Lab 3: Exponential Random Graph Modeling

An Introduction in R

Alexa H.

2017-11-13

Introduction

In this lab, we will be testing a number of hypotheses about a network’s structure using exponential random graph modeling (ERGM) techniques using the statnet package in R.1 Mark S. Handcock, David R. Hunter, Carter T. Butts, Steven M. Goodreau, and Martina Morris (2003). statnet: Software tools for the Statistical Modeling of Network Data. statnetproject.org; see also ?? statnet. For more information about ERGMs, see generally D. Lusher, J. Koskinen, & G. Robins (2012) Exponential Random Graph Models for Social Networks. statnet provides a comprehensive framework for ERGM-based network modeling, including tools for model estimation, model evaluation, model-based network simulation, and network visualization. This functionality is powered by a central Markov chain Monte Carlo Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MCMCMLE) algorithm.2 For a great introduction to MCMC grounded in graph theory, see Jeremy Kun, Markov Chain Monte Carlo Without All the Bullshit.

statnet resources:

Developer website

User guide

Tutorial

Data

We will analyze the communication behaviors within a team of seventeen members who were involved in designing military installations.

Hypotheses

We will test various hypotheses based on the Theory of Transactive Memory.3 See Monge & Contractor (2003) Theories of Communication Networks, 198—203.

Hypothesis 1: Individuals are less likely to retrieve information from those who retrieve information from them.

Hypothesis 2a: Information retrieval tends to be transitive. That is, if individual i retrieves information from individual k, and individual k retrieves information from individual j, then individual i is more likely to retrieve information from individual j.

Hypothesis 2b: Transitivity increases at a sub-linear rate as a function of the number of ties.

Hypothesis 3a: Individuals tend to retrieve information from other members with high expertise.

Hypothesis 3b: Individuals with low expertise tend to retrieve information from many others.

Hypothesis 4: Individuals tend to retrieve information from members to whom they allocate information.

Part I. Building & Visualizing the Networks (30 pts)

The analysis will use three files: the CRIeq.txt as the network file, EXeq_cons.txt as the attribute file, and CAIeq.txt as the co-variate network file. To begin, we must convert the data files into matrices, transform those matrices into networks, and attach the attribute file to our base network.

Understanding the Base Network

Let’s begin by looking at the summary of our base network.

Analysis

In your own words, explain what this network respresents and its relationship to our attribute information and the other network.

This is a list of the 41 edges present in the information retrieval network; the two columns are each end of the the edge. For example, in row 1, node 15 goes to node 3 to retrieve information on the environment.

Visualization

Before we conduct further analysis, let’s visualize our base network. Similar to our approach in Lab 2, we will begin by establishing set coordinates for our nodes in order to simplify visual comparisons.

Base Graph Structure

Base Graph Structure

Next we can visualize our base network.

Base Network: Retrieval of Environmental Quality

Base Network: Retrieval of Environmental Quality

Next, we will size the nodes by the their expertise value.

Base Network: Retrieval of Environmental Quality, Nodes Sized by Expertise Score

Base Network: Retrieval of Environmental Quality, Nodes Sized by Expertise Score

Let’s compare this visualization to sizing by in-degree centrality.

Base Network: Nodes by Indegree Centrality

Base Network: Nodes by Indegree Centrality

Analysis

Consider hypothesis 3a from Part I. Do these visualizations prove or disprove the hypothesis? In your own words, interpret the graphs and explain how they support or reject the hypothesis.

These two graphs lend overall support for hypothesis 3a. In general, they support the hypothesis in that most nodes with perceived high expertise also have high degree centrality. I say lend support because node 8 has high perceived expertise, but low degree centrality.

Understanding the Covariate Network

Let’s explore the summary statistics of our co-variate network.

