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Computational Network Science
An Algorithmic Approach

Henry Hexmoor

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PREFACE

The days of the need for gurus and extensive libraries are behind us. The
Internet provides ready and rapid access to knowledge for all. This book
offers necessary and sufficient descriptions of salient knowledge that
have been tested in traditional classrooms. The book weaves founda-
tions together from disparate disciplines including mathematical sociol-
ogy, economics, game theory, political science, and biological networks.
Network science is a new discipline that explores phenomena com-
mon to connected populations across the natural and man-made world.
From animals to commodity trades, networks provide relationships
among individuals and groups. Analysis and leveraging connections
provide insights and tools for persuasion. Studies in this area have large-
ly focused on opinion attributes. The impetus for this book is a need to
examine computational processes for automating tedious analyses and
usage of network information for online migration. Once online, net-
work awareness will contribute to improved public safety and superior
services for all.
A collection of foundational notions for economic and social net-
works is available in Jackson (2008). A mathematical treatment of
generic networks is present in Easly and Kleinberg (2010). A comple-
mentary gap filled by this book is an algorithmic approach. I provide a
fast-paced introduction to the state of the art in network science. Refer-
ences are offered to seminal and contemporary developments. The book
uses mathematical cogency and contemporary computational insights.
It also calls to arm further research on open problems.
The reader will find a broad treatment of network science and review
of key recent phenomena. Senior undergraduates and professional peo-
ple in computational disciplines will find sufficient methodologies and
processes for implementation and experimentation. This book can also
be used as a teaching material for courses on social media and network
analysis, computational social networks, and network theory and ap-
plications. Our coverage of social network analysis is limited and details
are available in Golbeck (2013) and Borgatti et al. (2013).
x Preface

Whereas a teacher is a tour guide to the subject matter, this book is


a reference manual. Chapters in each part are related and they progress
in maturity. Chapters are semi-independent and a course instructor may
choose any order that meets the course objectives. Exercises at the end
of each chapter are students’ hands-on projects that are designed for
covering learning activities during a semester. Some code is provided
in appendices for prototyping and learning purposes only. We do not
provide a how-to guide to mainstream social media or codebook for
application development that is available elsewhere.
Henry Hexmoor
Carbondale, IL
2014

REFERENCES
Borgatti, S., Everett, M., Johnson, J., 2013. Analyzing Social Networks. SAGE Publications.
Easly, D., Kleinberg, J., 2010. Networks, Crowds, and Markets. Cambridge University Press.
Golbeck, J., 2013. Analyzing the Social Web. Morgan Kaufmann Publications.
Jackson, M., 2008. Social and Economic Networks. Princeton University Press.
CHAPTER 1
Ubiquity of Networks

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Broadly speaking, a network is a collection of individuals (i.e., nodes)
where there are implicit or explicit relationships among individuals in
a group. The relationships may be strictly physical as in some sort of
physical formation (e.g., pixels of a digital image or cars on the road),
or they may be conceptual such as friendship or some similarity among
pairs or within a pair. In an implicit network, individuals are unaware
of their relationships, whereas in an explicit network, individuals are
familiar with at least their local neighbors. In certain implicit networks
called affinity networks, there is a potential for explicit connections from
relationships that account for projected connection such as homophilly
(i.e., similarity) (McPherson et al., 2001). Biological networks capture
relationships among biological organisms. For instance, the human brain
neurons form a large network called a connectome (Seung, 2012). An ant
society is an example of a large biological network (Moffett, 2010). There
are many examples of small-scale animal networks, including preda-
tors and their prey, plant diseases, and bird migration. Human crowds
and network organizations (e.g., government or state agencies, honey
grids in bee colonies) are other examples of natural networks. Modern
anonymous human networks have capacities for crowd solving problems
(Nielsen, 2012), where a group of independently minded individuals pos-
sess a collective wisdom that is available to singletons (Reingold, 2000).
Social and political networks model human relationships, where social
and political relations are paramount. Economic networks are models
of parties related to economic relationships such as those among buyers
(and consumers), sellers (and producers), and intermediaries (i.e., trad-
ers and brokers) (Jackson, 2003). Beyond natural networks, there are
myriads of synthetic networks. The grid of a photograph is an example
of synthetic networks. Nanonetworks are attempts to network nanoma-
chines for emerging nanoscale applications (Jornet and Pierobon, 2011).
2 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

A large class of networks is a complex engineered network (CEN) that is a


man-made network, where the topology is completely neither regular nor
random. A CEN supports evolving functionalities. Examples of CENs
are the Internet, wireless networks, power grids with smart homes and
cars, remote monitoring networks with satellites, global networks of tele-
scopes, and networks of instruments and sensors from battlefields to hos-
pitals. Time requirements in CENs range from seconds in cyber-attacks
to years in greenhouse gas emissions. Data and control flow in CENs
must be managed over connections that could span thousands of miles.
A few synthetic network categories, including CENs, are created inten-
tionally. Here, we list six types:
1. Social networks through networking sites and services
2. Political networks as in parliamentary cabinets and political
committees
3. Computer networks that include computers as nodes and how they
communicate over local, wide area, and wireless links (e.g., sensor
networks)
4. Telecommunication networks as in switches for nodes and respective
routing paths
5. Power grids
6. Cellular networks as in cellular base stations and transmission
frequencies
There are many synthetic, however, unintended, network categories.
For example, colocated brick-and-mortar businesses may share clientele
that is sometimes unintended. As such, those businesses form a loca-
tion affinity network. Relationships in affinity networks are only implied
and in the context of the affinity context (e.g., colocation). Consumers
visiting popular e-commerce sites (e.g., amazon.com) form their own
product preference affinity networks. Although pairs of individual con-
sumers may never meet in-person, the e-commerce services use affinity
networks for data mining and marketing. Individuals sharing like votes
(or retweets) are part of an affinity network (or a hashtag) in the context
of what they liked (or tweeted).
Figure 1.1 depicts a taxonomy of network types. Exchange networks
are those in which a quantifiable entity is exchanged among the nodes
whether or not the nodes are tangible (e.g., natural gas) or intangible
Ubiquity of Networks 3

Fig. 1.1. A network taxonomy.

(e.g., trust). Relational networks are inert and merely reflect juxtaposi-
tion of nodes. All CENs are exchange networks.
Once a network emerges, we can explore interactions within the net-
work. Strategic interactions involve reasoning and deciding over selec-
tion of strategies. They can be modeled with game theory that will be
our main focus in Chapter 3.
Network theory is a set of algorithms that codifies relationships
among network topology and outcomes, which are meaningful to net-
work inhabitants. There is a movement afoot that codifies network phe-
nomena under the term network science. These phenomena and salient
algorithms will be discussed throughout this book.
An Online Social Networking Services (OSNS) creates synthetic net-
works among people. The salient incentive for using an OSNS is to gain
social authority (i.e., legitimacy), which is a form of social power and
not generally a measure of vanity. Social authority in social networks
is with respect to a group and with respect to specific topics. Therefore,
social authority is a relative measure and not an absolute quantity. In
Section 1.2, we review a few popular OSNSs from a rapidly growing list
(Khare, 2012). Since they provide platforms to create, to share, and/or
4 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

to exchange information and ideas in virtual communities, an OSNS


is considered to be a medium for social media. There are quantitation
schemes over social media, such as Klout, which offers user scores (i.e.,
a number between 1 and 100). Klout calls influence, which is a measure
of a user’s ability to reach one other through an OSNS. This measure is
valuable for marketing products online.
In Section 1.3, we review a few popular online bibliographic services
(OBS) that house published articles. We return to generic models of net-
works in Section 1.4. This is followed by a review of popular models
of synthetic network generations in Section 1.5. A fully implemented
NetLogo model (i.e., code and accompanying descriptions for use) of
network generation models and analysis is available in the Appendix.

1.2 ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKING SERVICES


Facebook is an OSNS that connects people, organizations, friends, and
others who work or live around together. Nodes in a Facebook network
can be individuals or organizations. Some of these may be entirely syn-
thetic without real-world humans. The main Facebook tool for connec-
tions is friendship. Facebook is used largely for personal and recreational
functions. As such, it has filled the social gaps created by physical and psy-
chological dispersion among traditional families and friends. It also serves
as a medium that creates relationships that would not otherwise exist.
One Facebook’s feature known as sharing allows adjustments on
spread of information (i.e., selecting an audience). Sharing is used to
limit who can view posts and photos. It is a three-step process: (1) in-
dicates who you are (i.e., tagging), (2) tells where you live (i.e., adding a
location to a post), and (3) manages the privacy right for where you post
(i.e., the inline audience selector). Sharing gives users control over their
information diffusion, which in turn can yield a measure of social au-
thority. Another Facebook’s like feature provides a directional relation-
ship (i.e., tie, connection, and link) that lends credibility to the item and
is proportional to the credibility (i.e., authority) of the endorser.
Twitter is an OSNS that facilitates broadcasts of messages (i.e.,
tweets). The main twitter tool for connections is the explicit alignments
of ideas among people (i.e., following). Twitter can be used by small or
large groups to form crowd sourcing. For example, in the small network,
Ubiquity of Networks 5

