A Search Engine for Social Networks Based on the Behavior of Ants

From ACM TechNews:
A Search Engine for Social Networks Based on the Behavior of Ants
Carlos III University of Madrid (Spain)
(06/04/12)

Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) researchers have developed SoSACO, an algorithm that accelerates the search for relationships among elements present in social networks. The researchers note that one of the main technical questions in the field of social networking involves locating the chain of reference that leads from one person to another. SoSACO solves this problem by accelerating the search for routes between two nodes that belong to a graph that represents a social network. SoSACO is based on the way ants move when they search for food. "The early results show that the application of this algorithm to real social networks obtains an optimal response in a very short time (tens of milliseconds)," says UC3M researcher Jessica Rivero. SoSACO enables the system to more easily find these routes, and without modifying the structure of the graph. "This advance allows us to solve many problems that we find in the real world, because the scenarios in which they occur can be modeled by a graph," the UC3M researchers say.

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