Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Graph theory, the study of graph models and algorithms, has turned out to be a
fascinatingieldofstudy,whichhas been used in many different disciplines to solve
some of the most interesting questions facing mankind. Interestingly enough, it has
seldomreallybeenappliedwithrigorinthedifferentieldsofsciencethatcanbeneit
from it; maybe scientists today don't have the multidisciplinary approach required
(providingexpertisefromgraphtheoryandtheirspeciicieldofstudy)todoso.
So, let's talk aboutsomeoftheseieldsofstudyabit,withoutwantingtogiveyouan
exhaustivelistofallapplicableields.Still,Idobelievethatsomeoftheseexamples
will be of interest for our future discussions in this topic and work up an appetite for
what types of applications we will use a graph-based database such as Neo4j for.
Social studies
For the longest time, people have understood that the way humans interact with one
another is actually very easy to describe in a network. People interact with people
everyday.Peopleinluenceoneanothereveryday.Peopleexchangeideaseveryday.
As they do, these interactions cause ripple effects through the social environment that
they inhabit. Modeling these interactions as a graph has been of primary importance
to better understand global demographics, political movements, and—last but not
least—commercial adoption of certain products by certain groups. With the advent of
online social networks, this graph-based approach to social understanding has taken
a whole new direction. Companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (see
the following diagram featuring a visualization of my LinkedIn network), and many
othershaveundertakenveryspeciiceffortstoincludegraph-basedsystemsintheway
they target their customers and users, and in doing so, they have changed many of our
daily lives quite fundamentally.