when a family stays organized about their travel itinerary, there are dis-
parate opinions. In the large network, a large social project, such as a
protest, can be planned. Twitter can be used to work semi-anonymously
with others. Twitter’s hashtag (i.e., #) is a feature for labeling a topic. Any-
one may introduce or reuse a hashtag to attract attention. For example,
#flight1549 added to a tweet labels the tweet to be about “flight1549.”
This hashtag labeling facilitates search related to specific topics. Individ-
uals who use specific hashtags form an implicit network in the context
of their hashtags. This feature has been used for commercial marketing
and anonymous coordination over social actions. The range of poten-
tial uses for hashtags is enormous, and they have been adopted by other
OSNSs such as Facebook. On the one hand, Twitter can be used for so-
cial organizations of crime or dissent. On the other hand, it can be used
to predict and mitigate violations of law enforcement. Since Twitter pro-
vides democratization of opinion sharing and equal access for dissemi-
nation, it is seen as a social equalizer and as such it might be feared by
repressive systems (e.g., government regimes). Twitter’s social authority
is composed of three components: (1) the retweet rate of users’ last few
hundred tweets, (2) the recentness of those tweets, and (3) a retweet-
based model trained on users’ profile data. Tagging someone shows
the Twitter id to more people, whereas direct messaging someone just
puts spam in their inbox, which is generally undesirable. Websites, such
as Klout.com, gauge the influence you have by monitoring things, for
example, how active you are and how much you have been tagged on
Twitter. Twitter’s lists are a way to organize others into groups. When
you click on a list, you will retrieve a stream of tweets from all the users
included in that group. As a rule of thumb, if you want to develop re-
lationships on Twitter, you should read other tweets, retweet good con-
tents, tweet good contents, and stay on top of keywords and interests
that you follow. The same advice applies if you want to get retweeted.
Linkedin is an OSNS that provides an online forum for professional
identity management. The main tool for Linkedin’s connections is to
link people, who would like to support one another (i.e., connections).
Linkedin allows people to conduct a weak form of endorsement in re-
gards to specific skills. This creates directional links from endorsers to
endorsees. Linkedin allows a stronger directional endorsement through
recommendations. Endorsed individuals’ profiles gain social authority
via Linkedin’s endorsements and recommendations. Of course, the
6 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

gained authority is proportional to the authority of those endorsing and


recommending.
Pinterest is an OSNS that allows users to create and manage theme-
based image collections. Repining in Pinterest is the feature that creates
social authority.
Started in 2011, Whisper.sh is a privately owned mobile OSNS that
allows anonymous posts including photographs. It allows others to like
posts, which creates a network of posts as nodes and directional links.
Since users are anonymous, the resulting network is implicit.

1.3 ONLINE BIBLIOGRAPHIC SERVICES


DBLP is a Computer Science Bibliography database website hosted at
Universität Trier in Germany. It houses a large collection of published
articles and offers capabilities for browsing and searching. The resulting
database is a network of “author” nodes connected via coauthorship.
Through citations, papers are nodes of a separate network of paper, as
nodes and citations are the links.
Google Scholar is another bibliography database website released in
2004 by google.com. It creates networks of authors and papers similar
to DBLP.
Microsoft Academic Research is an OBS (with a corresponding Win-
dows app) that is supported by Microsoft.com that offers a similar ser-
vice to DBLP.
Research Gate is an independent privately owned online site founded
in 2008 for scientists and researchers to share papers, to ask questions,
to answer questions, and to find collaborators. On the one hand, it is an
OBS, even though it is far smaller than its rivals. On the other hand, it is
an OSNS for professionals.

1.4 GENERIC NETWORK MODELS


In this section, we review four of the most popular generic network
models. In contrast to descriptive models in this section, Section 1.5 will
offer algorithms for artificially generating networks.
Ubiquity of Networks 7

1.4.1 Random Networks
G(n, p) is a random graph model with n nodes where the probability of a
pair of nodes in it being linked is denoted by p (Erdős and Rényi, 1959).
When p is small, the network is sparsely connected. When p is close to
1/n, the network appears fully connected. When p is almost 1.0, the con-
nectivity among nodes is very high and the network is said to be a giant
component. The spread of node degrees for a random graph model (i.e.,
degree distribution) appears binomial in shape. A closely related model
is the random geometric graph G(n, r), where there are n nodes and the
distance between a pair of nodes in the graph is less than or equal to r
(Penrose, 2003). Contrary to mathematical models, real-world networks
exhibit a degree distribution that is unevenly distributed. In the power-
law distribution, the probability that a node has a degree distribution k
(i.e., the number of connected neighbors) is determined by P(k) ≈ kg, where
parameter g is typically constrained between 2 and 3, that is, 2 ≤ g ≤ 3.
Uneven distribution stems from preferential attachment, where the prob-
ability that a new node will attach to a node i is degree( i ) / ∑ j degree ( j ) .
A node degree refers to the node’s number of neighbors. Preferential
attachment is commonly found in nature as well as man-made networks
such as an economic network (Gabaix, 2009). Random networks are
mathematically the most well-studied and well-understood models.

1.4.2 Scale-Free Networks
There is a model based on preferential attachment described by Bara-
basi and Albert (1999). In this model, a new node is created at each
time step and connected to existing nodes according to the “prefer-
ential attachment” principle. At a given time step, the probability p
of creating an edge between an existing node u and the new node is
p = [(degree( u ) + 1) / (| E | + | V |)] , where V is a set of nodes and E is the
set of edges between nodes. The algorithm starts with some parameters
such as the number of steps that the algorithm will iterate, the num-
ber of nodes that the graph should start with, and the number of edges
that should be attached from the new node to preexisting nodes at each
time step. The Barabasi model of network formation produces a scale-
free network, a network where the node degree distribution follows a
power-law principle. Scale-free networks produce small number of com-
ponents, small-diameter, heavy-tailed distribution, and low clustering.
8 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

Many types of data studied in the physical and social sciences can be
approximated with a Zipf distribution (Li, 1992), which is one of the
families of discrete power-law probability distributions. An implication
of the Zipf law is that the most frequent word will occur approximately
twice as often as the second most frequent word, which occurs twice as
often as the fourth most frequent word, etc.
Unlike the growth model of Barabasi, Epstein and Wang’s (2002)
steady-state model uses a rewiring scheme that results in power-law
distribution. This model evolves an initial graph according to Markov
process, while maintaining constant size and density.
Epstein and Wang’s algorithm has two major steps: (1) initial-
ize a sparse graph and (2) edit Markov edges. To generate the sparse
graph G, they randomly add an edge between vertices with probability
2 m / [ n ×( n − 1)] , where m is the number of edges added and n is the
number of vertices. If the number of edges in G is still less than m, they
start adding edges with a probability of 0.5 until the graph G has m
edges. The second step is to reiterate the algorithm in Figure 1.2 r times
on G, where r is a parametric value.

1.4.3 Trade-Off Model
A trade-off-based model of network formation is the highly optimized
tolerance (HOT) class of models. In a simple model, nodes are allowed
to reason about their connections to other nodes. A node i’s connection
cost to a node j is denoted by cij. The node i will consider centrality of
potential nodes j for attachments denoted by cenj. The node i will con-
sider nodes that minimize the value of a × cij + cenj, where a is a positive
weighing factor dependent on the network size n.

Fig. 1.2. Epstein and Wang’s (2002) algorithm.


Ubiquity of Networks 9

1.4.4 Game Theoretic Models


Game theoretic model of network formation focuses on reasoning over
each node’s connection with others. A strategy set of an agent i is a set
of strategies to connect each node in the network, that is, Si = {si1, si2,
…, sin}, where sij is a strategy to connect a node i to a node j. An agent
incurs a cost in a connection that is a combination of a fixed cost plus a
sum of distances between the node and all other nodes in the network.
For example, cost( sij ) = c + Σ j d (i , j ), where c is a fixed cost and d(i, j)
is the distance between nodes i and j in the number of links. The cost is
shared if both parties choose the link. Otherwise, it is incurred by one
agent. Synergistic strategy selection will provide utility for agents that
are linked.
Each strategy will have a payoff that is utility minus the link cost. The
Nash equilibrium (Carmona, 2012) is achieved with a strategy profile
(i.e., a set of links) that minimizes cost for all agents, and no agent has
incentive to deviate from it.

1.5 NETWORK MODEL GENERATORS


In this section, we review three of the most popular models for generat-
ing artificial networks.

1.5.1 Kleinberg’s Small-World Model


A social network is called a small-world network if, roughly speaking,
any two of people in the network can reach each other through a short
sequence of acquaintances (Kleinberg, 2001). Milgram’s basic small-
world experiment is the most famous experiment that analyzed the
small-world problem (Milgram, 1967). The purpose of the experiment
was to determine whether most pairs of people in society were linked by
short chains of acquaintances. So, individuals were asked to forward a
letter to a “target” through people whom they knew on a first-name basis.
Watts and Strogatz (1998) proposed a small-world network model
that incorporated the features of Milgram’s experiment. Kleinberg
(2001) proposed a variant of Watts and Strogatz’s basic model that can
be described as follows. One starts with a p-dimensional lattice, in which
nodes are joined only to their nearest neighbors. One then adds k-directed
long-range links out of each node v, for a constant k; the end point of
10 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

each link is chosen uniformly at random (Kleinberg, 2001). Kleinberg


studied the model from an algorithmic perspective and showed that,
with a high probability, there will be short paths connecting all pairs
of nodes and the network will have the lattice-like structure. Kleinberg
model does not yield a heavy-tailed degree distribution.
Kleinberg (2000) showed a simple greedy algorithm that can find
paths between any source and destination using only O(log 2 n ) expected
edges. Kleinberg’s algorithm that will be used in this study is based on
two parameters: the lattice size and the clustering exponent. Each node
u has four local connections, one to each of its neighbors and in addition
one long-range connection to some node v, where v is chosen randomly
according to the probability proportional to d−a, where d is the lattice
distance between u and v and a is the clustering exponent.

