The network's skeleton
(Phys.org) -- Sometimes the distinctive character of a whole resides in just a few of its parts, for example in particular forms and colours of a painting, in the most important ingredients of a dish, or in individual melodies of a symphony. This basic concept is also true of complex networks. Frequently, it takes only a few components to reflect the most important properties of the network. Now, for the first time, an international research team including the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation has developed a reliable method for simplifying complex networks in this way. The results will make it much easier to predict the course of global epidemics such as flu, SARS or EHEC, thereby creating conditions for mitigating their spread. This is attributed to the fact that the research team has shown how the new method allows them to reduce the network of all possible disease...