Real world networks, as physical systems, are large-scale assemblages of interacting entities—such as infrastructure components, biological units, or technological devices—whose connections and dynamics are instantiated in material space and time. They are typically represented as graphs in which nodes correspond to physical objects (e.g., routers, power substations, neurons, or transportation hubs) and edges represent actual physical or functional interactions (e.g., cables, transmission lines, synapses, or routes). Their structure often exhibits nontrivial properties such as heterogeneity, modularity, and small-world or scale-free characteristics, which critically influence robustness, failure propagation, transport efficiency, and collective dynamical behavior.
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