www.astesj.com 92 The Visualization of Cattle Movement Data in The State of Pará in 2016 Through Networks of Animal Transit Graphs and Guides Samuel Carvalho de Aragão 1,* , Agnaldo Reis Pontes 1 , Luis Manuel Borges Gouveia 2 , Samuel Franco Lopes 3 , Pier Kenji Rauschkolb Katsuda 4 , Anirene Galvão Tavares Pereira 4 , Márcio Teixeira Oliveira 5 , Jefferson Pinto de Oliveira 6 , Rita do Socorro Brito Coroa 6 , Gilson Ferreira Araújo 6 , Marcio Merêncio Panza de Siqueira 6 1 Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Pará – IFPA, 68627-100, Brazil. 2 Fernando Pessoa University – UFP, 04249-004, Portugal. 3 Faculty of Amazônia – UNAMA – 68010-200, Brazil. 4 São Paulo State University (UNESP)- FMVA – 16050-680. Brazil. 5 Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Mato Grosso do Sul – IFMS, 79641-162. Brazil. 6 Pará State Agricultural Defense Agency – ADEPARÁ, 66613-115, Brazil. A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Article history: Received: 16 August, 2018 Accepted: 14 September, 2018 Online: 18 September, 2018 Animal movement is inherent in the marketing between the rural productive units, establishing space-time connections between them. The relational nature of such information is kept in the Animal Transit Guides (GTA), a mandatory issuance in Brazil. When evaluating such set of information, this work aimed at characterizing the bovine movement network in the state of Pará through the application of concepts from Social Network and Network Theory analysis. Where the nodes and edges that structure the network are respectively the rural properties and the number of cattle moved between them. The results obtained characterize the bovine movement in the state, which show distinct patterns such as the movement of a great number of animals rambling and a clear seasonality due to commercialization purposes. The evaluation of the network components’ modularity also shows the subdivision of the state in four commercial clusters, where the central measures of its components define municipalities of economic and epidemiological interest. The results described herein help in the support of health surveillance and control measures, as well as the adoption of economic strategies and policies. Keywords: Network Theory SNA, Veterinary Epidemiology Commercial Agglomerates 1. Introduction Social Network Analysis (SNA) and the Theory of Networks are methodological concepts that describe the interactions between individuals in a group, as well as the collective behavior of a group [1]. Although widely adopted in the social sciences, psychology, and anthropology, SNA and the Theory of Networks have only recently been added to the analytical arsenal used to evaluate the nature and extent of relationships in the rural productive chain [2]. These methodologies allow researchers to evaluate the structure of the flow of animals between different productive units, and the impact that this has on the spread of a wide range of infectious agents [3–6]. SNA and the Theory of Networks also allow the extraction of characteristics of particular economic interest to the livestock industry, such as commercial patterns and commercial agglomerations [7–9]. The study of networks initially describes how the entities that teh networks are composed of are connected to each other, where the unit of interest is called the node and the connections between these are called edges [10]. Unlike in the human sciences, where the unit is the individual, in veterinary medicine the focus is on the collective unit. Municipalities and rural properties are represented by nodes and the number of animals moved between these are represented by the edges [11-12]. From an economic point of view, animal movement between productive units represents an ASTESJ ISSN: 2415-6698 * Samuel Carvalho de Aragão, Email: samuel.aragao@ifpa.edu.br Advances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal Vol. 3, No. 6, 92-96 (2018) www.astesj.com Special Issue on Recent Advances in Engineering Systems https://dx.doi.org/10.25046/aj030512