paminco.net

Network¶

In paminco, a network (or graph) essentially wraps the network elements Edges, Nodes, NetworkCost and DemandFunction as illustrated in image below:

Therefore, the network does not hold much data itself but rather passes requests to the subcompontent that holds the data. For example, if an algorithm sends a request to the network about the cost of a flow \(\mathbf{x}\): network.C(x), the network passes this request to its cost subcomponent and returns (a modified) value network.cost(x).sum(). The main network elements can be accessed via network.shared, network.nodes, network.edges, network.cost and network.demand.

We developed this architecture to achieve modularization and separate of concerns while allowing for complex cost and demand functions. Note that all network components need access to certain network attributes such as the number of vertices and links \(n\) and \(m\), as well as the the mappings of node labels to internal node indices that specify the behaviour of graph representations and demand vectors. Therefore all network elements have a reference to the Shared network object that in turn wraps nodes and edges.