## Network attributes:
##   vertices = 17
##   directed = TRUE
##   hyper = FALSE
##   loops = FALSE
##   multiple = FALSE
##   bipartite = FALSE
##  total edges = 23 
##    missing edges = 0 
##    non-missing edges = 23 
##  density = 0.08455882 
## 
## Vertex attributes:
##   vertex.names:
##    character valued attribute
##    17 valid vertex names
## 
## No edge attributes
## 
## Network edgelist matrix:
##       [,1] [,2]
##  [1,]    7    2
##  [2,]    6    4
##  [3,]    7    4
##  [4,]    9    4
##  [5,]   14    4
##  [6,]    6    5
##  [7,]   17    5
##  [8,]    2    6
##  [9,]   14    6
## [10,]    7    8
## [11,]    2    9
## [12,]    4    9
## [13,]    5    9
## [14,]    6    9
## [15,]   14    9
## [16,]   17    9
## [17,]    4   10
## [18,]    7   11
## [19,]    4   13
## [20,]    5   16
## [21,]    6   16
## [22,]    4   17
## [23,]    5   17

Analysis

In your own words, explain what this network respresents and its relationship to the other network and the attribute information.

This matrix represents the allocation of information. Given the other network, it stands to reason that allocation would flow from nodes with low expertise rings to those with high expertise ratings as the nodes with high expertise will know how to process the information.

Visualization

We will repeat the visualization process for our co-variate network. Observe the location and distribution of edges in the following visualization.

Covariate Network: Allocation of Environmental Quality

Covariate Network: Allocation of Environmental Quality

Next, we will size the nodes by their expertise scores.

Base Network: Allocation of Environmental Quality, Nodes Sized by Expertise Score

Base Network: Allocation of Environmental Quality, Nodes Sized by Expertise Score

Allocation

Allocation

Analysis

Consider hypothesis 4 from Part I. Do the visualizations of the retrieval and allocation networks sized by expertise support or disprove the hypothesis based on visual inspection? In your own words, interpret the graphs and explain how they support or reject the hypothesis.

The two graphs both support hypothesis 4, but to a lesser extent than hypothesis 3a. There is some allocation going to nodes with low expertise, though, the majority is as hypothesized.

Part II: Constructing & Analyzing the ERGM Model (70 pts)

Next, we’re going to construct an Exponential Random Graph Model. Note that model construction is integral to this process; ERGM is not a single method of analysis, but a type of modelling that requires a theoretical grounding specific to the network and the hypotheses posed by the researcher. While the base ERGM simulation is set to take up to twenty iterations of simulations to fit the model by estimating parameters, it will stop at fewer if the generated networks converge on estimates of our coefficient values or paramters. ERGMs are used to predict ties as a function of individual covariates (i.e. attribute data, like “EX” in our example) or network structure.

We will start with a very basic model, looking only at the probability of edge formation, otherwise known as density, to demonstrate how co-efficients can be translated into odds ratios.4 The term for tie density (edges) is often used similarly to an intercept term in a linear regression or other linear model such as R’s glm. Keep in mind that the base network is about information retrieval. Our model will primarily allow us to ask what the probability is that an information retrieval relationship will form between two nodes.

model0 <- ergm(CRIeq ~ edges)
## Evaluating log-likelihood at the estimate.
summary(model0)
## 
## ==========================
## Summary of model fit
## ==========================
## 
## Formula:   CRIeq ~ edges
## 
## Iterations:  5 out of 20 
## 
## Monte Carlo MLE Results:
##       Estimate Std. Error MCMC % p-value    
## edges  -1.7288     0.1695      0  <1e-04 ***
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
## 
##      Null Deviance: 377.1  on 272  degrees of freedom
##  Residual Deviance: 230.6  on 271  degrees of freedom
##  
## AIC: 232.6    BIC: 236.3    (Smaller is better.)

What do coefficients mean? Coefficients are the change in the (log-odds) likelihood of a tie for a unit change in a predictor. In our basic model above, our only predictor is information on the number of edges in the network. We can see that the coefficient estimate is negative, suggesting that a tie is more likely not to form than form (i.e. density is less than .5.) To get a better sense of how less likely it is for a tie to form, we can translate our log-odds into a probability.

