Interactive Visualization of Network Models in JavaScript/TypeScript for Web-based Applications

Sammanfattning: Networks of nodes and links are powerful tools to model complex systems, however, when the number of nodes and links grows to the thousands then even the network becomes too complex to comprehend unless we can simplify and highlight the networks underlying structure. The map equation is a method developed by the researchers at IntegratedScience Lab that uses an information theoretic approach to reveal community structure using the flow of information on the network modeled with random walks. Describing these random paths using Huffman codes and utilizing the duality between compression and finding regularities changes the problem of finding community structure into a compression problem. The success of the map equation method depends on the user’s understanding of the method. This thesis describes the design and implementation of a web-based demo application to showcase the mechanics of the map equation aimed to make the map equation more accessible to individuals with no prior knowledge of the method.