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netdiffuseR (version 1.16.2)

struct_equiv: Structural Equivalence

Description

Computes structural equivalence between ego and alter in a network

Usage

struct_equiv(graph, v = 1, inf.replace = 0, ...)

Arguments

graph
Any class of accepted graph format (see netdiffuseR-graphs).
v
Numeric scalar. Cohesion constant (see details).
inf.replace
Logical scalar. Passed to sna::geodist.
...
Further arguments to be passed to sna::geodist.

Value

  • If graph is a static graph, a list with the following elements:
  • SENumeric Matrix of size $n\times n$ with Structural equivalence
  • dNumeric Matrix of size $n\times n$ Euclidean distances
  • gdisNumeric Matrix of size $n\times n$ Normalized geodesic distance
  • In the case of dynamic graph, is a list of size t in which each element contains a list as described before.

Details

Structure equivalence is computed as presented in Valente (1995), and Burt (1987), in particular

$$SE_{ij} = \frac{(dmax_i - d_{ji})^v}{\sum_{k\neq i}^n(dmax_i-d_{ki})^v}$$

with the summation over $k\neq i$, and $d_{ji}$, Eucledian distance in terms of geodesics, is defined as

$$d_{ji} = \left[(z_{ji} - z_{ij})^2 + \sum_k^n (z_{jk} - z_{ik})^2 + \sum_k^n (z_{ki} - z_{kj})^2\right]^\frac{1}{2}$$

with $z_{ij}$ as the geodesic (shortest path) from $i$ to $j$, and $dmax_i$ equal to largest Euclidean distance between $i$ and any other vertex in the network. All summations are made over $k\not\in {i,j}$

Here, the value of $v$ is interpreted as cohesion level. The higher its value, the higher will be the influence that the closests alters will have over ego (see Burt's paper in the reference).

References

Burt, R. S. (1987). "Social Contagion and Innovation: Cohesion versus Structural Equivalence". American Journal of Sociology, 92(6), 1287–1335. http://doi.org/10.1086/228667

Valente, T. W. (1995). "Network models of the diffusion of innovations" (2nd ed.). Cresskill N.J.: Hampton Press.

See Also

Other statistics: cumulative_adopt_count, dgr, exposure, hazard_rate, infection, moran, threshold