Before revision:  We provide empirical evidence that at least some important examples of widely different naturally occurring and engineered networks , specifically, the prevalence of the small world network topology, axonal branching of pyramidal neurons in the visual cortex, and the internet router network, are capable of approaching a state of optimal dynamical efficiency, a concept that is derived from the theory. The framework we develop has a wide range of (non-biological) engineering and neurophysiological applications .
After revision:  We provide empirical evidence that at least some important examples of widely different naturally occurring and engineered networks follow these theoretical principles .