NewmanWattsin

NewmanWattsin is a term occasionally encountered in discussions of network science that may refer to a variant of small-world network models or, more simply, to the Newman–Watts model described in the literature. The formal designation in most sources is Newman–Watts model, named after Mark E. J. Newman and Duncan Watts, who introduced the approach in the late 1990s. The spelling "NewmanWattsin" is not widely used in scholarly references and is often regarded as a typographical variant or informal shorthand.

Overview and construction: The Newman–Watts model builds on the Watts–Strogatz framework. It starts with a regular lattice (for example, a ring where each node is connected to its k nearest neighbors) and adds a set of random long-range connections with a given probability or number of added edges. The resulting network retains a relatively high clustering coefficient while reducing average path length, characteristic of small-world networks. Unlike the Watts–Strogatz model, which rewires existing edges, the Newman–Watts variant adds new shortcuts without removing original links.

Applications and significance: The model has been used to study information diffusion, disease spread, synchronization phenomena, and robustness in social and biological networks. It serves as a baseline for comparing purely lattice structures with networks that exhibit small-world properties, and it helps explain why real-world networks can be highly clustered yet globally connected.

See also: Small-world network, Watts–Strogatz model, Newman–Watts model, network science.