18. Analyzer

Analyzer computes a comprehensive set of topological parameters for undirected and directed networks, including:

  • Number of nodes, edges and connected components.
  • Network diameter, radius and clustering coefficient, as well as the characteristic path length.
  • Charts for topological coefficients, betweenness, and closeness.
  • Distributions of degrees, neighborhood connectiveness, average clustering coefficients, shortest path lengths, number of shared neighbors and stress centrality.

18.1. Network Analysis

Analyze Network

To run Analyzer, select Tools → Analyze Network.

_images/Analyzer.png

Analyzer will run different statistics depending on whether the network is directed or undirected. The app will guess which type of network it is based on the definition of a target arrow style, but since this is not

When results are ready, they will appear in the Results Panel.

_images/AnalyzerResultsPanel.png

The results have multiple tabs. Details on the network parameters can be found here.

  • Simple Parameters
  • Node Degree Distribution
  • Avg. Clustering Coefficient Distribution
  • Topological Coefficients
  • Shortest Path Distribution
  • Shared Neighbors Distribution
  • Neighborhood Connectivity Distribution
  • Betweenness Centrality
  • Closeness Centrality
  • Stress Centrality Distribution

Analyze Subset of Nodes

Prior versions of this tool offered the option of analyzing all nodes or only a selected subset. This is no longer supported directly in the program. Instead, if you want to analyze a subnetwork, you can use the command File → New Network → From Selected Nodes, All Edges in the Command Panel to create the desired subnetwork.

Plot Parameters

Once the Analyzer is run, several additional columns are added to the Node Table (and an EdgeBetweenness column is added to the Edge Table). To plot any of these new columns, right-click on the column header and select Plot Histogram… for a single parameter distribution, or Plot Scatter… for a bivariate plot of the data. Within either of these charts it is possible to select a section of the data, and select the nodes (edges) in the main graph window corresponding to the region selected on the chart.

18.2. NetworkAnalyzerDemo

Comprehensive online documentation and a tutorial for NetworkAnalyzer are available at http://med.bioinf.mpi-inf.mpg.de/networkanalyzer/.

For additional information see Yassen Assenov, Nadezhda Doncheva, Thomas Lengauer, and Mario Albrecht, DOI: 10.1038/nprot.2012.004.