Patrick Doreian - Böcker

This book explores social mechanisms that drive network change and link them to computationally sound models of changing structure to detect patterns. This text identifies the social processes generating these networks and how networks have evolved.Reviews: "this book is easy to read and entertaining, and much can be learned from it. Even if you know just abouteverything about large-scale and temporal networks, the book is a worthwhile read; you will learn a lot about SNA literature, patents, the US Supreme Court, and European soccer." (Social Networks)"a clear and accessible textbook, balancing symbolic maths, code, and visual explanations. The authors’ enthusiasm for the subject matter makes it enjoyable to read" (JASSS)

This book provides an integrated treatment of blockmodeling, the most frequently used technique in social network analysis. It secures its mathematical foundations and then generalizes blockmodeling for the analysis of many types of network structures. Examples are used throughout the text and include small group structures, little league baseball teams, intra-organizational networks, inter-organizational networks, baboon grooming networks, marriage ties of noble families, trust networks, signed networks, Supreme Court decisions, journal citation networks, and alliance networks. Also provided is an integrated treatment of algebraic and graph theoretic concepts for network analysis and a broad introduction to cluster analysis. These formal ideas are the foundations for the authors' proposal for direct optimizational approaches to blockmodeling which yield blockmodels that best fit the data, a measure of fit that is integral to the establishment of blockmodels, and creates the potential for many generalizations and a deductive use of blockmodeling.

Provides an overview of the developments and advances in the field of network clustering and blockmodeling over the last 10 yearsThis book offers an integrated treatment of network clustering and blockmodeling, covering all of the newest approaches and methods that have been developed over the last decade. Presented in a comprehensive manner, it offers the foundations for understanding network structures and processes, and features a wide variety of new techniques addressing issues that occur during the partitioning of networks across multiple disciplines such as community detection, blockmodeling of valued networks, role assignment, and stochastic blockmodeling.Written by a team of international experts in the field, Advances in Network Clustering and Blockmodeling offers a plethora of diverse perspectives covering topics such as: bibliometric analyses of the network clustering literature; clustering approaches to networks; label propagation for clustering; and treating missing network data before partitioning. It also examines the partitioning of signed networks, multimode networks, and linked networks. A chapter on structured networks and coarsegrained descriptions is presented, along with another on scientific coauthorship networks. The book finishes with a section covering conclusions and directions for future work. In addition, the editors provide numerous tables, figures, case studies, examples, datasets, and more. Offers a clear and insightful look at the state of the art in network clustering and blockmodelingProvides an excellent mix of mathematical rigor and practical application in a comprehensive mannerPresents a suite of new methods, procedures, algorithms for partitioning networks, as well as new techniques for visualizing matrix arraysFeatures numerous examples throughout, enabling readers to gain a better understanding of research methods and to conduct their own research effectivelyWritten by leading contributors in the field of spatial networks analysisAdvances in Network Clustering and Blockmodeling is an ideal book for graduate and undergraduate students taking courses on network analysis or working with networks using real data. It will also benefit researchers and practitioners interested in network analysis.

This book answers the question of whether we can apply evolutionary theories to our understanding of the development of social structures.Social networks have increasingly become the focus of many social scientists as a way of analyzing these social structures. While many powerful network analytic tools have been developed and applied to a wide range of empirical phenomena, understanding the evolution of social organization still requires theories and analyses of social network evolutionary processes. Researchers from a variety of disciplines have combined their efforts in what is an indication of some very promising future research and the work represented in this volume provides a basis for a sustained analysis of the evolution of social life.

Presently the world is undergoing tremendous social, cultural and economic transformation. For sociologists, the challenge is arriving at a sound mapping of this tumultuous world stage.In this book, the contributing authors consider solidarity as a cognitive problem of basic science. They examine how solidarity is produced and reproduced, how it is related to social processes, and how such processes can be formalized and create conditions for productively studying their properties. Mathematical models and representations are presented by the authors as a coherent set of tools for understanding many social phenomena.

This book answers the question of whether we can apply evolutionary theories to our understanding of the development of social structures.Social networks have increasingly become the focus of many social scientists as a way of analyzing these social structures. While many powerful network analytic tools have been developed and applied to a wide range of empirical phenomena, understanding the evolution of social organization still requires theories and analyses of social network evolutionary processes. Researchers from a variety of disciplines have combined their efforts in what is an indication of some very promising future research and the work represented in this volume provides a basis for a sustained analysis of the evolution of social life.