DAG

DAG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_acyclic_graph

In computer science and mathematics, a directed acyclic graph, also called a dag or DAG, is a directed graph with no directed cycles; that is, for any vertex v, there is no nonempty directed path that starts and ends on v. DAGs appear in models where it doesn't make sense for a vertex to have a path to itself; for example, if an edge u→v indicates that v is a part of u, such a path would indicate that u is a part of itself, which is impossible.