IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0302973.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Illustrating the importance of edge constraints in backbones of bipartite projections

Author

Listed:
  • Zachary P Neal
  • Jennifer Watling Neal

Abstract

Bipartite projections (e.g., event co-attendance) are often used to measure unipartite networks of interest (e.g., social interaction). Backbone extraction models can be useful for reducing the noise inherent in bipartite projections. However, these models typically assume that the bipartite edges (e.g., who attended which event) are unconstrained, which may not be true in practice (e.g., a person cannot attend an event held prior to their birth). We illustrate the importance of correctly modeling such edge constraints when extracting backbones, using both synthetic data that varies the number and type of constraints, and empirical data on children’s play groups. We find that failing to impose relevant constraints when the data contain constrained edges can result in the extraction of an inaccurate backbone. Therefore, we recommend that when bipartite data contain constrained edges, backbones be extracted using a model such as the Stochastic Degree Sequence Model with Edge Constraints (SDSM-EC).

Suggested Citation

  • Zachary P Neal & Jennifer Watling Neal, 2024. "Illustrating the importance of edge constraints in backbones of bipartite projections," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(5), pages 1-10, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0302973
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302973
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0302973
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0302973&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0302973?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0302973. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.