est_between function

Estimate between-block parameters

Function to estimate the between-block model by relying on the maximum likelihood estimator.

est_between(
  formula,
  network,
  add_intercepts = TRUE,
  clustering_with_features = FALSE
)

Arguments

• formula: An formula object of the form y ~ <model terms>, where y is a network object. The network object must contain block information as a vertex attribute with the name 'block'. For the details on the possible <model terms>, see ergmTerm and Morris, Handcock and Hunter (2008). All terms that induce dependence are excluded from the between block model.
• network: a network object with one vertex attribute called 'block' representing which node belongs to which block
• add_intercepts: Boolean value to indicate whether adequate intercepts should be added to the provided formula so that the model in the first stage of the estimation is a nested model of the estimated model in the second stage of the estimation
• clustering_with_features: Boolean value to indicate if the clustering was carried out making use of the covariates or not (only important if add_intercepts = TRUE)

Returns

'ergm' object of the estimated model.

Examples

adj <- c(
c(0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0),
c(1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1),
c(0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0),
c(0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1),
c(1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1),
c(0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0)
)
adj <- matrix(data = adj, nrow = 6, ncol = 6)
rownames(adj) <- as.character(1001:1006)
colnames(adj) <- as.character(1001:1006)

# Use non-consecutive block names
block <- c(50, 70, 95, 50, 95, 70)
g <- network::network(adj, matrix.type = "adjacency")
g %v% "block" <- block
est <- est_between(
  formula = g ~ edges,network = g,
  add_intercepts = FALSE, clustering_with_features = FALSE
)

References

Morris M, Handcock MS, Hunter DR (2008). Specification of Exponential-Family Random Graph Models: Terms and Computational Aspects. Journal of Statistical Software, 24.