usually dynamic and evolving.
Looking at these information, it looks like it is graph theory but the emphasis is on data and mechanistic explanations. So, looking at graph theory side, a complex networks structure consists of graphs which can be undirected or directed (looking at the interaction between two neighboring nodes), weighted, connected or disconnected.
As a summary:a complex system consists of large number of components interacting with each other and all components and interactions are different from each other. In this system who interacts with whom can be visualized as a network.
A question may come into mind:why study such complex systems and what is the benefit that we will get?
Answer: They have lots of easily available data and large networks may contain information about basic design principles and the history of the complex system.So looking at one complex network we can understand some other networks which form from the same structure.