To translate our estimated coefficient for the edges parameter into a probability, we can take the inverse-logit. We are thereby finding the probability that a tie will form in the network, looking only at the number of ties in the base network to build our model. We can see below that this probability is equal to our network density.

plogis(coef(model0)[[1]])
## [1] 0.1507353
network.density(CRIeq)
## [1] 0.1507353

Conceptually, this should be fairly easy to follow: if all we know about a network is the number of ties we have and we’re attempting to predict the probability that an edge will exist solely based on that information, then the probability of an edge existing at any point in the network equals the density of the network as a whole.5 As we move on from this toy model, keep in mind that the estimate for our edges parameter will change as we add additional predictors or network statistics as additional terms will partially explain tie formation.

Base Network ERGM

As we build a network, we can evaluate whether individual network statistics or node attributes prove our hypotheses and whether they do so in a way that is significantly different from random chance. Later, we will evaluate whether the model does a good job of explaining our observed network.

model1 <- ergm(CRIeq ~ edges      # Set the base term based on density/edge formation. 
               + mutual           # H1
               + transitive       # H2a: Transitive triads ( type 120D, 030T, 120U, or 300) # What if the tie is part of a transitive triad?
               + nodeicov("EX")   # H3a
               + nodeocov("EX")   # H3b
               + edgecov(CAIeq)   # H4
) 
## Starting maximum likelihood estimation via MCMLE:
## Iteration 1 of at most 20:
## Optimizing with step length 1.
## The log-likelihood improved by 0.2307.
## Step length converged once. Increasing MCMC sample size.
## Iteration 2 of at most 20:
## Optimizing with step length 1.
## The log-likelihood improved by 0.00728.
## Step length converged twice. Stopping.
## Evaluating log-likelihood at the estimate. Using 20 bridges: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 .
## This model was fit using MCMC.  To examine model diagnostics and check for degeneracy, use the mcmc.diagnostics() function.
summary(model1)
## 
## ==========================
## Summary of model fit
## ==========================
## 
## Formula:   CRIeq ~ edges + mutual + transitive + nodeicov("EX") + nodeocov("EX") + 
##     edgecov(CAIeq)
## 
## Iterations:  2 out of 20 
## 
## Monte Carlo MLE Results:
##               Estimate Std. Error MCMC % p-value    
## edges          -6.9744     1.1490      0 < 1e-04 ***
## mutual         -1.4515     0.9915      0 0.14436    
## transitive      0.2817     0.1200      0 0.01969 *  
## nodeicov.EX     9.5449     2.0638      0 < 1e-04 ***
## nodeocov.EX     1.2598     1.5984      0 0.43131    
## edgecov.CAIeq   2.0994     0.6816      0 0.00229 ** 
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
## 
##      Null Deviance: 377.1  on 272  degrees of freedom
##  Residual Deviance: 123.8  on 266  degrees of freedom
##  
## AIC: 135.8    BIC: 157.4    (Smaller is better.)
kable(plogis(coef(model1)))
edges 0.0009346
mutual 0.1897633
transitive 0.5699572
nodeicov.EX 0.9999284
nodeocov.EX 0.7789891
edgecov.CAIeq 0.8908474

Analysis

Take a look at the ERGM equation discussed in the week 5 slides, reproduced below:

\[ \Pr(Y=y)=\exp[\theta'g(y)]/k(\theta) \]

What term in the equation do the ERGM terms or network statistics correspond to?

Our ERGM terms correspond to the g(y) term.

Explain each ERGM term and its relationship to your hypotheses. Test your hypotheses (think about whether the sign of your coefficient suggests a tie is more or less likely) and report whether your results are significant.6 A parameter is significant if its absolute value is more than twice its Standard Error.

Pr(Y=y) == The probability that Y, the generated data, is equal to y, the actual data.

1/k(theta) == a normalizing term.

theta’ == a vector of predictor parameters or coefficients.

g(y) == a vector of network stats or counts of the features. For each structural signature compute one count of how many times it’s seen in the network. It’s a vector because you have different kinds of signatures, so one different number per each signature in a vector.

Hypothesis 1: Individuals are less likely to retrieve information from those who retrieve information from them.