1.5.2 Barabási and Albert’s Scale-Free Network Generator


Barabási and Albert (1999) discussed the features of the scale-free net-
works in detail and compared them with the features of other types of
networks, for example, small-world networks. Scale-free networks ex-
pand continuously by the addition of new vertices, and new vertices at-
tach preferentially to vertices that are already well connected. Most of
the real networks are free-scale networks, such as WWW and citation
patterns of scientific publications, and both of them follow a power-law
distribution (Barabási and Albert, 1999).
Albert and Barabási (2002) showed a comparison between their model
and other previously proposed models. They state that other network
models start with a fixed number of vertices that are then randomly
connected or reconnected without modifying the number of vertices.
However, the WWW as an example will grow exponentially in time by
addition of any new web page. Also, other network models assume that
new edges are placed randomly, that is, the probability of connecting
two vertices is independent of the vertices’ degree. However, most of
the real networks do not behave like that. They exhibit preferential
attachment, that is, connecting two vertices is dependent on the vertices’
degree (Albert and Barabási, 2002).
According to Albert and Barabási (2002), a new node is created
at each time step and connected to existing nodes according to the
Ubiquity of Networks 11

“preferential attachment” principle. At a given time step, the probability


p of creating an edge between an existing node u and the new node is
[(degree( u ) + 1) / (| E | + | V |)] . The algorithm starts with some param-
eters, such as the number of steps that the algorithm should iterate, the
number of nodes that the graph should start with, and the number of
edges that the new node should be attached to the preexisting nodes at
each time step.
The hierarchical network model (HNM) is part of the scale-free model
family and shares its main property of yielding proportionally more
hubs among the nodes than by random network generation. HNMs are
heavy-tailed, have small diameter, and have high clustering.

1.5.3 Epstein and Wang’s Power-Law Network Generator


Epstein and Wang (2002) have proposed a graph model called the steady-
state model that results in power law by evolving a graph according to
Markov process while maintaining constant size and density. The only
difference between their model and Barabási and Albert’s model is that
their model does not require incremental growth, whereas Barabási and
Albert’s model does. Epstein and Wang’s algorithm can be viewed in two
steps: (1) initialize a sparse graph and (2) edit Markov process. To gener-
ate the sparse graph G, the algorithm randomly adds an edge between
vertices with the probability 2 m / [ n ×( n − 1)] , where m is the number of
edges added and n is the number of vertices. If the number of edges in G
is still less than m, the algorithm starts adding edges with a probability
of 0.5 until the graph G has m edges. Then, we reiterate the algorithmic
steps, shown in Figure 1.2, r times on G, where r is a model parameter
(Epstein and Wang, 2002).

1.6 A REAL-WORLD NETWORK


In this section, we sketch essential components of a generic, common-
place exchange network applicable to package delivery and durable
products. We are keeping this model simple in order to avoid complexi-
ties of supply chain management and economic networks. Let C be a set
of consumers of a commodity (e.g., received packages or appliances)
and P be a set of producers of the same commodity (e.g., package
12 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

senders). A node can be both a producer and a consumer at different


times T and locations L (i.e., nodes). The set C is strictly larger than P,
and it may subsume it entirely. The production rate of a producer is a
function of time and location denoted by P(t, l). Similarly, the consump-
tion rate of a consumer is a function of time and location denoted by
C(t, l). After production but before consumption, commodities are in
transit at the rate P − C, that is, Transit(t, l1, l2) = P(t, l1) − C(t, l2). Loca-
tions of production and consumption must be distinct, that is, l1 ≠ l2. If
these locations are the same, transit is null, that is:

∀t ∈ T , l1 , l2 ∈ L, P (t, l1 ) ≥ 0 ∩ C (t, l2 ) ≥ 0 ∩ l1 = l2 → Transit(t, l1 , l2 ) = ∅

The Transit(·) function specifies the flow rate among nodes of the net-
work. If we could specify the maximum flow between all pairs of nodes
in the network, we could discover network capacity for transit using the
standard graph theoretic flow network algorithm, for example, the Ford-
Fulkerson algorithm (Kleinberg and Tardos, 2005). Transit/flow rates
incur a cost corresponding to the amount of flow that needs to be paid
by the pair of a sender and a receiver. It may be beneficial to share the
transmission cost with neighbors, who form game theoretic coalitions
that will be discussed in Chapter 3.

In many scenarios, there is a need for intermediaries to facilitate


transfer of commodities from producers to consumers. For simplic-
ity, we assume intermediaries to be uniform handlers, who are neither
a producer nor a consumer of commodities they handle. In economic
networks, handlers are traders (discussed in Chapter 9). In produc-
tion line networks, intermediaries are dealers. In the mail carrier net-
works, intermediaries are delivery personnel. In electric networks, in-
termediaries are switches. In computer networks, intermediaries are
routers.

Handling capacity of agent i is a function of time and number of


items. Let handleri(t, I) return a delay time in i’s ability to handle I items
at time t. Delay time of zero is on time handling. Typically, there are
more handlers than items in transit. A property of interest is to find
optimal number of handlers for the volume of items to be handled with
no delay.
Ubiquity of Networks 13

1.7 CONCLUSIONS
Networks are abundantly around us. They are man-made or naturally
occur. They are implicit, hidden, explicit, or articulated. They might be
tangible and objectively quantified, or they might be subjective and dif-
ficult to quantify. They all tend to change in time, which is the subject of
our future chapters on network dynamics.

REFERENCES
Albert, R., Barabási, A.-L., 2002. Statistical mechanics of complex networks. Rev. Mod. Phys. 74,
47–97.
Barabási, A.L., Albert, R., 1999. Emergence of scaling in random networks. Science 286, 509–512.
Carmona, G., 2012. Existence and Stability of Nash Equilibrium. World Scientific Publishing
Company.
Epstein, D., Wang, J., 2002. A steady state model for graph power laws. In: Proceedings of 2nd
International Workshop on Web Dynamics. World Scientific Publishing Company.
Erdős, P., Rényi, A., 1959. On random graphs. Publicationes Mathematicae 6, 290–297.
Gabaix, X., 2009. Power laws in economics and finances. Annu. Rev. Econ. 1, 255–294.
Jackson, M., 2003. A survey of models of network formation: stability and efficiency. In: Demange,
G., Wooders, M. (Eds.), Group Formation in Economics: Networks, Clubs, and Coalitions.
Cambridge University Press.
Jornet, J.M., Pierobon, M., 2011. Nanonetworks: a new frontier in communications. In: Communications
of the ACM. Vol. 54, No. 11. ACM, pp. 84–89.
Khare, P., 2012. Social Media Marketing eLearning Kit For Dummies. Wiley.
Kleinberg, J., 2000. The small-world phenomenon: an algorithmic perspective. In: Proceedings of
32nd ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing. ACM, pp. 163–170.
Kleinberg, J., 2001. Small-world phenomena and the dynamics of information. In: Proceedings of
the Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), Vol. 14. NIPS.
Kleinberg, J., Tardos, E., 2005. Algorithm Design. Addison-Wesley.
Li, W., 1992. Random texts exhibit Zipf’s-law-like word frequency distribution. IEEE Trans. Inf.
Theory 38 (6), 1842–1845.
McPherson, M., Lovin, L.S., Cook, J., 2001. Birds of a feather: homophily in social networks.
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 27, 415–444.
Milgram, S., 1967. The small world problem. Psychol. Today 1 (1), 61–67.
Moffett, M., 2010. Adventures Among Ants. University of California Press.
Nielsen, M., 2012. Reinventing Discovery: A New Era of Networked Science. Princeton University
Press.
Penrose, M., 2003. Random Geometric Graphs. Oxford University Press.
Reingold, H., 2000. The Virtual Community. MIT Press.
Seung, S., 2012. Connectome: How Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are. Mariner Books.
Watts, D., Strogatz, S., 1998. Collective dynamic of small-world networks. Nature 393 (6684), 440–442. 
14 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

EXERCISES
1. Using examples, describe how animal swarms are networked.
2. What are the salient characteristics of biological networks (e.g.,
brain cells and protein chains) that differentiate them from other
types of networks?
3. What will be the role of network organizations in the year 2025?
Give examples.
4. How can social media be used to track cultural changes in a society?
CHAPTER 2
Network Analysis
There has been a long tradition of measuring qualities for network
locations from both egocentric and global perspectives. This is largely
addressed with quantification attempts in mathematical sociology under
the theme of social network analysis (SNA) (Wasserman and Faust, 1994;
Knoke and Yang, 2007; Golbeck, 2013; Borgatti et al., 2013). There
are also several popular software toolkits that perform analysis and
visualization of social networks (i.e., sociograms) including UCINET
and NodeXL. Tom Snijders’ SIENA is a program for the statistical
analysis of network data. The NSF-sponsored visualization project is
Traces (Suthers, 2011), which traces out the movements, confluences,
and transformations of people and ideas in online social networks.
The aim of this chapter is to review a selective subset of SNA
measures that complement algorithmic descriptions explained in the
remainder of this book. For a glossary of SNA terms, readers are
recommended to consult Golbeck (2013).
We will start with egocentric (i.e., node view) measures. A degree-1
network of a node is the node and its immediate neighbor nodes. A
degree-1.5 network of a node is the node’s degree-1 network and its links
among immediate neighbors (Golbeck, 2013). A degree-2 network of
a node is the node’s degree-1 network and all its immediate neighbors’
connections (Golbeck, 2013). A degree-n network of a node is the
degree-1 network of the node plus all the nodes and the corresponding
links that are no more than n links away from the starting node.
A path is a chain (i.e., succession) of nodes connected by links be-
tween pairs of nodes. Two nodes are connected if and only if (i.e., iff)
there is a path between them. A connected component is a set of nodes
with connected paths among all pairs of nodes in the set. A bridge is a
link that connects two isolated connected components. A hub is a node
with many connections. Reachability is whether two nodes are connected
or not by way of either a direct or an indirect path of any length.
16 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

