{"id":84629,"date":"2023-06-26T11:20:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-26T09:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aktuelles.uni-frankfurt.de\/?p=84629"},"modified":"2025-07-03T12:13:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T10:13:04","slug":"well-connected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aktuelles.uni-frankfurt.de\/en\/english\/well-connected\/","title":{"rendered":"Well connected"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to better understand and create networks<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Illustration: Yuichiro Chino\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Synthetic networks are booming. Today, computer simulations of networks are used to study things as diverse as neural connections in the brain, internet traffic or power grids. A team of researchers led by Ulrich Meyer from the Institute of Computer Science at Goethe University Frankfurt has now taken an important step forward by improving standard methods for creating such networks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our whole life is embedded in a wide variety of networks. This includes not only our social relationships, which today are partly influenced by algorithms via social media. The everyday products we buy also require a complex web of supply chains and logistics before they end up on the shelf. The electrical power that comes out of the socket depends on a complex grid that is being continuously expanded and reconfigured as renewable energies are used more and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more complex networks are, the more difficult it is to predict how information will be disseminated or how fluctuations or disruptions will have an impact on the flow of goods or electricity. However, because the basic structure of all networks is the same \u2013 they are composed of elements (nodes) that are linked to each other via connections (edges) \u2013 all networks can be represented and analyzed in an abstract way. To describe them, theoretical computer science and mathematics have created a powerful tool called graph theory. An important focus of current research is synthetic networks, which are generated in the computer and are not true reproductions of a real network. In this form of representation, the elements, e.g. things, actors or events, are simulated in the form of nodes that are connected to each other via edges. This resembles the way nerve cells are connected via synapses. On the one hand, this makes brain research an important source of inspiration for theoretical computer science \u2013 and on the other hand synthetic networks are an efficient tool for studying real nervous systems. But such networks can also be used to simulate infrastructures, such as road, electricity and water networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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IN A NUTSHELL<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n