Hypothesis 1 is not supported, and, therefore, we fail to reject the null hypothesis. That is, there is no statistical evidence that the alternative hypothesis is true. In the graphs created previously, we see ample support for hypothesis 1, and I find it interesting that this is not statistically significant. People in the observed network tend to retrieve information and allocate information from and to j, but j does not retrieve information from those nodes in the visual representation of the data.

Hypothesis 2a: Information retrieval tends to be transitive. That is, if individual i retrieves information from individual k, and individual k retrieves information from individual j, then individual i is more likely to retrieve information from individual j.

Transitivity is statistically significant as the parameter/std error = 2.33 which is > 2. Thus, information retrieval does tend to be transitive.

Hypothesis 3a: Individuals tend to retrieve information from other members with high expertise.

Hypothesis 3a is statistically significant as the parameter/std erro = 4.6 which is > 2. Thus, individuals tend to retrieve information with high expertise. This is also represented well in the visual graphs of the network created earlier.

Hypothesis 3b: Individuals with low expertise tend to retrieve information from many others.

Hypothesis 3a is not significant. There is no evidence to support the notion that individuals with low expertise tend to retrieve information from many others.

Hypothesis 4: Individuals tend to retrieve information from members to whom they allocate information.

This result is significant because the parameter/the std. error = which is 3.08 and is > 2. This is also visually apparent in both the allocation graphs and the retrieval graphs. Thus, hypothesis 4 is supported. That is, people are indeed more likely to retrieve information from those to whom they allocate information.

ERGM Model 2

Now we will change our model slightly to avoid convergence problems that lead to degeneracy. The terms transitive and dgwesp both rely on triangle formations so including both of them in the model leads to a situation similar to colinearity in a generalized linear model. While they measure slightly different things (take a look at the ergm-terms documentation to understand more about what’s happening under the hood), they’re typically used interchangeably. As a result, we need to use two separate models to test the relevance of these parameters.

model2 <- ergm(CRIeq ~ edges 
               + mutual                           # H1
               + dgwesp(0.5, fixed=T, type="OTP") # H2b: OTP "transitive shared partner" ordered pair (i,j) iff i->k->j.
               + nodeicov("EX")                   # H3a
               + nodeocov("EX")                   # H3b
               + edgecov(CAIeq)                   # H4
) 
## Starting maximum likelihood estimation via MCMLE:
## Iteration 1 of at most 20:
## Optimizing with step length 1.
## The log-likelihood improved by 0.1652.
## Step length converged once. Increasing MCMC sample size.
## Iteration 2 of at most 20:
## Optimizing with step length 1.
## The log-likelihood improved by 0.002943.
## Step length converged twice. Stopping.
## Evaluating log-likelihood at the estimate. Using 20 bridges: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 .
## This model was fit using MCMC.  To examine model diagnostics and check for degeneracy, use the mcmc.diagnostics() function.
summary(model2) 
## 
## ==========================
## Summary of model fit
## ==========================
## 
## Formula:   CRIeq ~ edges + mutual + dgwesp(0.5, fixed = T, type = "OTP") + 
##     nodeicov("EX") + nodeocov("EX") + edgecov(CAIeq)
## 
## Iterations:  2 out of 20 
## 
## Monte Carlo MLE Results:
##                     Estimate Std. Error MCMC %  p-value    
## edges                -6.8740     1.2136      0  < 1e-04 ***
## mutual               -1.5142     1.0369      0 0.145398    
## gwesp.OTP.fixed.0.5   0.6104     0.3613      0 0.092309 .  
## nodeicov.EX           8.9890     2.3300      0 0.000144 ***
## nodeocov.EX           1.3097     1.7263      0 0.448719    
## edgecov.CAIeq         2.1134     0.6710      0 0.001821 ** 
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
## 
##      Null Deviance: 377.1  on 272  degrees of freedom
##  Residual Deviance: 124.3  on 266  degrees of freedom
##  
## AIC: 136.3    BIC: 157.9    (Smaller is better.)
kable(plogis(coef(model2)))
edges 0.0010333
mutual 0.1803157
gwesp.OTP.fixed.0.5 0.6480383
nodeicov.EX 0.9998752
nodeocov.EX 0.7874616
edgecov.CAIeq 0.8922022

Analysis

Evaluate the remaining hypothesis with your model.