Geodesic distance, denoted by distanceij, is the number of links in the


shortest possible path from node i to node j. Diameter of a network is
the largest geodesic distance in the connected network. Reverse distance,
denoted by RDij, is distanceij − (1 + Diameter). Metrics in Equations 2.1
and 2.2 are adapted from Valente and Foreman (1998):
RD jk
Integration ( k ) = ∑ (2.1)
j ≠k n −1

RD kj
Radiality ( k ) = ∑ (2.2)
j ≠k n −1

Structural centrality measures of a node are a host of measures re-


flecting the structural properties of the links surrounding a focal node.
For example, degree centrality of a node is the number of edges incident
on the node. Closeness centrality of a node is the average of the short-
est path lengths from the node to all other nodes in the network. It is a
rather small number in small-world networks (Watts and Strogatz, 1998).
Betweenness centrality of a node is a measure of the node’s importance
(and possibly influence as discussed in Chapter 7) and is computed using
the algorithm shown in Figure 2.1.
Eigenvector centrality measures the centrality of neighbor nodes and
has been used as a measure of influence and power, which are discussed
later in this book (Bonacich and Lu, 2012). Bonacich developed a beta
centrality measure CBC with a parameter a used for adjusting the impor-
tance of a node’s degree versus a parameter b for adjusting the impor-
tance of the neighbor’s centrality. This is shown in Equation 2.3:

CBC = ∑ α + [ β × CBC ( j )] = α log n (i ) + β × ∑ CBC ( j ) (2.3)


j ∈N (i ) j ∈N (i )

Fig. 2.1. Betweenness value computation.


Network Analysis 17

Eigenvector centrality of a node at time t is computed with Equa-


tion 2.4, where C(t) is the vector of node centralities, A is the adjacency
matrix, and At is the result of iterated multiplications of A:
 
C (t ) = At C (t ) (2.4)

As time approaches ∞, the dominant eigenvalue g will determine the


 
centrality vector value with the value γ t × V 1 , where V1 is the eigenvec-
tor corresponding to the dominant eigenvalue g (Chiang, 2012).
Let us consider a degree-1.5 network of a node and measure the ratio
of the actual number of links in that network over the total number of
possible links that could exist, which yields a measure called the local
clustering coefficient (Golbeck, 2013).
Density of a network is the ratio of the actual number of links in that
network over the total number of possible links that could exist. Cohe-
sion is the minimum number of edges that has to be removed before the
network is disconnected.
Let us consider a cluster that is a subset of nodes s and each node may
count the ratio r as node. r is the density of its neighbors in s versus the
total number of its neighbors. In the set s, the node with the minimum
r value rmin yields the value called density of cluster (used in Chapter 7).
Whereas centrality is a microlevel measure, centralization is a macro-
level measure, which measures variance in the distribution of central-
ity in a network. We show the most generic form of centralization in
Figure 2.2.
Leadership (L) is a measure of network domination, computed us-
ing Equation 2.5, where dmax is the degree of the node with the highest

Fig. 2.2. Centralization algorithm.


18 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

degree and di is the degree of node i (Freeman, 1978; Macindoe and


Richards, 2011):
n
d max − di
L =∑ (2.5)
j =1 ( n − 2) × ( n − 1)

Bonding (B) measures triadic closure in a graph (Macindoe and


Richards, 2011) using Equation 2.6:

6 × number of triangles
B= (2.6)
number of length between two paths

Diversity is a measure of the number of edges in a graph that are dis-


joint. End vertices of such edges are not adjacent (i.e., disjoint dipoles).
Diversity is shown in Equation 2.7:

number of disjoint dipoles


D= (2.7)
[(n / 4) × ((n / 2) − 1)]2

Burt’s structural holes measure gaps among connected components


and as such are another measure of diversity (Burt, 1995).

2.1 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK


Network analysis focuses on quantification (and statistical analyses) of
qualities of relative nodes’ locations as well as entire network properties.
SNA has long been a stable tool for mathematical sociology (Borgatti
et al., 2013). An active direction of interest has been intelligence
analysis of human networks to understand, predict, and mitigate law
enforcement as well as understand geopolitical landscapes. The recent
debate over surveillance and monitoring of electronic communication
metadata by the National Security Agency (NSA) is indicative of this
fervent interest.
A second direction of interest is marketing and branding on social
media. The interest is to understand human propensity for influence
from network connections. Marketers use these propensities to craft viral
dissemination of consumption patterns and manipulation of economic
Network Analysis 19

activities. The documentary filmmaker, Morgan Spurlock, has publicly


explored branding on social media. His mission is to raise public aware-
ness and to inform us about the changing landscape of cultural values in
the society (e.g., supersize me app).

REFERENCES
Bonacich, P., Lu, P., 2012. Introduction to Mathematical Sociology. Princeton University Press.
Borgatti, S., Everett, M., Johnson, J., 2013. Analyzing Social Networks. SAGE Publications Ltd.
Burt, R., 1995. Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition. Harvard University Press.
Chiang, M., 2012. Networked Life: 20 Questions and Answers. Cambridge University Press.
Freeman, L., 1978. Centrality in social networks: conceptual clarification. Soc. Netw. 1, 215–239.
Golbeck, J., 2013. Analyzing the Social Web. Morgan Kaufmann.
Knoke, D., Yang, S., 2007. Social Network Analysis. Sage Publications.
Macindoe, O., Richards, W., 2011. Comparing networks using their fine structure. Int. J. Soc.
Comput. Cyber-Phys. Syst. 1 (1), 79–97, Inderscience Publishers.
Suthers, D., 2011. Interaction, mediation, and ties: an analytic hierarchy for socio-technical
systems. In: Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on the System Sciences
(HICSS-44). January 4–7, 2011, Kauai, Hawai‘i.
Valente, T., Foreman, R., 1988. Integration and radiality: measuring the extent of an individual’s
connectedness and reachability in a network. Soc. Netw. 20 (1), 89–105.
Wasserman, S., Faust, K., 1994. Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge
University Press.
Watts, D., Strogatz, S., 1998. Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks. Nature 393 (6684),
440–442.  

EXERCISES
1. How can we track search queries (i.e., say in Google or YouTube)
from social network profiles of corresponding users?
2. Describe a network that appears to be but is not a scale-free
network.
3. How can beta centrality measure be used to find weakly connected
nodes in a network?
4. Modify density metric for weighted networks, that is, networks with
links that have weights as strengths of connections.
CHAPTER
Network Games
3
Decision making requires reasoning. Whereas decision theory is about the
process of an individual’s reasoning processes when pertinent decision
attributes can be independently ascertained, game theory (GT) is about
the process of reasoning when pertinent decision attributes include
decisions of other individuals (Fudenberg, 1991). The latter is the scenario
in networks where all the decisions are interdependent. GT has been
a branch of mathematics (Barron, 2008) and has long been used to
explain economic decision making in the theories of microeconomics
(Mas-Colel et al., 1995). We will briefly introduce GT in Section 3.1 before
the discussion of network-relevant applications in Sections 3.2–3.6.

3.1 GAME THEORY INTRODUCTION


A game is a simple tuple 〈I, S, U〉. Here, I is a set of individuals (i.e.,
players or agents in GT nomenclature). Whereas Si is a nonempty set of
actions (i.e., strategies in GT) for agent i, S is a set of all agents’ strategy
sets, that is, S = Π Si .
mi: S → R is the utility function (i.e., payoff) for agent i. For a combi-
nation of simultaneous decisions, agent i receives a nonnegative reward.
For convenience, S−i is used to denote the strategies of agents other than
agent i.
Matching Pennies is a famous zero-sum game of pure conflict with
two actions {head, tail}, with a payoff bimatrix shown in Figure 3.1.
The minimax theorem guarantees that all zero-sum matrix games are
solvable, which means we can determine strategies that maximize player
payoffs (Osborne and Rubinstein, 1994).
Many real-world games have action sets with infinite cardinality such
as the economic competition among firms deciding on production of
product quantities described in Cournot games. In the case of two identi-
cal firms and a single product type, Si = [0, ∞], which is the amount of
goods that firm i will produce. Payoffs are given by Equation 3.1, where
22 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

Fig. 3.1. Matching Pennies game payoff bimatrix.

p is the price of goods as a function of amount of goods produced and


ci is the unit cost of the product for firm i:

µi = si × p(S1 + S2 ) − ci × Si (3.1)
For Cournot games, it is typical to plot the best responses of two
players (i.e., strategies with optimal payoffs for players) with S1 versus
S2. In such plots, the point of intersection of the two best response lines
denotes the equilibrium point (i.e., stability point) often denoted as S*
(i.e., the amount of goods either firm should produce) where neither
player will have an incentive to unilaterally abandon the strategy pre-
scribed by the equilibrium.
A famous two-player competitive game is Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD)
with prototypical payoffs shown in Figure 3.2 with two strategies of
cooperation (C) and defection (D). In PD games, D is the dominant
strategy (i.e., the strategy that yields higher payoff for the player)
regardless of players’ choices. Often, there are strategies that might be
dominated (e.g., suicide would always produce a loss–loss strategy com-
bination in PD) and game analysis often suggests elimination of such
strategies (Myerson, 1997). Nash equilibrium (NE) for a game 〈I, S, U〉 is
a strategy profile S* ∈ S (i.e., an ideal strategy combination for players)
such that for all i ∈ I and for all Si ∈ S, Equation 3.2 holds. NE is a
form of equilibrium (i.e., stability). In many competitive games, there
are multiple equilibria, among which we must select the most desirable
one based on contextual biases (Nisan et al., 2007). A measure of equi-
librium efficiency is the Price of Anarchy that is the ratio between the
worst and the best equilibria (Roughgarden, 2005).

