Patent ID: 7672919

Claim:
A method for determining a connectivity-metric for a graph representative of a network of interest, the method comprising: Accessing a graph that represents a network of interest, the graph comprising a plurality of nodes representing points in the network of interest and a plurality of edges corresponding to the plurality of nodes; generating a plurality of bit-vectors respectively corresponding to at least one of the plurality of nodes or the plurality of edges, wherein individual bits in the bit vectors respectively provide a logical indication of connectedness to each other node or edge; determining the connectivity-metric by applying, for each bit-vector, a bit-wise OR with each other bit-vector of the plurality of bit-vectors that has a positive indication of connectedness to the first bit-vector to create a plurality of updated bit-vectors; iteratively applying, for each updated bit-vector, the bit-wise OR with each other updated bit-vector of the plurality of updated bit-vectors until there is no additional change in the plurality of updated bit vectors; determining the connectivity metric by using the updated bit vectors; wherein the accessing, generating, and determining steps are performed on at least one particular machine, said at least one particular machine comprising at least one physical computing device.