Computing core/periphery structures and permutation tests for social relations data

✍ Scribed by John P. Boyd; William J. Fitzgerald; Robert J. Beck

• Book ID: 104093042
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 188 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0378-8733
• DOI: 10.1016/j.socnet.2005.06.003

✦ Synopsis

The core/periphery structure is ubiquitous in network studies. The discrete version of the concept is that individuals in a group belong to either the core, which has a high density of ties, or to the periphery, which has a low density of ties. The density of ties between the core and the periphery may be either high or low. If the core/periphery structure is given a priori, then there is no problem in finding a suitable statistical test. Often, however, the structure is not given, which presents us with two problems, searching for the optimal core/periphery structure, and devising a valid statistical test to replace the one invalidated by the search.