Fig. 3.2. Prisoner’s Dilemma game payoff bimatrix.


Network Games 23

Fig. 3.3. Battle of the Sexes payoff bimatrix.

µi (S *i , S *−i ) ≥ µi (S *i , S *−i ) (3.2)

In a PD game, if the strategies are selected with equal probability, the


expected payoff is computed by Equation 3.3 where both of them are
worse off since they earn negative payoffs (i.e., −3.5).
Therefore, our players would not be interested in playing the PD game
with equal probabilities. For social optimality bias, payoff pairwise sums
of the player pairs would be considered. Whereas (C, C) yields −4, (D, D)
yields −8. Therefore, (C, C) would be the socially optimal profile. How-
ever, since communication is not allowed in PD and PD is a zero-sum
competitive game, social choice is irrelevant.

1 1 1 1
E = ( −2, −2) + ( −5, −1) + ( −1, −5) + ( −4, −4) = ( −3.5, −3.5) (3.3)
2 4 4 4

Thus far, we have considered competition-based games. There is an-


other class of games known as games of coordination where the objective
is for players to select a strategy profile such that strategies yield syn-
ergistic effects (Hexmoor, 2011). An example is the Battle of the Sexes
game with the payoff matrix shown in Figure 3.3. In this game, there are
two NEs of (Ballet, Ballet) and (Soccer, Soccer). Expected payoffs for ei-
ther player who plays each strategy with equal probability are computed
by Equation 3.4 that prescribes payoffs of 1/4 for each player. However,
players can optimally earn up to (1.5, 1.5) with coordination. In this
game, pairs of player payoffs are not zero-sum (i.e., do not sum to zero).
In games that are not zero-sum (e.g., air traffic control and moving
heavy objects such as the piano), preplay communication as forms of
cooperation, coordination, and negotiation improves payoffs. Therefore,
in coordination games, both players win.
1 1 1 1 1
E= ( −1, −1) + (1,2) + (2,1) =  ,  (3.4)
2 4 4 4 4
24 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

Fig. 3.4. Game of chicken payoff bimatrix.

Another famous non-zero-sum game is the game of chicken shown in


Figure 3.4. Without communication and with random strategy selection,
expected payoff for the game of chicken is computed by Equation 3.5.
Since both payoffs are −5/2, playing randomly is not rational. Naturally,
a preplay communication to reach agreement to both will save their lives,
that is, payoff outcome (0, 0), which is better than all other outcomes.

1 1 1 1  −5 −5 
E= (0, 0) + ( −1,1) + (1, −1) + ( −10, −10) =  ,  (3.5)
4 4 4 4  2 2

A more nuanced coordination game is found in the second price auc-


tion game. Let there be n players bidding for a single item. Let vi denote
player i’s valuation and all valuations are common knowledge. Valua-
tions are ordered as shown in Equation 3.6. Players simultaneously sub-
mit bids b1, b2, …, bn. The item is won by the player with the highest bid.
The winner’s utility is computed as mi = ϑi − bj, where bj is the bid of the
second highest bid and ϑi is the value/worth for agent i.
(b1, b2, …, bn) = (ϑ1, ϑ2, …, ϑn) is a NE solution. ϑ1 wins and pays ϑ2.
m1 = ϑi − ϑ2. Otherwise, mj = 0 for all j ≠ i.
(b1, b2, …, bn) = (ϑ1, 0, …, 0) is the second NE solution, where v1
wins and pays 0.
(b1, b2, …, bn) = (ϑ2, ϑ1, …, 0) is the third NE solution, where v1 wins
and pays 0.
(b1, b2, …, bn) = (ϑ3, ϑ2, …, 0) is the fourth NE solution, where v1
wins and pays 0.
This can repeat for n NE solutions illustrating the need for coordina-
tion in order to select the desired NE.

ϑ1  ϑ 2    ϑ n > 0 (3.6)

Real-world games are not one-shot games. Instead, players may en-
gage in multiple, even infinitely, repeated games. In repeated scenarios,
Network Games 25

there is a possibility of learning, the coverage of which is beyond our


current scope (Fudenberg and Levine, 1998). A payoff profile is feasible
if it is in the convex hull of the set of possible payoff profiles of the ba-
sic game setup. The folk theorem posits that any feasible payoff profile
that strictly dominates the minmax prescribed profile can be realized as
an NE payoff profile (Rubinstein, 1979; Myerson, 1991). Evolutionary
game theory (EGT) is inspired from Darwinian biological evolutionary
adaptations (Vincent, 2005). EGT is a methodology applied to popula-
tions faced with strategic choices. It performs analyses on population
constituents that adopt and propagate winning strategies to their de-
scendants (Maynard-Smith, 1982). EGT deduces the strategy that will
produce consistently superior payoff and as such is more stable for the
population (i.e., evolutionarily most fit). It is used to mathematically
explain a wide range of animal behavior selections (Gintis, 2009; Broom
and Rychtar, 2013). In a way, EGT has long been part of the popular
culture (Dawkins, 1976). Both political decisions and evolution of coop-
eration are explained by EGT (Saari, 2001; Axelrod, 2006).

3.2 CONGESTION GAMES AND RESOURCE PRICING


Rosenthal (1973) ushered in congestion games (CG) for reasoning over
resources. CG are isomorphic to potential games. A discrete CG is
defined by 〈I, M, (Si), (cj(k))〉, where I is a set of players, M is a set of
resources, and Si is a set of resources available for player i. If k users are
using resource j, the cost to each player from unavailability of resource
j is denoted by cj(k). Utilities in VG are defined by Equation 3.7 as
the sum of costs (i.e., Cj(kj)) incurred by all players using a resource j
that is desired by player i. It is known that every CG has a pure NE
(Rosenthal, 1973).

µi (Si , S− i ) = ∑ C (k ) j j (3.7)
j ∈S j

In wireless networks, resources are links (i.e., routes) that carry traffic
among nodes (e.g., connection points, redistribution points, and termi-
nal equipment). Whereas some links are susceptible to the amount of
traffic on the link, some are not. Average packet delay on the link is the
cost function of the link (i.e., network resource). Consider I to be the set
26 Computational Network Science: An Algorithmic Approach

of independently operated links: {1, 2, …, I}. d units of flow are routed


through the network made up of many users. Latency (i.e., delay due to
congestion) for link i is denoted by li(xi), where xi is the flow through link
I and x = [x1, …, xI] is the vector of all flows. Let Pi denote price per unit
flow on link i. Ci = Pi + li(xi) denotes the total cost for using link i. Users
maintain a utility reservation threshold R. If Ci > R, no traffic is routed
on link i. Otherwise, link i is used for routing. Wardrop principle (i.e.,
Wardrop equilibrium) is commonly used for efficient flow distribution
(Menache and Ozdaglar, 2011). Application of Wardrop equilibrium
has led to increased reliability and performance of communication net-
works using dynamic multipath routing found in Kelly and Voice (2005).

3.3 COOPERATION IN NETWORK SYNTHESIS GAME


Cooperation in GT suggests coalition formation. This can be applied to
networks. Let I be a set of players. S is a set of all possible coalitions (i.e.,
all possible nonempty subsets of I). Whereas B is the least amount of re-
sources needed for accommodating service demands, bi is the amount of
available resources of the ith member of a coalition, which is common
knowledge among players. If the sum of available resources in a coali-
tion S exceeds the threshold of resources required to meet the service
demands B, that coalition is worthwhile. Otherwise, the coalition S has
no value. This is shown in Equation 3.8:

|s|
If ∑ bi > B, then ϑ (S ) = 1; otherwise, ϑ (S ) = 0 (3.8)
i =1

Network synthesis game can be formulated in the form of a weighted


voting game 〈I, (wi), W/2〉, where wi is the weight of player i’s vote and
W = ∑ wi . Network synthesis game is isomorphic to a weighted voting
I

i =1
game with bi = wi and B = W/2.

3.4 BAYESIAN GAMES
In the real world, game data is unavailable to players. In fact, posses-
sion of more information and larger strategic options has adverse ef-
fects on player utility (Aumann, 1976). This is the fundamental premise
for Bayesian games, where each player i is of specific type τi, which is
Another random document with
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The perpetual change among Europeans in great things as well as
in small—in manners and customs, in social ideas and practices, in
dress, in laws, in ideas and forms of government—indicate the
operation of widely different influences.
CHAPTER XXXV.
ARE ALL ORIENTALS MAD?

They hear a voice you cannot hear.


They see a hand you cannot see.—Tickell.

