ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book intends to present new methods and techniques that are synthesized from different research disciplines involved in the formation, analysis, and modeling of various social networks as well as their applications. It describes why humans and other primate animals have evolved to live in groups, and describes phenomena such as swarming and flocking among larger groups. The book shows that these group movement patterns are an expression of locally transmitted movement information occurring among the groups’ members rather than transmitted centrally from the group leader. It investigates a deterministic transformation method and a finite-memory, random-walk-based method for defining a network as a stochastic dynamical system. The book develops an explanatory model for assessment based on two hypotheses, which are supported by the existing arguments of network theory.
