Summer Research Week 3

Sorry, I’m a day late! Was caught up in some personal stuff yesterday, but the show must go on!

As I mentioned a bit last week, there was a bit of java coding that was required this week. I was assigned the task of figuring out a way to automatically generate the density of the network graphs. I’m not going to bore anyone who doesn’t care about the algorithms of formulas for doing this, but if you are interested, take a look at this screenshot. For general purposes of this article, all you really need to know is that the closer the density is to 1.0, the closer the network is to being complete (aka. everyone in the network is connected to each other).

The density of this graph is about 0.5, meaning that only half the links that are possible in this network are present.

So the way I saw it, I figured that it would be easiest to calculate the value of the density while making the JSON files and store that value somewhere within the JSON so that I can call this value and display it using D3.js. After a few hours trying to figure out how I would get D3 to display so, I finally got it (as you can see above). The JSON files now have 3 categories (or ‘parent nodes’): nodes, links, and (the all new…) info. Within this info node, I plan to add additional information about the networks as time comes. Some examples of what might be added include the maximum number of links, the number of nodes, current number of links, and group name. This way, I can eventually condense all 58 HTML files into just 1 web page that can load multiple graphs (thus saving me a HUGE amount of time not having to copy and paste new lines of codes for hours on end).

Aside from creating 1 condensed web page, some tasks that still lie ahead include creating an information table that will compare and contrast all the statistical data between all the web pages, and also start to introduce centrality (the person who opens up more connections in a network). As a side note, I hope everyone is enjoying their summer vacations (I wish I was out traveling >.<)! I’m currently juggling dealing with HR paperwork for my new Co-op position, this summer research, and some personal matters so I apologize if these progress reports don’t seem all that spectacular (no GIF’s this week :[ ). But expect great things for next week!

~ Abir