Setting up
The data we’re going to use here is included in the
{migraph}
package. This dataset is multiplex, meaning that
it contains several different types of ties: friendship, social and task
interactions.
# Let's call and load the 'ison_algebra' dataset
data("ison_algebra", package = "migraph")
# If you want to learn more about the 'ison_algebra' dataset, use the following function (below)
?migraph::ison_algebra
data("ison_algebra", package = "migraph")
Note that you do not need to load the package using
library()
to get the data. Now you know how to create new
matrices in R, load .csv files, saved .RData files, and data from
packages!
Separating multiplex networks
As a multiplex network, there are actually three different types of
ties in this network. We can extract them and investigate them
separately using to_uniplex()
:
# Let's focus on the 'friends' attribute
friends <- to_uniplex(ison_algebra, "friends")
gfriend <- autographr(friends) + ggtitle("Friendship")
# Let's focus on the 'social' attribute
social <- to_uniplex(ison_algebra, "social")
gsocial <- autographr(social) + ggtitle("Social")
# Let's focus on the 'tasks' attribute
tasks <- to_uniplex(ison_algebra, "tasks")
gtask <- autographr(tasks) + ggtitle("Task")
# Now, let's compare the each attribute's graph, side-by-side by using "+"
# Note: using "/" after each graph will order them vertically; however, it might not be best way
gfriend + gsocial + gtask
# Your code should look like this:
friends <- to_uniplex(ison_algebra, "friends")
gfriend <- autographr(friends) + ggtitle("Friendship")
social <- to_uniplex(ison_algebra, "social")
gsocial <- autographr(social) + ggtitle("Social")
tasks <- to_uniplex(ison_algebra, "tasks")
gtask <- autographr(tasks) + ggtitle("Task")
gfriend + gsocial + gtask
Note also that these are weighted networks. autographr()
automatically registers these different weights and plots them.
Structural Holes and Constraint
Where might innovation be most likely to occur in these networks?
Let’s take a look at which actors are least constrained by their
position in the task network to begin with.
{migraph}
makes this easy enough with the
node_constraint()
function.
node_constraint(____)
# Don't forget we want to look at which actors are least constrained by their position
# in the 'tasks' network
node_constraint(tasks)
We see that this function returns a vector of constraint scores that can range between 0 and 1. Let’s size the nodes according to this score, and identify the node with the minimum constraint score.
tasks <- tasks %>% mutate(low_constraint = node_is_min(node_constraint(____)))
# Don't forget, we are still looking at the 'tasks' network
tasks <- tasks %>% mutate(low_constraint = node_is_min(node_constraint(tasks)))
# Now, let's graph the network
# Note 1: we are looking at the 'tasks' network
# Note 2: we are interested in the actors 'least constrained' by their position
autographr(____, node_color = "____")
autographr(tasks, node_color = "low_constraint")
# Your code should look like this:
tasks <- tasks %>% mutate(low_constraint = node_is_min(node_constraint(tasks)))
autographr(tasks, node_color = "low_constraint")
Why minimum? And what can we learn from this plot about where innovation might occur within this network?
Structural Equivalence
Now we are going to identify and interpret the roles or relations between a set of structurally equivalent positions. We’re going to identify structurally equivalent positions across all the data that we have, including ‘task’, ‘social’, and ‘friend’ ties.
Finding structurally equivalent classes
In {migraph}
, finding how the nodes of a network can be
partitioned into structurally equivalent classes is as easy as:
node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra)
ison_algebra %>%
mutate(se = node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra)) %>%
autographr(node_color = "se")
But actually, a lot is going on behind the scenes here that we can unpack.
Step one: starting with a census
All equivalence classes are based on nodes’ similarity across some
profile of motifs. In {migraph}
, we call these motif
censuses. Any kind of census can be used, and
{migraph}
includes a few options, but
node_structural_equivalence()
is based off of the census of
all the nodes’ ties, both outgoing and incoming ties, to reveal their
relationships to tie partners.
# Let's use the node_tie_census() function
# The function accepts an object such as a dataset
# Hint: Which dataset are we using in this tutorial?
node_tie_census(____)
node_tie_census(ison_algebra)
# Now, let's get the dimensions of an object via the dim() function
dim(node_tie_census(ison_algebra))
# Your code should look like this:
node_tie_census(ison_algebra)
dim(node_tie_census(ison_algebra))
We can see that the result is a matrix of 16 rows and 96 columns, because we want to catalogue or take a census of all the different incoming/outgoing partners our 16 nodes might have across these three networks. Note also that the result is a weighted matrix; what would you do if you wanted it to be binary?
# THIS IS A SUGGESTION
# PERHAPS WE CAN MAKE THIS ANOTHER EXERCISE OR MCQ
Note that node_tie_census()
does not need to be passed
to node_structural_equivalence()
— this is done
automatically — but the more generic node_equivalence()
can
be used with whichever tie census is desired. Feel free to explore using
some of the other censuses available in {migraph}
, though
some common ones are already used in the other equivalence convenience
functions, node_regular_equivalence()
and
node_automorphic_equivalence()
.
