Statistical Analysis of Networks

 

CS&SS/STAT/SOC 567


 

Syllabus

The table below lists topics and readings. It will be updated as the course goes along to keep track of where we are at.

WF stands for “Social Network Analysis: Theory and Methods”   by Stanley Wasserman, Katherine Faust, with Dawn Iacobucci, 1995.

H stands for “Introduction to Social Network Methods” by Robert A. Hanneman and Riddle, Department of Sociology, UC-Riverside, 2005.

Date

Topic

Reading

Homework Due

Tuesday
April 1

Motivation
Overview of the use of social networks to model social structure important for understanding the spread of HIV.

Local Acts, Global Consequences: Networks and the Spread of HIV

 

Thursday
April 3

Introduction
Social science is the study of relationships and relationships can be represented via social networks

Borgatti: Introduction to Social Networks
Radcliffe-Brown(1940): On Social Structure

 

Tuesday
April 8

Graph Theory and Notation
Nodes, ties (directed/undirected), degree, connectedness, cycles, centrality, betweenness, etc

W&F Chapter 3
H&R Chapter 3
Borgatti (1994) (suggested)

 

Thursday
April 10

Data structures for representing graphs
Sociomatrix, edge list, R network data types, datasets, (bipartite, affiliation)

W&F Chapter 4
H&R Chapter 4

Homework 1
Find paper on networks, read and summarize

Tuesday
April 15

Introduction to R

All about R notes

 

Thursday
April 17

Introduction to Networks in R
sna and network packages
reading and manipulating data, plotting, computing descriptive statistics

Sunbelt handout

Homework 2
Doing network descriptives by hand

Tuesday
April 22

Stochastic Models of Networks (estimation and inference)
Model 1: Reney-Erdos: p(tie) is constant, independent: joint distribution model, logistic model
Model 2: 2 different types of nodes with different probabilities of ties
Model 3: Vertex covariates model (logistic regression)

W&F Chapter 13.1-13.5
Snijders (2003)

 

Thursday
April 24

Modeling Cohesive Subgroups
arbitrary mixing groups known a priori
likelihood inference

W&F Chapter 7
H&R Chapter 7

Homework 3
Use R (sna, network) to read data, descriptives, plots, centrality, etc.

Tuesday
April 29

Modeling Cohesive Subgroups continued
multiple groups unknown (latent class model)
Model 2: 2 different types of nodes with different probabilities of ties
Inference for models

Nowicki, K. & Snijders(2001). Estimation and prediction for stochastic block models. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 96, 1077-1087

 

Thursday
May 1

Models for Fundamental Social Forces
1. Centrality (degree centrality, eigenvalue centrality)
2. Sociality (undirected)
3. Prestige (directed)
4. Mutuality (directed)

W&F Chapter 5
H&R Chapter 6

Homework 4
Example Reney-Erdos, vertex attributes, mixing

Tuesday
May 6
&
Thursday
May 8

Modeling Cohesive Groups in Social Space
Network position (latent social space, probability of a tie proportional to distance)
1-dimensional continuous observed
2-dimensional continuous observed
2-dimensional continuous unobserved
latent space cluster models

Hoff, Raftery, & Handcock (2001)




Homework 5
a) Latent class model
b) centrality model

Tuesday
May 13
&
Thursday
May 15

Introduction to general ERGM framework
general form
conditional independence models: Markov models, Hammersley-Clifford
1. Simulation of network via MCMC
2. Likelihood-based inference
3. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference

Hunter (2003)





Homework 6
Latent space models

Tuesday
May 20

Structure of triads: Triad Census (Davis-Holland-Leinhardt)
transitivity
balance model (Heider)
Simmel model

W&F Chapter 14

 

Thursday
May 22

Mores sophisticated structural forms
cycles, triangles, gwsp, dsp, esp, stars

Snijders et al (2006)

Homework 7
ERGM theory and MCMC, simulation of graphs

Tuesday
May 27

Goodness of fit of ERGMs

Hunter, Goodreau, & Handcock (2006)

 

Thursday
May 29

Inference for partially observed networks

Handcock and Gile (2007), Gile and Handcock (2008)

 

Tuesday
June 3
&
Thursday
June 5

Sampling of networks (design)
ego-centered, link tracing

Gile and Handcock (2008); Frank (2004) Chapter 4



Homework 8
Triad census
Heider vs. Simmel
More sophisticated models

Extra
June

Network Dynamics
Summary

 

Homework 9
Goodness of fit sampling examples


Use the menu on the top-left of this page to find out more about the course.


About this web site


UW - CSSS

Contact: Webmaster or CSSS