# Managing network data in R
# Author: Jake Fisher
# This lab will introduce using network data with R. As the introduction to R
# lab described, one of the main benefits to learning R is its ability to handle
# non-traditional data structures. Key among these, for our purposes, is a
# network.
# This file will describe how to:
# 1. Create a network object from raw network data
# 2. Save and recall network (incl. vertex and edge) attributes
# 3. Calculate individual-level and global network statistics
# 4. Perform operations on a list of networks
# There are two main network packages in R. I will focus primarily on statnet
# today. The statnet suite of packages is mostly used for statistical models
# of networks. The other common package is igraph, which is often used for
# computer science-style applications, like community detection and calculations
# on large graphs. You can convert between them using the intergraph package.
# Following best practices, we will begin by setting up the workspace:
rm(list = ls())
setwd("C:/Users/fishe/Dropbox/SN&H Files/r_scripts")
library(statnet) # lots of messages...
##### Creating a network object #####
# Statnet can create a network object from any of the common network data
# structures: edgelists, adjacency lists, and adjacency matrices.
# Let's start with an example of an adjacency matrix. Here I'll define a
# network where a vertex is a member of my immediate family, and an edge
# indicates "parent":
people <- c("mom", "dad", "sister", "me")
(adj.mat <- matrix(0, nrow = 4, ncol = 4)) # create empty matrix
rownames(adj.mat) <- people
colnames(adj.mat) <- people
adj.mat["mom", "sister"] <- 1
adj.mat["mom", "me"] <- 1
adj.mat["dad", "sister"] <- 1
adj.mat["dad", "me"] <- 1
adj.mat # completed adjacency matrix
# We can create a network object using the network() function
(family <- network(adj.mat, matrix.type = "adjacency"))
# Network objects have a number of special functions for them. We will cover
# these in the next section. For now, let's plot the network
plot(family) # not terribly informative
# Note that we could have expressed the information above more compactly if we
# just listed the cell values that should be 1 (i.e., mom -> sister, mom -> me,
# etc.) and assumed everything else should be 0. That's called an edgelist.
# We can generate a network from an edgelist, too:
(edges <- data.frame(from = c(rep("mom", 2), rep("dad", 2)),
to = rep(c("sister", "me"), 2)))
family.2 <- network(edges, matrix.type = "edgelist")
# We can show the adjacency matrix from the network object using as.matrix
as.matrix(family.2) # order of the rows is different, but network is the same
# And finally, we could compress this even more by holding one the sender in
# one column, and the receiver in subsequent columns. This is called an
# adjacency list.
(adj.list <- data.frame(parent = c("mom", "dad"), child1 = rep("sister", 2),
child2 = rep("me", 2)))
# Statnet doesn't handle adjacency lists well, but they are the most common type
# of raw survey network data. Fortunately, we can convert from an adjacency
# list to an edgelist easily, with the tidyr package
library(tidyr)
library(dplyr) # for the pipe operator
library(magrittr) # for the %<>% operator
adj.list %>%
gather(key = "nomination.number", value = "alter", -parent)
# Gather strings your data out into a long column. We can select which
# variables to string out -- in this case, we wanted to keep the column for
# parent separate, and to repeat the values for each child.
# If you drop the middle column, you have an edgelist...
adj.list %>%
gather(key = "nomination.number", value = "alter", -parent) %>%
select(-nomination.number)
# ...which you can pass to network!
adj.list %>% # note that we didn't save the output
gather(key = "nomination.number", value = "alter", -parent) %>%
select(-nomination.number) %>%
network(., matrix.type = "edgelist")
# That's great, but how do we do it with a real dataset? Let's try with the
# faux Add Health data.
dat <- read.csv("C:/Users/fishe/Dropbox/SN&H Files/SampleData/ahs_wpvar.csv")
# So what's in here, anyway?
names(dat)
# First of all, there are several communities in these data. Let's pick the
# first one:
cmty1 <- dat %>% filter(commcnt == 1)
# Notice that the "friend" variables contain "fnid", and no other variables do.
# We can use that to create an edgelist:
el <- cmty1 %>%
select(ego_nid, contains("fnid")) %>%
gather(key = "nomination", value = "alter", -ego_nid)
head(el) # hmmmm.... contains 99999 and NA values. Let's standardize those
el %>% arrange(ego_nid) %>% head
el %<>% mutate(alter = ifelse(alter == 99999, NA, alter))
# Now you would think this would work as a network...
el %>%
select(-nomination) %>%
network(., matrix.type = "edgelist")
