Network Software Overview

Analyzing, Visualizing Noordin Top Terror Network (Gephi) University of Minnesota Outreach (UCINET Net Draw) Tools of the Trade When pen and paper (or even Excel) just won’t do https://www.joe.org/joe/2011december/a9.php Infantry Training Task Network (iGraph) Infantry Training Task Network (ORA) US Power Grid (Pajek) CDT Maldonado, CDT Talty, MAJ Koban https://www.cise.ufl.edu/research/sparse/matrices/Pajek/USpowerGrid.html UNCLASSIFIED

Why? Networks and graphs are used for data analysis and theory! To do real work with networks, complex networks, dynamic networks, you need to get comfortable with software. Visualization…a good picture is worth a 1000 words…or more. US airlines (edges colored by airline)

You’ve Got MANY Options In fact, more than 50 from just the following two sites: University of Gronigen: https://www.gmw.rug.nl/~huisman/sna/software.html Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_analysis_software We will use the top two of the following: Gephi Python (NetworkX) R (iGraph) Mathematica UCINET (NetDraw) ORA Pajek Let’s do an overview of them! UNCLASSIFIED

Gephi Get it here: https://gephi.org/ (need Java 1.7 to run Gephi) “Photoshop for graphs” Active developer community Very active online community (including Facebook users group) Pro: Premier graph visualization package Entirely GUI Intuitive to use Shallow learning curve Can visualize “Internet-sized” networks Geo-spatial analysis tools. Con: Shorter list of analysis tools than other packages For very large graphs, must get “under the hood” to adjust memory usage settings UNCLASSIFIED

Python (NetworkX) You can get it here: http://networkx.github.io/ If you like Python and networks, you’ll love NetworkX! Pro: Written completely in Python Good online documentation Many metrics Supports more complex network analysis Algorithms are easy to find and manipulate Con: May have poor performance and/or memory usage, depending on which algorithms are being called (do to dictionary data structure). Outputs are relatively simplistic and difficult to manipulate UNCLASSIFIED

R (iGraph) You can get it here: http://igraph.org/r/ … If you like R and networks, you’ll love iGraph! ## Download and install the package install.packages("igraph") ## Load package library(igraph) Pro: Many data analysis features Standard graph statistics are present Faster than NetworkX (>>) Con: API takes time to get used to (for Python users). Tools designed for analysts by analysts UNCLASSIFIED

Mathematica It’s not just for Calculus! Pro: Tremendous amount of functionality with many available network and graph metrics. Student familiarity with the Mathematica interface. Con: Expensive to maintain license upon departure from USMA (loss of developed tools). UNCLASSIFIED

UCINET (NetDraw) You can get it here: https://sites.google.com/site/ucinetsoftware/home Lots of history (been around since 1987), widely used in academia Actively maintained (2-day workshop hosted by Borgatti in April) Additional information about NetDraw in Chapter 4 of http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/nettext/ Pro: Flexible data import Many metrics Supports more complex network analysis Compatible with many visualization platforms Con: Steeper learning curve Online help is “sophisticated.” Difficult to filter data being viewed NetDraw visualization relatively poor, cannot format output. UNCLASSIFIED

Pajek You can get it here: http://mrvar.fdv.uni-lj.si/pajek/ Lots of history (been around since 1996) No maintenance since May 2016 (active prior to that) Helpful book at http://mrvar.fdv.uni-lj.si/pajek/pajekman.pdf Offers both Pajek (good for large networks) and Pajek XXL (good for huge networks). Pro: Good online documentation Many metrics Supports more complex network analysis Con: Steeper learning curve Primarily for complex mappings of very large networks UNCLASSIFIED

ORA ORA: Organizational Risk Analyzer You can get it here: http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/projects/ora/download.php Or here: http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/projects/ora/ Pro: Very low barrier to entry. Dynamic and temporal network analysis Advanced network analysis Geo-spatial analysis tools. Con: Costs to use any functionality beyond ORA Lite ($480 per copy) Visualization is not as impressive as other platforms Difficult to modify existing algorithms UNCLASSIFIED

References http://www.slideshare.net/noahflower/overview-of-network- analysis-platforms http://pt.slideshare.net/keiono/overview-of-modern-graph- analysis-tools?smtNoRedir=1 http://files.meetup.com/1406240/sna_in_R.pdf UNCLASSIFIED