Hypothesis 2b: Transitivity increases at a sub-linear rate as a function of the number of ties.

There is no evidence to support that trsnsitivity increases at a sub-linear rate as a function of the number of ties. The parameter/the std err = 1.68 which is < 2.

Model Diagnostics

Next, judge convergence of the MCMC processes of the first model, using the mcmc.diagnostics() function. The function will plot the change of model statistics during the last iteration of the MCMC estimation procedure.7 Note that although the edge graphs appear to be periodic, the dips between whole numbers are due to the fact that edges are always whole numbers. For each model statistic, the left hand side plot gives the change of the statistic with iterations, and the right hand side plot is a histogram of the statistic values. Both are normalized, so the observed data locate at 0.

mcmc.diagnostics(model1)      # Performs the markov chain monte carlo diagnostics
## Sample statistics summary:
## 
## Iterations = 16384:4209664
## Thinning interval = 1024 
## Number of chains = 1 
## Sample size per chain = 4096 
## 
## 1. Empirical mean and standard deviation for each variable,
##    plus standard error of the mean:
## 
##                  Mean     SD Naive SE Time-series SE
## edges         0.63086  7.375  0.11523        0.17067
## mutual        0.22803  2.473  0.03863        0.05567
## transitive    3.00269 31.115  0.48617        0.71710
## nodeicov.EX   0.32909  3.927  0.06136        0.09246
## nodeocov.EX   0.19260  2.483  0.03880        0.05832
## edgecov.CAIeq 0.04272  1.784  0.02787        0.03580
## 
## 2. Quantiles for each variable:
## 
##                  2.5%     25%        50%    75%  97.5%
## edges         -12.000  -4.000  0.000e+00  5.000 17.000
## mutual         -3.000  -2.000  0.000e+00  2.000  6.000
## transitive    -40.000 -19.000 -4.000e+00 19.000 82.000
## nodeicov.EX    -6.706  -2.412  5.882e-02  2.824  8.919
## nodeocov.EX    -4.294  -1.529 -2.000e-09  1.824  5.471
## edgecov.CAIeq  -4.000  -1.000  0.000e+00  1.000  3.000
## 
## 
## Sample statistics cross-correlations:
##                   edges    mutual transitive nodeicov.EX nodeocov.EX
## edges         1.0000000 0.7440785  0.9183834   0.9909533   0.9222568
## mutual        0.7440785 1.0000000  0.8654203   0.7483071   0.8720016
## transitive    0.9183834 0.8654203  1.0000000   0.9245335   0.9371334
## nodeicov.EX   0.9909533 0.7483071  0.9245335   1.0000000   0.9110763
## nodeocov.EX   0.9222568 0.8720016  0.9371334   0.9110763   1.0000000
## edgecov.CAIeq 0.5273759 0.4952026  0.5245660   0.5121310   0.5631972
##               edgecov.CAIeq
## edges             0.5273759
## mutual            0.4952026
## transitive        0.5245660
## nodeicov.EX       0.5121310
## nodeocov.EX       0.5631972
## edgecov.CAIeq     1.0000000
## 
## Sample statistics auto-correlation:
## Chain 1 
##               edges     mutual transitive nodeicov.EX nodeocov.EX
## Lag 0    1.00000000 1.00000000 1.00000000  1.00000000  1.00000000
## Lag 1024 0.29602714 0.28999608 0.37011059  0.30805949  0.30786156
## Lag 2048 0.13494980 0.11044553 0.15565527  0.14686320  0.13138072
## Lag 3072 0.07822541 0.07382388 0.08220402  0.08408586  0.07803388
## Lag 4096 0.01954890 0.03750356 0.03831785  0.01996449  0.02589681
## Lag 5120 0.03131580 0.02918752 0.03555072  0.03433520  0.03801852
##          edgecov.CAIeq
## Lag 0      1.000000000
## Lag 1024   0.199076878
## Lag 2048   0.086168510
## Lag 3072   0.026845574
## Lag 4096  -0.005624284
## Lag 5120  -0.004873216
## 
## Sample statistics burn-in diagnostic (Geweke):
## Chain 1 
## 
## Fraction in 1st window = 0.1
## Fraction in 2nd window = 0.5 
## 
##         edges        mutual    transitive   nodeicov.EX   nodeocov.EX 
##        0.7790       -0.1910        0.5870        0.6246        0.7619 
## edgecov.CAIeq 
##       -0.3076 
## 
## Individual P-values (lower = worse):
##         edges        mutual    transitive   nodeicov.EX   nodeocov.EX 
##     0.4360008     0.8485307     0.5572247     0.5322518     0.4461489 
## edgecov.CAIeq 
##     0.7584113 
## Joint P-value (lower = worse):  0.04277244 .
## Package latticeExtra is not installed. Falling back on coda's default MCMC diagnostic plots.
MCMC Diagnostics, Model 1.

