As well as highlighting potentially useful applications for network
analysis, this volume identifies new targets for mathematical research
that promise to provide insights into network systems theory as well as
facilitating the cross-fertilization of ideas between sectors. Focusing
on financial, security and social aspects of networking, the volume adds
to the growing body of evidence showing that network analysis has
applications to transportation, communication, health, finance, and
social policy more broadly. It provides powerful models for
understanding the behavior of complex systems that, in turn, will impact
numerous cutting-edge sectors in science and engineering, such as
wireless communication, network security, distributed computing and
social networking, financial analysis, and cyber warfare.
The volume offers an insider's view of cutting-edge research in network
systems, including methodologies with immense potential for
interdisciplinary application. The contributors have all presented
material at a series of workshops organized on behalf of Canada's MITACS
initiative, which funds projects and study grants in 'mathematics for
information technology and complex systems'. These proceedings include
papers from workshops on financial networks, network security and
cryptography, and social networks. MITACS has shown that the partly
ghettoized nature of network systems research has led to duplicated work
in discrete fields, and thus this initiative has the potential to save
time and accelerate the pace of research in a number of areas of network
systems research.