# but statnet also can't really deal with missing values in the edgelist. So
# the best way to do this is to construct an empty network first, and then
# add the edges from the edgelist. This has the advantage of including isolates
# too.
# To do that, first we get a list of the people who are involved in the network:
# Get unique list of people in the network
(ah.people <- with(el, unique(c(ego_nid, alter)))) # this would be all the people, including those out of school
# ah.people <- unique(dat$ego_nid) # this is only people who took the survey
el %<>% filter(!is.na(alter)) # drop missing cases
# We're not going to do that, because it includes a lot of people who didn't
# take the survey.
# Now create an empty network
add.health <- network.initialize(n = length(ah.people))
# statnet adds edges by index values, not by names of variables. So, to make
# this work, we have to create an index value of 1, 2, ..., N, where N is the
# number of people in the network
el %<>%
mutate(ego.idx = match(ego_nid, ah.people),
alter.idx = match(alter, ah.people))
# Finally, add the edges from the edgelist
add.edges(add.health, el$ego.idx, el$alter.idx)
# Now, as a quick gut check, let's plot it:
set.seed(919)
plot(add.health)
# (As an aside, note that you could create a list of all the networks using
# lapply...)
##### Save and recall network attributes #####
# One of the benefits of statnet is that it's possible to save attributes for
# different pieces of the network. We can save vertex attributes, like whether
# the person is a smoker, edge attributes, like whether the ties is homophilous,
# or network attributes, like the name of the school, or the survey wave. The
# procedure for this is simple; let's illustrate a few.
# First, network attributes are characteristics of the network as whole. Set
# them with %n%
add.health %n% "cmty" <- 1
add.health # note "cmty" in there
# Second, vertex attributes are characteristics of each vertex. Set them with
# %v%
add.health %v% "sex" <- cmty1$sex # we can do this because vertices and data
# are sorted in the same way
# A special case of vertex attributes is vertex names, which you set with
# network.vertex.names()
network.vertex.names(add.health) <- cmty1$ego_nid
# All of these methods can also be used to retrive network attributes
add.health %v% "sex"
# Third, edge attributes are characteristics of a pair of vertices. You can set
# them with %e%, but the indexing is more complicated, and I will not cover it
# here.
# These are useful for plotting and advanced statistical methods.
plot(add.health, vertex.col = "sex")
##### Calculate individual-level and global network statistics #####
# statnet has functions for virtually every network statistic. They come in two
# flavors, individual-level network statistics, and global network statistics.
# Individual level statistics are calculated for each person. These include
# things like centrality.
degree(add.health, cmode = "indegree")
degree(add.health, cmode = "outdegree")
# Typically, these are most useful in a dataset. We can construct that with the
# data.frame command:
(ind.net.stats <- data.frame(
ego = network.vertex.names(add.health),
indegree = degree(add.health, cmode = "indegree"),
outdegree = degree(add.health, cmode = "outdegree")
))