MCMC Diagnostics, Model 1.

MCMC Diagnostics, Model 1.

MCMC Diagnostics, Model 1.

## 
## MCMC diagnostics shown here are from the last round of simulation, prior to computation of final parameter estimates. Because the final estimates are refinements of those used for this simulation run, these diagnostics may understate model performance. To directly assess the performance of the final model on in-model statistics, please use the GOF command: gof(ergmFitObject, GOF=~model).

Repeat the process for the second model.

mcmc.diagnostics(model2)      # Performs the markov chain monte carlo diagnostics
## Sample statistics summary:
## 
## Iterations = 16384:4209664
## Thinning interval = 1024 
## Number of chains = 1 
## Sample size per chain = 4096 
## 
## 1. Empirical mean and standard deviation for each variable,
##    plus standard error of the mean:
## 
##                          Mean     SD Naive SE Time-series SE
## edges               -0.310791  5.357  0.08371        0.08845
## mutual              -0.005127  1.711  0.02674        0.02896
## gwesp.OTP.fixed.0.5 -0.478587 10.028  0.15669        0.17049
## nodeicov.EX         -0.164206  2.864  0.04474        0.04765
## nodeocov.EX         -0.078800  1.689  0.02639        0.02858
## edgecov.CAIeq       -0.079346  1.684  0.02631        0.02908
## 
## 2. Quantiles for each variable:
## 
##                        2.5%    25%      50%   75%  97.5%
## edges               -10.000 -4.000  0.00000 3.000 10.000
## mutual               -3.000 -1.000  0.00000 1.000  3.000
## gwesp.OTP.fixed.0.5 -19.321 -7.343 -0.82945 6.107 19.445
## nodeicov.EX          -5.684 -2.118 -0.11765 1.765  5.529
## nodeocov.EX          -3.353 -1.191 -0.05882 1.059  3.176
## edgecov.CAIeq        -4.000 -1.000  0.00000 1.000  3.000
## 
## 
## Sample statistics cross-correlations:
##                         edges    mutual gwesp.OTP.fixed.0.5 nodeicov.EX
## edges               1.0000000 0.5313516           0.8982144   0.9821594
## mutual              0.5313516 1.0000000           0.7194566   0.5381319
## gwesp.OTP.fixed.0.5 0.8982144 0.7194566           1.0000000   0.9165649
## nodeicov.EX         0.9821594 0.5381319           0.9165649   1.0000000
## nodeocov.EX         0.8614649 0.7380090           0.8902859   0.8316911
## edgecov.CAIeq       0.4102323 0.3498729           0.4224946   0.3871053
##                     nodeocov.EX edgecov.CAIeq
## edges                 0.8614649     0.4102323
## mutual                0.7380090     0.3498729
## gwesp.OTP.fixed.0.5   0.8902859     0.4224946
## nodeicov.EX           0.8316911     0.3871053
## nodeocov.EX           1.0000000     0.4554200
## edgecov.CAIeq         0.4554200     1.0000000
## 
## Sample statistics auto-correlation:
## Chain 1 
##                 edges      mutual gwesp.OTP.fixed.0.5  nodeicov.EX
## Lag 0     1.000000000  1.00000000         1.000000000  1.000000000
## Lag 1024  0.054919942  0.07963608         0.084058581  0.062741563
## Lag 2048  0.002266933  0.01325322         0.007484444  0.012055499
## Lag 3072 -0.006670161 -0.01343285        -0.004961040 -0.014162831
## Lag 4096 -0.005378409  0.01433994        -0.009229691 -0.006125102
## Lag 5120 -0.007475345 -0.01042801        -0.016320508 -0.015197072
##           nodeocov.EX edgecov.CAIeq
## Lag 0     1.000000000  1.0000000000
## Lag 1024  0.079578621  0.0995903768
## Lag 2048 -0.013145788  0.0244695122
## Lag 3072 -0.001161323  0.0005197621
## Lag 4096  0.005133018 -0.0272918852
## Lag 5120  0.009118882 -0.0020513647
## 
## Sample statistics burn-in diagnostic (Geweke):
## Chain 1 
## 
## Fraction in 1st window = 0.1
## Fraction in 2nd window = 0.5 
## 
##               edges              mutual gwesp.OTP.fixed.0.5 
##           -0.348152           -0.915231           -0.353861 
##         nodeicov.EX         nodeocov.EX       edgecov.CAIeq 
##           -0.109243           -0.511664           -0.003743 
## 
## Individual P-values (lower = worse):
##               edges              mutual gwesp.OTP.fixed.0.5 
##           0.7277261           0.3600702           0.7234432 
##         nodeicov.EX         nodeocov.EX       edgecov.CAIeq 
##           0.9130100           0.6088865           0.9970136 
## Joint P-value (lower = worse):  0.8045628 .
## Package latticeExtra is not installed. Falling back on coda's default MCMC diagnostic plots.
MCMC Diagnostics, Model 2.