A friend of mine who has resided much among Orientals, and is


very familiar with their ways of thinking and acting, is in the habit of
affirming that he never had dealings with any one of them without
soon discovering in him a loose screw. Every mother’s son of them,
he thinks, is, to some degree, and in some way or other, mad. The
meaning of this I take to be that their way of looking at, and
estimating things, and feeling about them, is different from ours.
They see what we cannot, and cannot see what we can. This is, I
believe, very much a question of religion.
In the world of spirit a religion is a real, organic, living, acting
entity. It animates, it subdues, it pervades, it colours, it guides men’s
minds and hearts. They breathe it. They feed upon it. They are what
it makes them. Now our religion is characterized by liberty. It leaves
men to construct their own polities, and to devise for themselves the
laws they are to live by. It obliges them to understand that they are
the arbiters and the architects of their own fortunes. It leaves them
free, from age to age, to battle about, and to construct their own
theology, with the certainty that whether the same or different forms
are used, it will always in the end be adjusted to the ideas of the age,
and even of the individual. It appeals to men’s own ideas of God,
which vary as knowledge advances; and to the sense mankind have
of what is just, and merciful, and lovely, and of good report. It does
not define these things, for it supposes that the ideas of them are in
man. It makes the light that is within the measure of duty. One of the
general results of such a religion is, that it renders men capable, and
desirous, too, of thinking. It produces within them an habitual desire
to see things as they are, and to conform their feelings and their
conduct to realities.
The system which is most diametrically opposite to this is that
which the Oriental has adopted. He has no liberty of any kind. He
must think, and feel, and live in accordance with, and every detail of
his inner and outer life must be conformed to, what were the ideas of
the Arab barbarians of twelve centuries ago. This is the procrustean
bed on which the mind of every Oriental is laid. This, then, is what
my friend’s nineteenth-century Christianity, or, if you prefer it, his
nineteenth-century ideas and feelings, have been brought into
contact with—the ideas and feelings of Arab barbarians of twelve
centuries ago. It would be somewhat surprising if he did not perceive
something of lunacy in the minds of such people.
What struck me in the Oriental was a kind of childishness. Both
men and women appeared to be only children of a larger growth.
There was an expression of childishness in their features, and there
were very perceptible indications of a corresponding condition of
their minds. It looked like moral and intellectual arrest. The manhood
of the mind had never been called into exercise, and had, in
consequence, become aborted. They never think. Why should they?
All truth of every kind has already been fully revealed to them. To
question what they have received, or to endeavour to attain to more,
would be impious. They have hardly any occasion to act, for is it not
Allah who directly does everything as it pleases Him, on the earth
beneath, as well as in the heaven above?... There is in them a
softness of expression which could not co-exist with activity, and
firmness, and largeness of brain. Child-like, they believe anything
and everything. The more wonderful, and the more contradictory to
nature it may be, the more readily do they believe it. They have no
idea of extorting the secrets of nature. What good would it do them
to seek to know anything or everything? Allah will reveal what He
pleases, and when. Such knowledge would not promote their
happiness. Their idea of blissfulness is that of the Arab of the Desert.
Shade and rest. Plashing fountains and delightful odours. Lovely
houris. This is not the stuff that makes men.
Nature also works against them. Much time is needed for the
acquisition and digestion of knowledge, and for the growth of the
moral and intellectual faculties to what we regard as their full stature.
The time, however, allotted to them for these sovereign purposes is
very short. Where girls are married women at eleven, what time can
there be for the mind to mature itself? Compare this with the many
years of deliberate culture amongst ourselves. What can be done by
the age of eleven? What should we be if our mental culture and
growth ended at that age? But in their case it is so with half the
community—the mothers; and so also with the other half—the
fathers, only in a somewhat less degree. Of the negroes of the
interior Sir Samuel Baker observes that the little children are quick
enough, but that mental development appears to have ceased by the
age of fourteen. I observed, and heard from several Americans that
they had observed, something of the same kind in the negro schools
of the United States. Up to an age not quite so advanced as that Sir
S. Baker speaks of, the coloured children appear to be as quick as
the children of the whites; but beyond that point they begin to fall
behind. Their apprehensiveness appears to have exhausted itself.
This must doom the black race in the United States, in their struggle
with the whites for the means of subsistence, to extinction. Just so,
too, must his prematurity always place the Oriental, in the struggle
between nations, at a disadvantage in comparison with the
European. In him Nature does not allow herself the time for doing
what ought to be done.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE KORAN.

An quicquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipiatur.—Lemma.

With respect to the Koran, the Orientals are at this day in the
position into which, as respects our Holy Scriptures, an attempt was
made to bring our forefathers in the days of mediæval scholasticism.
They believe that in their sacred volume is contained all knowledge,
either explicitly or implicitly. We have long abandoned definitively this
idea. We have come to understand that the New Testament
announces itself only as a moral revelation; and of that gives only
the spirit, and not the letter; that is to say, that it does not profess to
give, and, as a matter of fact, does not contain, a definite system of
law, but the principles only which should regulate such a system. It
leaves us, therefore, to go not only for our astronomy to
astronomers, and for our geology to geologists, but also for our
municipal law to jurists and legislators, so long as what they
propound and enact is not at discord with Christian principles. The
Mahomedan, however, has not this liberty, for the Koran professes to
contain an all-embracing and sufficient code. It regulates everything.
This is very unfortunate; or, whatever it was at first, it has, in process
of time, come to be very unfortunate; for it makes the ideas—what
we must regard as the ignorance rather than the knowledge—of a
more than half-savage Arab of the seventh century the rule by which
everything in law, life, and thought is to be measured for all time.
While I was in the East I was full of commiseration for the people I
saw bound hand and foot in this way. They are handsome, clean-
limbed fellows, and quick-witted enough. There is in them the
making of great nations. Power, however, is an attribute of mind, and
mind cannot work unless it be free. While I commiserated them, I
saw no hope for them. The evil they are afflicted by appears not to
admit of a remedy; because while, for men who have advanced so
far as they have, it is intellectual suicide to be faithful to such a
religion, to be unfaithful to it has hitherto proved to be moral suicide.
Their ideas and sentiments on all the ordinary concerns and
events of life, and, in short, on all subjects, are the same in all, all
being drawn from the same source. So also are even their very
modes of expression. There is a prescribed form for everything that
occurs; of course, not drawn, in every instance, first-hand from the
Koran, but, at all events, ultimately from it, for these expressions are
what have come to be adopted by the people universally, as being
most in harmony with the spirit and ideas of the Book. The words to
be used at meetings and at partings, under all circumstances; the
words in which unbecoming acts and sentiments are to be corrected
and acknowledged; the words, in short, which are appropriate to
every occasion of life, are all prescribed, and laid up in the memory,
ready for use. God’s name is rarely omitted in these formulæ,
reference being made sometimes to one of His attributes, sometimes
to another, as the occasion may require. Sometimes a pious
sentiment is to be expressed; sometimes a pious ejaculation will be
the correct thing. But everybody knows what is to be said on every
occurrence, great or small, of life.
Learning the Koran by heart is education. It is for this that schools
are established. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are de luxe, or for
certain occupations only. History and science, of course, have no
existence to their minds.
They treat the material volume itself, which contains the sacred
words, with corresponding respect. For instance, when carrying it
they will not allow it to descend below the girdle. They will not place
it on the ground, or on a low shelf. They will not, when unclean,
touch it. They will not print it for fear of there being something
unclean in the ink, the paper, or the printer. They will not sell it to any
unbelievers, even to such partial unbelievers as Jews or Christians.
And in many other ways, indeed in every way in their power, they
endeavour to show how sacred in their eyes is the Book.
In principle and effect it makes no great difference whether the
letter of the Sacred Text be exclusively adhered to, or whether it be
supplemented by more or less of tradition, and of the interpretations
and decisions of certain learned and pious Doctors of the Law. The
latter case, as far as the view we are now taking of the action of the
system is concerned, would be equivalent only to the addition of a
few more chapters to the Sacred Text. The existing generation would
equally be barred from doing anything for itself. If the laws of Alfred,
or of Edward the Confessor, had been preserved and accepted by
ourselves as a heaven-sent code, incapable of addition or
improvement; or if the laws of either had been received, with an
enlargement of certain traditions, interpretations, and decisions—we
should, in either case, equally have lost the practice and the idea of
legislating for ourselves: that is to say, we should have lost the
invigorating and improving process of incessantly discussing,
adapting, and endeavouring to perfect our polity and our code: so
that what is now with us the self-acting and highest discipline of the
intellect, and of the moral faculty, would have been transformed into
the constant and most effectual discipline for their enfeeblement and
extinction.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
ORIENTAL PRAYER.

Like one that stands upon a promontory,


And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,
Wishing his foot were equal to his eye.—Shakspeare.