Step two: growing a tree of similarity
The next part is all done internally, though there are several important parameters that can be set to obtain different results.
There are two main parameters that can be set here. First, users can
set the type of distance measure used. This is passed on to
stats::dist()
, so that help page should be consulted for
more details. By default "euclidean"
is used.
Second, we can also set the type of clustering algorithm employed. By
default, {migraph}
’s equivalence functions use hierarchical
clustering, "hier"
, but for compatibility and enthusiasts,
we also offer "concor"
, which implements a CONCOR
(CONvergence of CORrelations) algorithm.
We can see the difference from varying the clustering algorithm
and/or distance by plotting the dendrograms (hidden) in the output from
node_structural_equivalence()
:
plot(node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, cluster = "hier", distance = "euclidean"))
plot(node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, cluster = "hier", distance = "manhattan"))
plot(node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, cluster = "concor"))
So plotting a membership
vector from
{migraph}
returns a dendrogram with the names of the nodes
on the y-axis and the distance between them on the
x-axis. Using the census as material, the distances between the
nodes is used to create a dendrogram of (dis)similarity among the nodes.
Basically, as we move to the right, we’re allowing for more and more
dissimilarity among those we cluster together. A fork or branching point
indicates the level of dissimilarity at which those two or more nodes
would be said to be equivalent. Where two nodes’ branches join/fork is
the distance between them, so more similar nodes’ branches fork closer
to the tree’s canopy, and less similar (groups of) nodes don’t join
until basically they form a trunk.
Note that with the results using the hierarchical clustering algorithm, the distance directly affects the structure of the tree (and the results).
The CONCOR dendrogram is a bit different though. Instead it represents how converging correlations repeatedly bifurcate the nodes into one of two partitions. As such the ‘distance’ is really just the (inverse) number of steps of bifurcations until nodes belong to the same class.
Step three: identifying the number of clusters
Another bit of information represented in the dendrogram is where the tree should be cut (the dashed red line) and how the nodes are assigned to the branches (clusters) present at that cut-point.
But where does this red line come from? Or, more technically, how do we identify the number of clusters into which to assign nodes?
{migraph}
includes several different ways of
establishing k
, or the number of clusters. Remember, the
further to the right the red line is (the lower on the tree the cut
point is) the more dissimilar we’re allowing nodes in the same cluster
to be. We could set this ourselves by just passing k
an
integer.
# Let's use the node_structural_equivalence() function and set 'k' to 2
node_structural_equivalence(____, k = ____)
# Don't forget to plot the dendrogram using the plot() function
node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, k = 2)
plot(node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, k = 2))
But we’re really just guessing. Maybe 2 is not the best
k
? To establish that, we need to iterate through a number
of potential k
, and consider their fitness by some metric.
There are a couple of options here.
One is to consider, for each k
, how correlated this
partition is with the observed network. When there is one cluster for
each vertex in the network, cell values will be identical to the
observed correlation matrix, and when there is one cluster for the whole
network, the values will all be equal to the average correlation across
the observed matrix. So the correlations in each by-cluster matrix are
correlated with the observed correlation matrix to see how well each
by-cluster matrix fits the data.
Of course, the perfect partition would then be where all nodes are in
their own cluster, which is hardly ‘clustering’ at all. Also, increasing
k
will always improve the correlation. But if one were to
plot these correlations as a line graph, then we might expect there to
be a relatively rapid increase in correlation as we move from, for
example, 3 clusters to 4 clusters, but a relatively small increase from,
for example, 13 clusters to 14 clusters. By identifying the inflection
point in this line graph, {migraph}
selects a number of
clusters that represents a trade-off between fit and parsimony. This is
the k = "elbow"
method.
The other option is to evaluate a candidate for k
based
not on correlation but on a metric of how similar each node in a cluster
is to others in its cluster and how dissimilar each node is to
those in a neighbouring cluster. When averaged over all nodes and all
clusters, this provides a ‘silhouette coefficient’ for a candidate of
k
. Choosing the number of clusters that maximizes this
coefficient, which is what k = "silhouette"
does, can
return a somewhat different result to the elbow method. See what we have
here, with all other arguments held the same:
# Let's recall the node_structural_equivalence() function we used in the previous example
plot(node_structural_equivalence(____, k = "____"))
# Now, instead of looking at 2 clusters, let's look at 'elbow'
plot(node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, k = "elbow"))
# Now, let's look at 'silhouette'
plot(node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, k = "____"))
plot(node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, k = "elbow"))
plot(node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, k = "silhouette"))
Ok, so it looks like the elbow method returns k == 3
as
a good trade-off between fit and parsimony. The silhouette method, by
contrast, sees k == 4
as maximising cluster similarity and
dissimilarity. Either is probably fine here, and there is much debate
around how to select the number of clusters anyway, but the silhouette
method seems to do a better job of identifying how unique the 16th node
is. The silhouette method is also the default in
{migraph}
.