MCMC Diagnostics, Model 2.

MCMC Diagnostics, Model 2.

MCMC Diagnostics, Model 2.

## 
## MCMC diagnostics shown here are from the last round of simulation, prior to computation of final parameter estimates. Because the final estimates are refinements of those used for this simulation run, these diagnostics may understate model performance. To directly assess the performance of the final model on in-model statistics, please use the GOF command: gof(ergmFitObject, GOF=~model).

Analysis

Has the MCMC process converged to a desired state for each ERGM term? Explain how you interpret the plots.8 D. Lusher et al, ERGM, 12.3 (“[T]he inferential goal is to center the distribution of statistics over those of the observed network, thus fitting a model that we say gives maximal support to the data.”)

Yes, the mcmc has converged around a central tendency. There’s no evidence of a degenerate model.

Model Evaluation

To evaluate the goodness-of-fit for our model, we need to simulate many variations of the model.9 See ?? simulate for more information.

Let’s visually inspect two of our random networks based on our first model.

ggnet2(sim[[1]], mode = baseLayout, label = TRUE, arrow.size = 8, edge.color="blue", arrow.gap = 0.03) + theme(panel.background = element_rect(fill = "#fffff8")) + guides(color = FALSE, size = FALSE)
Random Graph Variant, Example 1

Random Graph Variant, Example 1

ggnet2(sim[[10]], mode = baseLayout, label = TRUE, arrow.size = 8, edge.color="orange", arrow.gap = 0.03) + theme(panel.background = element_rect(fill = "#fffff8")) + guides(color = FALSE, size = FALSE)
Random Graph Variant, Example 1

Random Graph Variant, Example 1

Next we’re going to extract the number of triangles from each of the 100 samples, create a histogram of that model, and place a red arrow at the value of the observed network.

model.tridist <- sapply(1:100, function(x) summary(sim[[x]] ~triangle)) # Extracts the tiangle data from the simulated networks
hist(model.tridist, xlim=c(0,140), breaks = 20)                                     # Plots that triangle distribution as a histogram
CRIeq.tri <- summary(CRIeq ~ triangle)                                  # Saves the CRIeq triangle data from the summary to the CRI.eq variable
arrows(CRIeq.tri,20, CRIeq.tri, 5, col="red", lwd=3)                    # Adds an arrow to the plotted histogram
Triangle Distribution

Triangle Distribution

Analysis

Is the distribution of triangles in your simulation a good match with the distribution of triangles in your observed network? This graph is interpreted similarly to the MCMC diagnostics, above.

