The minimum spanning flow in a network and its self‐organization principle

Abstract

In the research work on blocking flow, the concept of minimum flow of a two‐terminal network was introduced. In this paper, a kind of special blocking flow – the concept of minimum spanning flow in the network is introduced and its construction method studied. Here, we show that it is easy to determine whether there is a minimum spanning flow in a network in polynomial time, but it is hard to determine whether there is a non‐circuit minimum spanning flow in one step. Fortunately, the latter problem can be solved in two steps, and its self‐organizing principle is put forward. The feasibility of the algorithm developed on this principle was proved by about 4,500 examples. The significance of this research work is pointed at last.

Citation

Ning, X. (2004), "The minimum spanning flow in a network and its self‐organization principle", Kybernetes, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 331-338. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920410514319