Note that there is a somewhat hidden parameter here,
range
. Since testing across all possible numbers of
clusters can get computationally expensive (not to mention
uninterpretable) for large networks, {migraph}
only
considers up to 8 clusters by default. This however can be modified to
be higher or lower, e.g. range = 16
.
Finally, one last option is k = "strict"
, which only
assigns nodes to the same partition if there is a distance of zero
between them. This is quick and rigorous solution, however oftentimes
this misses the point in finding clusters of nodes that, despite some
variation, can be considered as similar on some dimension.
# Again, let's use the same function as those used above and change 'k'
plot(node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, k = "____"))
plot(node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra, k = "strict"))
Here for example, no two nodes have precisely the same tie-profile,
otherwise their branches would join/fork at a distance of 0. As such,
k = "strict"
partitions the network into 16 clusters. Where
networks have a number of nodes with strictly the same profiles, such a
k-selection method might be helpful to recognise those in exactly the
same structural position, but here it essentially just reports nodes’
identity.
Blockmodelling
Summarising profiles
Ok, so now we have a result from establishing nodes’ membership in structurally equivalent classes. We can graph this of course, as above:
str_clu <- node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra)
ison_algebra %>%
mutate(se = str_clu) %>%
autographr(node_color = "se")
While this plot enters the class information in to our earlier graph, it doesn’t always help us understand how the classes vary.
One option that can be useful for characterising what the profile of
ties (partners) is for each position/equivalence class is to use
summary()
. Used on a node_motif
object, it
also expects some membership vector, and then it summarises the census
by the partition assignment. By default it takes the average of ties
(values), but this can be tweaked by assigning some other summary
statistic as FUN =
.
#Let's bring the node_tie_census() function from Step 1
node_tie_census(ison_algebra)
# Now, let's put it inside the summary() function
# For a description of summary(), use ?summary()
summary(node_tie_census(ison_algebra))
# Great, but we are interested in looking at the structural membership of clusters
# Let's call the object we created a few steps ago: str_clu
summary(node_tie_census(ison_algebra),
membership = ____)
summary(node_tie_census(ison_algebra),
membership = str_clu)
Since this node census produces 96 columns, \(16 \text{nodes} * 2 \text{directions} * 3 \text{edge types}\), it takes a bit to look through what varies between the different classes as ‘blocked’.
Another way to do this is to plot the blockmodel as a whole. Passing
the plot()
function an adjacency/incidence matrix along
with a membership vector allows the matrix to be sorted and framed
(without the membership vector, just the adjacency/incidence matrix is
plotted):
# Let's plot the blockmodel using the plot() function we used for the dendrograms
# Instead of node_tie_census() let's us as_matrix()
plot(as_matrix(____),
membership = ____)
plot(as_matrix(ison_algebra),
membership = str_clu)
So, with this information, we might characterise them like so:
- The first group work together only in reciprocal pairs on tasks, preferring to approach the nerd but also those of the other two roles. While they hang out with each other socially quite a bit, friendship from groups 2 and 3 are preferred.
- The second group also work together only in reciprocal pairs, preferring to work collaboratively with group 1 or also the nerd. They also tend to count those from group 1 as friends, and hang out with everyone else but themselves.
- The third group will work with either some in group 1 and 3, or 2, but again prefer the nerd for task advice. They are pretty good friends with each other though, and pretty happy to socialise with everyone.
- The nerd is a loner, no friends, but everyone hangs out with them for task advice.
Reduced graph
Lastly, we can consider how classes of nodes relate to one another in a blockmodel. Let’s use the 4-cluster solution on the valued network (though binary is possible too) to create a reduced graph. A reduced graph is a transformation of a network such that the nodes are no longer the individual nodes but the groups of one or more nodes as a class, and the ties between these blocked nodes can represent the sum or average tie between these classes. Of course, this means that there can be self-ties or loops, because even if the original network was simple (not complex), any within-class ties will end up becoming loops and thus the network will be complex.
str_clu <- node_structural_equivalence(ison_algebra)
(bm <- to_blocks(ison_algebra, str_clu))
bm <- bm %>% as_tidygraph %>% mutate(name = c("Freaks", "Squares", "Nerds", "Geek"))
autographr(bm)
Unit Test
- Plot labelled, reduced graph of STRUCTURALLY equivalent classes on
the
mpn_elite_usa_advice
network and interpret
- Plot labelled, reduced graph of REGULARLY equivalent classes on the
mpn_elite_usa_advice
network and interpret
- Plot labelled, reduced graph of AUTOMORPHICALLY equivalent classes
on the
mpn_elite_usa_advice
network only and interpret