No, it is not. We would expect to see a normal distribution as observed in the previous graphs, and we do not in this one. In other words, this histogram varies compared to the MCMC plots previously demonstrated.

Goodness of Fit

Next, we will calculate the Goodness of Fit for several of the parameters in our model. A p-value closer to one is better; this represents the difference between the observed networks and simulations.

gof
## 
## Goodness-of-fit for in-degree 
## 
##    obs min mean max MC p-value
## 0    9   6 8.93  11       1.00
## 1    3   0 2.02   6       0.66
## 2    0   0 0.70   4       0.92
## 3    0   0 0.50   2       1.00
## 4    0   0 0.52   3       1.00
## 5    2   0 0.60   4       0.16
## 6    0   0 0.75   3       0.88
## 7    0   0 0.74   3       0.86
## 8    1   0 0.74   4       1.00
## 9    1   0 0.64   3       0.88
## 10   0   0 0.44   3       1.00
## 11   1   0 0.21   2       0.40
## 12   0   0 0.14   2       1.00
## 13   0   0 0.07   1       1.00
## 
## Goodness-of-fit for out-degree 
## 
##   obs min mean max MC p-value
## 0   4   0 1.77   6       0.18
## 1   1   1 3.54   9       0.24
## 2   3   0 3.78   8       0.94
## 3   4   0 3.86   8       1.00
## 4   3   0 2.59   7       0.94
## 5   2   0 1.15   4       0.62
## 6   0   0 0.30   2       1.00
## 7   0   0 0.01   1       1.00
## 
## Goodness-of-fit for edgewise shared partner 
## 
##      obs min  mean max MC p-value
## esp0  10   3 11.75  21       0.82
## esp1  13   2 12.02  20       0.90
## esp2  11   2  9.97  20       0.96
## esp3   5   0  4.93  18       0.86
## esp4   2   0  1.69   8       0.86
## esp5   0   0  0.28   4       1.00
## esp6   0   0  0.02   2       1.00
## 
## Goodness-of-fit for minimum geodesic distance 
## 
##     obs min   mean max MC p-value
## 1    41  26  40.66  56       0.98
## 2    19  20  37.96  73       0.00
## 3     4   0  13.37  37       0.30
## 4     0   0   3.52  22       0.62
## 5     0   0   0.92   7       1.00
## 6     0   0   0.09   3       1.00
## 7     0   0   0.01   1       1.00
## Inf 208 106 175.47 220       0.14
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Test the goodness of fit of the model
# Compiles statistics for these simulations as well as the observed network, and calculates p-values 
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

par(mfrow=c(2,2))   # Separate the plot window into a 2 by 2 orientation
plot(gof)           # Plot the goodness of fit
Goodness of Fit

Goodness of Fit

Analysis

Evaluate the plots and summary statitistics of the Goodness of Fit measures for Model 1. Are the four terms evaluated show a good fit between the simulated networks and the observed network?10 In general, for configurations in the model, the fit is considered good if │t│≤ 0.1. For configurations not included in the model, the fit is considered good if 0.1<│t│≤ 1, and not extreme if 1< │t│≤ 2. For your plot, the dark black line represents the data for the observed network. The boxplots represent the distribution of corresponding degrees across the simulated networks, and the soft lines are the 95% confidence intervals.

The model does exhibit good fit as the the observed line falls within the confidence interval.

Submitting the Lab (5 pts)

After knitting your file to RPubs, copy the URL and paste it into the comment field of the Lab 2 Assignment on Canvas. Save this .Rmd file and submit it in the file portion of your Canvas assignment. Make sure to review your file and its formatting. Run spell check (built into RStudio) and proofread your answers before submitting. If you can’t publish to RPubs, save your HTML file as a PDF and submit that instead.11 There are many different ways to do this with different browsers. Google it.