Visualizing and searching relationships between academic papers using Neo4j Graph database

Abstract

A chasm between the obsolete Relational database management system and new generation NoSQL has led to the booming of graph database systems, which represent data as a set of nodes and relationships. But due to popularity of social networking sites s like Facebook and Twitter, where data is described by a set of nodes with relationships between them, these Graph Database systems are not in oblivion now and are reviving again with new developments. Unique visualization’s and algorithms enabled by these systems are instigating more researchers towards these systems. This thesis presents software package that banks on existing Neo4j a graph database tools to provide an easily modified structure for searching and visualizing academic papers and the relationships between them. Eventually, the thesis presents a short discussion of possible future expansions of software, and shows that while representing academic papers in the graph database format shows excellent promise as a concept, much work remains in order to realize that promise.