Prayer is still in the East, just what it was of old time, a matter of
prescribed words, postures, and repetitions. This, however, is only
what it is on the outside, and it is not the outside of anything that
keeps it alive, but what is within. It is there we must look for what
gives life. We shall be misled, too, again, if in our search for life in
this practice we suppose that what prompts it in Orientals must be,
precisely, the same as what prompts it in ourselves. Our
manifestation of this instinct is somewhat different from theirs. Prayer
with them is the bringing the mind into close contact with the ideas of
infinitude—infinite power, infinite wisdom, infinite goodness. It calls
up within them, by an intense effort of the imagination, their idea of
God, just as the same kind of effort calls up within ourselves any
image we please. The image called up, whatever it may be,
produces certain corresponding sensations and emotions. But none
can produce such deep emotions as the idea of God: it moves the
whole soul. It is the ultimate concentrated essence of all thought.
The man who is brought under its influence is prostrated in
abasement, or nerved to patient endurance, or driven into wild
fanaticism. It calms and soothes. It fills with light. It puts into a
trance. Mental sensations may be pleasurable just as those of the
body, and the deeper the sensation the more intense the
satisfaction. In their simple religion these attributes of God are really,
as well as ostensibly, the nucleus, the soul, of the matter. All things
else are merely corollaries to and deductions from them—matter that
is evidently very subordinate. Theirs is a religion of one idea, the
idea of God. And the calling up within them of this idea is their
prayer.
Or we may put this in another way. We may say that prayer is with
them the conscious presentation to their minds of certain ideas, and
the prostration of their minds before them—namely, the ideas of the
different forms of moral perfectness, the idea of intellectual
perfectness or complete knowledge, and the idea, belonging to the
physical order, of perfect power. Their conception of these ideas is,
of course, not identical with ours, but such as their past history, and
the existing conditions of Eastern society, enable them to attain to.
We can separate this effort of theirs into two parts. First, there is the
creation in the mind of these ideas of the several kinds of
perfectness; and then there is the effect the holding of them in the
mind has on the mind itself. That effect is the production in
themselves of a tendency towards making these forms of moral
being, such as they have been conceived, instinctive sentiments,
and instinctive principles of action.
In this view prayer is with the Oriental, the effort by which he both
forms the conception of what is good, and actually becomes good;
both, of course, in accordance with the measure of what is possible
for him. But why, it may be asked, should he do this? All men who
have lived in organized societies have done it; though, indeed, the
character of the act has not in all been so distinctly moral as it is with
the Oriental. Still it has been a natural ladder by which individuals
and communities, and mankind generally, have mounted from lower
to higher stages of moral being. It has been the natural means by
which the moral ideas, which the working of the successive stages of
social progress suggested, have been brought into shape, purified,
disseminated, and made universal and instinctive. As respects the
community everybody understands that its peace, and order, and
even that its existence, very much depend on there being a general
unanimity in moral ideas and sentiments throughout all its classes
and members. And it has always been perceived that the most
effectual way of bringing this about is that all should have the same
object of worship—that is to say, that the prayers of all should be the
same. Formerly, when these things were more studied than they are
now, this was regarded as the one paramount way. Fellow-citizens
then were those who worshipped the same Gods in the same
temples; aliens were those who worshipped other Gods. There could
be no citizenship where there was a diversity of prayers; for that
gave rise to, and implied, a diversity of moral standards. And with
respect to the individual, the spontaneous working of what is within
has pretty generally revealed to him that this moral effect of prayer is
his highest personal concern. He regards it as the advancement of
his truest self; for, if he is not a moral being, he cannot tell in what he
differs, specifically, from the lower animals; and prayer, he knows it
is, which has been the chief means for keeping alive, and nurturing,
and bringing into form, his moral being. It gives birth, form,
permanence, and vitality to moral aspirations.
To dwell for a moment longer on the subject, looking still at the
same fact, but now from a somewhat different point of view. The
object of their prayer has been the highly compound abstraction of
all, but more especially in the moral order, that would, according to
their ideas and knowledge, contribute towards the upholding and
building up of a human society. We see indications of this elsewhere
besides among Orientals. In a democracy wisdom and counsel in the
general body of the community are necessary, and so at Athens was
worshipped the Goddess of Wisdom. The maintenance and
enlargement of Rome depended on the sword, and so the god of
Rome was the God of War. The martial spirit and martial virtues were
necessary to them. When concord became necessary, a temple was
erected to Concord. This also explains the deification of living
Egyptian Pharaohs, and of living Roman emperors. Each was in his
time the “præsens deus” of society. What was done was done by
their providence. Their will was the law of society, and its regulative
power.
Even revealed religion is not exempt from this necessity. When the
existence of the Hebrew people depended on the sword, Jehovah
was the Lord of Hosts, the God of Battles. He taught the hands to
war, and the fingers to fight. He gave them the victory over all their
enemies round about. He it was Who made them a peculiar people
—that is to say, Who brought about within them the sentiment of
national exclusiveness; and Who, in short, made them zealous of all
the good works that would maintain society under its existing
conditions and circumstances. At the Christian epoch, when the chief
hope of the world was in peace and order, He was regarded as the
institutor of civil government; and as having made all people of one
blood, so that there could be no ground for anything exclusive. As
men’s ideas changed, the substance of their prayers changed
correspondingly. To deny these facts is to deny both history, and the
plain, unmistakable announcements of the Sacred Volume. And to
reject the grand, simple, instructive explanation universal history thus
gives is to refuse to accept that view of the working of providence in
human affairs, which God submits to our consideration, just as He
does the order and the mind of the visible material world. It is, in fact,
to refuse to be taught of God.
But to return to the modern Egypto-Arabs. To us there appears to
be very little, surprisingly little, in their minds. They have but little
thought about political matters, no thoughts about history, no
thoughts about the knowledge of outward nature. Their ideas, then,
of God, which are the summary of their religion, obtain full sway over
them. Prayer is the continual exhibition of them to their minds. It stirs
and keeps alive their hearts and souls. While these ideas are acting
upon them they are conscious of an unselfish, and sublime,
exaltation of their moral, and intellectual being.
With us Prayer has somewhat of a different aspect, both as to its
immediate source, and even, apparently, in some degree, as to its
substance. It is not always primarily, or mainly, an attempt to bring
our inmost thought into contact with the pure and simple idea of God.
It almost seems as if something had occurred which had interposed
an insulating medium between our hearts and that idea, which
cannot now, as of old, directly reach our hearts, and generate within
them its own forms of moral perfectness. Much of our Prayer is
prompted by the thought of our own wants, and of our own sins; and
so has something of a personal, and of a selfish character. Still,
perhaps, this is ultimately the same thing. It may be only an indirect
way of reaching the same point. It is, evidently, a perpetual reminder
of our moral requirements, and a perpetual effort to form just and
elevated conceptions of those requirements. This mode of culture
quickens the moral sentiments, raises them to the level of their
immediate purpose, and makes them distinct, vigorous, ever-
present, and instinctive.
What has been said will explain why Orientals pray in set forms of
words. Words represent ideas; and the Prophet, or the Saint, whose
mind is in a state of extraordinary religious exaltation, and the
general thought of religious teachers and of religious people, can, of
course, better imagine the attributes of Deity, and clothe what they
imagine in more appropriate words, than ordinary people could. It is,
therefore, better to take their words than to leave the matter to the
ignorant, the unimaginative, and the dead in soul. Under their system
of unchangeable forms all become alike animated by the best ideas,
presented in the most suitable words. This will explain why they
practise repetitions. With their method it is a necessity.
Short forms, composed of as few ideas as a piece of granite is of
ingredients, and as inelastic and inexpansive, and those forms
incessantly repeated, could not affect us in the way of prayer; but
they mightily affect the Oriental. They are both the frame in which his
mind and life are set, and the spring upon which they are wound up.
In short, and in truth, these ideas are the seminal germs which
fecundate, legitimately, the moral capabilities of his nature, which, if
unquickened by their contact, either will become aborted; or, by
having been brought into contact with other illegitimate ideas, will
give birth to abnormal, and more or less pernicious developments.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
PILGRIMAGE.

He hath forsaken his wife and children, and betaken himself to a pilgrim’s life.—
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.

The pilgrimage to Meccah occupies a large place in the thoughts,


and is the great event in the life of every true believer; and where the
faith is so elementary, so much reduced to the very simplest
expression of belief, all are believers. The great event of the year at
Cairo, is the return of the caravan of pilgrims from Meccah. The
whole city is moved. Many go out to welcome back the happy saints.
At no other time are men, or women, so demonstrative. In these
days, no Christian people, except the lower classes in Russia, have
the ideas which produce these emotions. No others are, speaking of
the bulk of the people generally, in the pilgrim condition of mind.
There was, however, a time when, in this matter, we were all alike.
The pilgrim staff and shell were then as common, and as much
valued, in England as elsewhere.
We now ask how these ideas came to exist in men’s minds? An
equally pertinent question is how they became extinct? The answer
to either will be the answer to both. A little vivisection, which may be
practised on the mind of the modern Arab, will reveal to us the
secret. On dissecting it we find that it is in that state in which the
distinction between things moral and spiritual on the one side, and
things physical on the other, has not yet been made. These two
classes of ideas are in his mind in a state of intimate fluid
commixture. There is a vast difference here between the mind of the
Arab and that of the European, excepting of course from the latter a
large part of the Greek communion, and some small fractions of the
most behindhand of the Latin. With us these two classes of ideas
have become disentangled, and have separated themselves from
each other. Each has crystallized into its own proper form, and
retired into its own proper domain. Hence it is that the idea of the
value of pilgrimages still holds its ground amongst them, but has
disappeared from amongst us.
It belongs to precisely the same class of ideas as the belief that if
a man drinks the ink, with which a text of the Koran has been written,
dissolved in a cup of water, he will be thereby spiritually benefited;
that bodily uncleanness injuriously affects the soul; that having eaten
some particles of dust from the Prophet’s tomb makes you a better
man; or to take the process reversely, that the thoughts of an
envious or covetous man (the evil eye), will do you some bodily hurt;
or that Ghouls and Afreets—creatures of your mind—feed on dead
bodies, and throw stones at you from the house-top. When our
Christian ancestors were in the same stage of mental progress,
similar beliefs, or rather confusions of ideas, some precisely the
same, were manifested in them. A great advance has been made
when men have come to see that what defiles is not what goes in at
the mouth, but what comes from the heart. This has a wide
application; at all events men, when it is seen, go no more
pilgrimages.
I went up to Jerusalem with the ideas about pilgrimages I have just
set down stirring in my mind. My object in going was that I might be
enabled the better to understand history by making myself
acquainted with the very scenes on which it had been enacted. I
wished to become familiar with those peculiar local aspects, and
influences of nature, which had gone some way towards forming the
character of those who had made the history, and which had, indeed,
themselves had in this way much to do with the making of it. Nothing
could be further from the pilgrim condition of mind. I believe,
however, that I did not come away with my (as some would call it)
cold-blooded philosophy quite untouched. True, I turned with
repugnance from the scenes that presented themselves around the
supposed Holy Sepulchre. I felt commiseration, mingled in some sort
with respect, for the prostrations, the tears, the hysterical sobs of the
poor Greek, Armenian, and Latin pilgrims. I contemplated them for a
time, till feelings of pain preponderated, which, as I turned away,
were exchanged only for feelings of disgust as I saw the priests, and
thought of their frauds, their greed, their indifference, their dirt, and
their mutual animosities. I again had to repress the same feelings in
the Garden of Gethsemane, when I found it in possession of some
unusually begrimed monks, who had enclosed it with a wall ten feet
high, and without a single opening through which the eye could catch
a glimpse of the interior; and who only admitted you in the hope of
backsheesh. Still the pilgrim feeling grew upon me. I had crossed the
Brook Kedron to a place where there had been a garden; I had stood
in what had been the courts of the temple, and where had been the
temple itself; I had looked on the goodly stones of the substructures
of the temple, I had beheld the city from the Mount of Olives. In my
walks round the walls I had stood on the rock, somewhere at the
north-west angle, where the Light of the world had sealed His truth
with His life-blood. Imagination on the spot had recalled the
particulars of the scene. Day by day I was conscious that the pilgrim
feeling was gaining strength within me. And now that I am quietly at
home again, I can hardly persuade myself but that I am in a different
position from what I was in before: I can hardly think that I am just as
other men are—that all this is nothing. I have trodden the same
ground, I have been warmed by the same sun, and I have breathed
the same air, as He. I have looked on the same objects, and they
have impressed on my brain the same images as on His.
But we must get over these pilgrim feelings—we must not allow
ourselves to be juggled and cheated by the old confusion of things
physical with things spiritual. It is not poetry to put the chaff for the
corn. There is no talisman like truth. He is not there: nor are we the
nearer to Him for being there. He still exists for us in His words. The
thought, the spirit that is in them we can take into our hearts and
minds. This is truly to be very near to Him; this is to be one with Him.
This is a pilgrimage all can go, and which really saves.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
ARAB SUPERSTITIONS.—THE EVIL EYE.

