Time varying graphs and social network analysis: Temporal indicators and metrics

Abstract. Most instruments- formalisms, concepts, and metrics-for social networks analysis fail to capture their dynamics. Typi-cal systems exhibit different scales of dynamics, ranging from the fine-grain dynamics of interactions (which recently led researchers to consider temporal versions of distance, connectivity, and related indicators), to the evolution of network properties over longer peri-ods of time. This paper proposes a general approach to study that evolution for both atemporal and temporal indicators, based respec-tively on sequences of static graphs and sequences of time-varying graphs that cover successive time-windows. All the concepts and in-dicators, some of which are new, are expressed using a time-varying graph formalism recently proposed in [10].