In the past decade, the study of networks has increased dramatically. Researchers from across the sciences including biology and bioinformatics, computer science, economics, engineering, mathematics, physics, sociology, and statistics are more and more involved with the collection and statistical analysis of network-indexed data. As a result, statistical methods and models are being developed in this area at a furious pace, with contributions coming from a wide spectrum of disciplines.

This book provides an up-to-date treatment of the foundations common to the statistical analysis of network data across the disciplines. The material is organized according to a statistical taxonomy, although the presentation entails a conscious balance of concepts versus mathematics. In addition, the examples including extended cases studies are drawn widely from the literature. This book should be of substantial interest both to statisticians and to anyone else working in the area of network science.

The coverage of topics in this book is broad, but unfolds in a systematic manner, moving from descriptive (or exploratory) methods, to sampling, to modeling and inference. Specific topics include network mapping, characterization of network structure, network sampling, and the modeling, inference, and prediction of networks, network processes, and network flows. This book is the first such resource to present material on all of these core topics in one place."

In recent years there has been an explosion of network data - that is, measu- ments that are either of or from a system conceptualized as a network - from se- ingly all corners of science. The combination of an increasingly pervasive interest in scienti c analysis at a systems level and the ever-growing capabilities for hi- throughput data collection in various elds has fueled this trend. Researchers from biology and bioinformatics to physics, from computer science to the information sciences, and from economics to sociology are more and more engaged in the c- lection and statistical analysis of data from a network-centric perspective. Accordingly, the contributions to statistical methods and modeling in this area have come from a similarly broad spectrum of areas, often independently of each other. Many books already have been written addressing network data and network problems in speci c individual disciplines. However, there is at present no single book that provides a modern treatment of a core body of knowledge for statistical analysis of network data that cuts across the various disciplines and is organized rather according to a statistical taxonomy of tasks and techniques. This book seeks to ll that gap and, as such, it aims to contribute to a growing trend in recent years to facilitate the exchange of knowledge across the pre-existing boundaries between those disciplines that play a role in what is coming to be called 'network science.

The new edition of this book provides an easily accessible introduction to the statistical analysis of network data using R. It has been fully revised and can be used as a stand-alone resource in which multiple R packages are used to illustrate how to conduct a wide range of network analyses, from basic manipulation and visualization, to summary and characterization, to modeling of network data. The central package is igraph, which provides extensive capabilities for studying network graphs in R. The new edition of this book includes an overhaul to recent changes in igraph. The material in this book is organized to flow from descriptive statistical methods to topics centered on modeling and inference with networks, with the latter separated into two sub-areas, corresponding first to the modeling and inference of networks themselves, and then, to processes on networks. The book begins by covering tools for the manipulation of network data. Next, it addresses visualization and characterization of networks. The book then examines mathematical and statistical network modeling. This is followed by a special case of network modeling wherein the network topology must be inferred. Network processes, both static and dynamic are addressed in the subsequent chapters. The book concludes by featuring chapters on network flows, dynamic networks, and networked experiments. Statistical Analysis of Network Data with R, 2nd Ed. has been written at a level aimed at graduate students and researchers in quantitative disciplines engaged in the statistical analysis of network data, although advanced undergraduates already comfortable with R should find the book fairly accessible as well.

This snapshot of the current frontier of statistics and network analysis focuses on the foundational topics of modeling, sampling, and design. Primarily for graduate students and researchers in statistics and closely related fields, emphasis is not only on what has been done, but on what remains to be done.