Many an amulet and charm


That would do neither good nor harm.—Hudibras.

The traveller in Egypt, who observes what is before him, and feels
an interest in conversing with the natives, will have many
opportunities for learning something about their superstitious or
religious ideas—for, of course, much that with them is religion with
us would be superstition—such as their belief in charms and
amulets, and in the beneficial, or remedial efficacy of utterly
irrelevant acts and prescriptions. This is a large—indeed, almost an
inexhaustible—subject, because it pervades their whole lives,
influencing almost everything they do, and every thought that passes
through their minds. Whenever an Arab wishes to attain to, or to
escape from, anything, his method of proceeding is not to use the
means—or if he does, not to be content with them—which, in the
nature of things, would lead to the desired result, but to depend
either entirely, or, at all events, as a collateral means, on something
else which can have no possible bearing on his object, but which, in
consequence of the presence in his mind of certain ideas, and the
absence of certain others, he thinks will have, or ought to have,
some impossible effects.
Among Egyptians—it is so with all Orientals, there is an universal
belief in the potency of the Evil Eye. If any one has looked upon an
object with envious and covetous feelings, evil will ensue; not,
however—and this is the heart and the peculiarity of the superstition
—to the covetous or envious man, but to the coveted or envied
object. I will attempt presently to explain this inversion of moral
ideas. A mother in easy circumstances will keep her child in shabby
clothes, and begrimed with dirt, in order that those who see it may
not think it beautiful, and so cast an envious or covetous eye upon it.
Some kenspeckle object is placed among the caparisons of a
handsome horse or camel, that the eye of the passer-by may be
attracted to it, and so withdrawn from the animal itself. The entire
dress of a Nubian young lady consists of a fringe of shredded
leather, two or three inches deep, worn round the loins. On the upper
edge of this fringe two or three bunches of small white cowrie shells
are fastened. The traveller might, at first,—and, probably, generally
does,—suppose that this is merely a piece of coquetry, inspired by
the desire to attract attention. The truth is the reverse. The white
shells against the ebon skin are, it is true, intended to attract
attention—not at all, however, in the way of coquetry, but from the
opposite wish that the eye of the passer-by may be attracted to the
shells, and thus that the wearer may herself escape the effects of the
coveting, Evil Eye.
There is the same motive in the adoption by women of gold coins
as ornaments for the head. Let the eye be attracted to that coveted
and precious object, and diverted from the face. So, also, with the
use of the veil; and so with many other preventive devices.
But as the source of the mischief is in the heart of the beholder,
prevention may go further, and may dry up, if the effort be wisely
made, the source of the evil at the fountain-head. This is to be done
by so disciplining men’s minds, as that they shall habitually refrain
from looking on anything with envious, or covetous thoughts. The
method they have adopted for effecting this desirable change in the
heart is to make it a point of religion, and of good manners, that a
man shall so word his admiration as, at the same time, to express
renunciation of any wish to possess the beautiful, or desirable object
before him that belongs to another. He must not express his
admiration of it simply. It would be reprehensible for him to say of a
beautiful child, or dress, or jewel, or garden, or anything that was
another’s, ‘How charming!—how beautiful!’ He must associate his
admiration with the idea of God, and with the acknowledgment, that
he submits to the behest of God that has given it to another. This he
does by saying, ‘God’s will be done (Mashallah),’ or by some similar
expression. If he should so far forget propriety as to express himself
otherwise, the bystanders would recall him to good manners, and a
proper sense of religion in the matter, by reproving him.
But supposing all these preventive measures of strategy, religion,
and politeness have failed, and the Evil Eye, notwithstanding, must
needs alight on some object, what is to be done then? The only
resource is in the recognized counter-agents. These are of two kinds
—those which have a prophylactic, and those which have a remedial
efficacy. To the first belong some selected texts of the Koran, or the
whole of the sacred volume, which must be enclosed in a suitable
receptacle, and hung about the neck of the person to be protected. A
little piece of alum has the same effect. Some have recourse to the
ninety-nine titles of the Deity; others prefer the titles, equal in
number, of the Prophet. These may be kept in the house, as well as
about the person. Lane has an interesting chapter on Arab
superstitions, from which we may gather that the names of the
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and of their dog, and the names of the
few paltry articles of furniture left by the Prophet, have great potency.
But supposing these, and other such prophylactics have failed, as
must sometimes happen, in averting the Evil Eye, nothing remains
then but the use of antidotes. One that commends itself to general
adoption is, to prick a piece of paper with a pin, to represent the eye
of the envious man, and then to burn it. Another that is equally
efficacious is, to burn a compound of several pinches of salt stained
with different colours, and mixed with storax, wormwood, and other
matters. But I need not pursue this part of a single subject any
farther: what has been said will be enough to show what are their
ideas as to the ways in which the Evil Eye is to be combated.
And now for the explanation I would venture to offer of what is to
us the strangest part of the matter, that such a belief as this of the
Evil Eye should have had any existence at all, because it involves
the immoral idea that all the suffering falls on the innocent victim,
and that there is no retribution for the guilty cause of the mischief.
This I am disposed to think has been brought about by the facts and
experience of life in the East. There the Evil Eye has always had a
very real, and fearful significance; and people have done very wisely
in endeavouring to guard against it. It never would have done in that
part of the world, nor would it do at this day in Cairo, or anywhere
else, even down to the most secluded village, for one to flaunt before
the world what others might covet, or envy him the possession of.
The simple plan there has ever been, that those should take who
have the power, and that those only should keep who are not known
to possess. A man who had a beautiful wife, or child, or costly jewel,
or a showy horse, or camel, or anything good, if it were observed,
and known, would at any time, in the East, have been pretty sure to
lose it, and perhaps with it his own life into the bargain. This of
course has been a master-fact in forming the manners and customs
of the people. Hence their ideas about the Evil Eye. What befel Uriah
and Naboth, has befallen many everywhere. Hence the wisdom of
keeping good things out of sight, and of diverting attention from
them. Hence the belief that the evil is for the innocent possessor,
and not for the wicked envier, or coveter. The methods adopted for
obviating its effects are, of course, merely the offspring of fear acting
on ignorance.
I need not give any further illustrations of this condition of the Arab
mind. A general statement will now be sufficient. Every evil that flesh
is heir to, every ailment, every as yet unsatisfied yearning, every
loss, every suffering, has its appropriate treatment, all being of the
same character as that which prescribes, for some moral obliquity in
A’s mind, that B should burn a piece of alum, or of storax, purchased
on a particular day. Some of these practices are laughable, some
disgusting. Some that are of the latter class recall Herodotus’s story
of the means to which King Phero, in the days of old Egypt, had
recourse for the recovery of his sight.
It is cheap to laugh at these ideas and practices, but we have
ourselves passed, in this matter, through the same stage. We had
our day of such remedies, when we attempted to cure diseases, and
to dispel evil influences with charms and amulets; and to ensure
success by having recourse to the luck that was supposed to be in
days, and things, and names, and places. The memory of all this has
not, even yet, completely vanished from amongst us. The echo of it
may still at times be heard. The history of all people shows that
these things contain the germ of the empirical art of medicine. The
first step in real progress is the abandonment of the idea that
disease is the irreversible decree of heaven, or of fate. The second
stage, that in which the Orientals now are, is the metaphysical
treatment of disease—that which assumes that each disease is to be
met by something which, from some fancied analogy, or fitness, or
antagonism, it is supposed ought to counteract it. This is futile in
itself, but not in its ulterior consequences, for it issues eventually in
the discovery of the true remedies. In time, if circumstances favour,
the subject comes to be treated scientifically. Every ailment is then
deliberately examined, with the view of discovering in what it actually
consists; and remedies are applied which, in accordance with the
known laws and properties of things, it is reasonably hoped will
check its growth or remove it.
It is curious to observe, while we are on this subject, that
homœopathy is only a reversion to old ways of thinking. Its
foundation is a metaphysical dictum that like cures like. And its
practice that these, or some other, globules will in each case
produce artificially the desired disease, is as contrary to the evidence
of the senses, and the known properties of the globules, as anything
to be found in Arab therapeutics.

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