# Then you would merge these on to a regular dataset, and run a regression.
# Global network statistics are characteristics of the network as a whole.
# statnet has a number of commands for these as well:
grecip(add.health) # reciprocity
gtrans(add.health) # transitivity
gden(add.health) # density
# Often you would calculate these on a single network, and include them as
# text in a plot, or somewhere in the text of a paper. As we increasingly
# work with several networks, however, you might have a list of network objects,
# which you could summarize using the network level statistics for each. The
# next section will explain how to do that.
##### Performing operations with lists of network data #####
# The faux Add Health data contains many communities. (This is increasingly
# common with network data.) The easiest way to perform a calculation on each
# of these networks is to create a list of network objects.
# To save each of the networks in the faux Add Health data, we will perform the
# operations above for each of the networks. The easiest way to do this is to
# construct a list, and loop through it with lapply.
# We begin by splitting up the data into a list of data.frames, one for each
# community.
cmties <- split(dat, dat[, c("commcnt", "sdummy")], drop = T)
# note that this is now a list of data.frames, which are split up by unique
# combinations of commcnt and sdummy
sapply(cmties, class)
# Now, for each one of these, we want to run the same set of commands that we
# ran earlier. This is an ideal case for writing your own function!
createNetwork <- function(indat) {
# Creates a network object from an adjacency list for the faux Add Health data
#
# Args:
# indat: a data.frame with columns for ego_nid, and at least one column with
# a name containing "fnid"
#
# Returns:
# A statnet network object
# Save edgelist without missings
el <- indat %>%
select(ego_nid, contains("fnid")) %>%
gather(key = "nomination", value = "alter", -ego_nid) %>%
mutate(alter = ifelse(alter == 99999, NA, alter))
# Get list of unique people in edgelist
# people <- unique(with(el, c(ego_nid, alter))) # everyone involved
people <- unique(el$ego_nid) # only people who completed survey
# Create an empty network
out <- network.initialize(n = length(people))
# Save the index numbers to the edgelist
el %<>%
filter(!is.na(alter)) %>%
mutate(ego.idx = match(ego_nid, people), alter.idx = match(alter, people))
# Add those edges to the edgelist
add.edges(out, tail = el$ego.idx, head = el$alter.idx)
# Save the names of the people as vertex names
network.vertex.names(out) <- people
# Return the network object
return(out)
}
# Now we can loop through all of data sets and create a network for each one...
nets <- lapply(cmties, createNetwork)
# And then we can create a data.frame of descriptive network statistics for each
# of those:
net.stats <- data.frame(
net.id = names(nets),
# Network-level statistics
reciprocity = sapply(nets, grecip, USE.NAMES = FALSE),
transitivity = sapply(nets, gtrans, USE.NAMES = FALSE),
density = sapply(nets, gden, USE.NAMES = FALSE),
size = sapply(nets, network.size, USE.NAMES = FALSE),
# Aggregate individual-level statistics
n.isolates = sapply(nets, isolates, USE.NAMES = FALSE) %>%
sapply(., length, USE.NAMES = FALSE),
mean.degree = sapply(nets, degree, cmode = "outdegree", USE.NAMES = FALSE) %>%
sapply(., mean, USE.NAMES = FALSE)
) %>%
# Function from tidyr to separate values of the form community.school into
# separate columns
separate(col = net.id, into = c("commcnt", "sdummy"))
# Or, equivalently, write a function to output a data.frame
calculateNetStats <- function(net) {
# Calculates a variety of global and aggregate individual network statistics
#
# Args:
# net: a statnet network object
#
# Returns:
# a data.frame with columns for reciprocity, transitivity, density, size,
# number of isolates, and mean degree
return(data.frame(reciprocity = grecip(net), transitivity = gtrans(net),
density = gden(net), size = network.size(net),
n.isolates = length(isolates(nets)),
mean.degree = mean(degree(net, cmode = "outdegree"))))
}
# This crashed my computer...
# net.stats.equiv <- lapply(nets, calculateNetStats) %>%
# bind_rows %>%
# mutate(net.id = names(nets)) %>%
# separate(col = net.id, into = c("commcnt", "sdummy"))
# Finally, we could also save individual level statistics from each of the
# networks, and merge them on to the main data.
calculateIndNetStats <- function(net) {
# Calculates isolation and degree from a network
#
# Args:
# net: a statnet network object
#
# Returns:
# a data.frame with columns for ego_nid (the vertex names), isolate (T/F),
# indegree, and outdegree
return(data.frame(ego_nid = network.vertex.names(net),
isolate = is.isolate(net, ego = seq(network.size(net))),
indegree = degree(net, cmode = "indegree"),
outdegree = degree(net, cmode = "outdegree")))
}
ind.net.stats <- lapply(nets, calculateIndNetStats) %>%
bind_rows(., .id = "sch") %>% # save a column indicating which list it's from
separate(sch, into = c("commcnt", "sdummy")) %>%
# Convert them to integers, so that they can be merged
mutate_each(funs(as.integer(as.character(.))), commcnt, sdummy)
# This can then be merged onto the original data by ego_nid, commcnt, and sdummy
# e.g.,
dat %<>%
left_join(., ind.net.stats)
##### Practice! #####
# Now let's practice doing this ourselves! Tom Valente collected similar data
# as part of the Empirical Networks Project. Let's download it:
# http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~tvalente/enp/enp_individual.xls
# Read in the data using readxl
# install.packages("readxl")
library(readxl)
(enp <- read_excel("enp_individual.xls"))
# Now, using the steps above:
# 1. Create a network object
# 2. Calculate a network statistic from the network object
# 3. Find the correlation of that network object with the "outcome" column
# 4. (advanced) Create a list of network objects, and create a data.frame
# containing a network statistic for each