Advanced Mathematics for Network Analysis

The goal of this project is use Answer Set Programming (ASP) methods to create a commercially viable software application (“SocioLogix™”) for social network analysis (SNA). Recent developments in Answer Set Programming and propositional satisfiability checking (SAT-checking) have potential to extend the power of software to use techniques of rule-based or “qualitative” optimization to find optimal answers to NP-complete problems (i.e., problems for which solutions have a certain level of difficulty to compute) that arise in SNA, and to allow these problems to be defined on a study-specific basis. The SocioLogix software will extend the existing SocioMetrica system, which currently consists of the EgoNet, LinkAlyzer, and VisuaLyzer applications. These integrated applications provide functions for distributed and secure social network (SN) data collection, management, analysis, and visualization functions. Data may be visualized as node and edge graphs and analyzed using a number of standard SNA techniques that are directly provided by SocioMetrica, or are provided via common data formats by other software packages. SocioLogix will add ASP functionality to the SocioMetrica suite, thereby providing a radically new approach for flexible analysis of important problems in SNA. The initial area to be addressed in Phase I is Graph Decomposition. In Phase II, Stable Attribute Assignment and Egonet Aggregation will be addressed, guided by DoD functional priorities and web-based deployment and interface design.