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Good questions Bruce!
That is why I put up my simple model for all SOCNET to see... and
comment on. I had many of those questions myself.
http://www.orgnet.com/mideast.html
In the mideast example I am really showing 2 networks concurrently --
one of alliance or support and the other of repulsion or "sworn enemy."
You see both visible links[positive ties drawn in gray] and invisible
links that only have repelling forces. The networks are both active at
the same time, and therefore the whole graph experiences both
attraction and repulsion concurrently -- based on topology -- who is
connected to whom and how.
As you notice there are no lines/links/edges between those who are
enemies -- just a repulsive force. The "invisible" repulsion makes
sense to me because it does not let nodes who are identified enemies
settle close to each other in the simple spring embedder algorithm --
move alQaida near the US, EU or Israel and you will see the nodes
quickly push apart, dragging their linked neighbors [those with visible
edges] with them.
Iraq and USA was an interesting problem for me -- I did not know
whether to state it as a positive or negative relationship. One can
argue both sides, and a third -- it is both! It is probably not an OR
relationship but an AND relationship -- alliance and repulsion at the
same time. I will make that update now and see what happens.
OK, I just made the change and watched the network self-organize... the
overall pattern has not changed much, though Iraq is consistently
pushed closer to Russia as a result.
Valdis
On Jul 25, 2006, at 5:11 PM, Neubauer, Bruce wrote:
> ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org *****
>
> I am confused by the notion of negative relationships. It seems to me
> that if there are two poles to the meaning of a relationship it should
> be modeled as two relationships and not as one relationship with
> positive and negative values. I see the presence or absence of a
> relationship as a question independent of the strength and meaning of a
> relationship if one exists. Perhaps this is a question of the
> distinction between strength of relationship and meaning
> (interpretation) of a relationship. How can the strength of a
> relationship be negative when zero represents the absence of a
> relationship? Measures of things like love and hate are not
> necessarily
> mutually exclusive in a linear way. Also, is it more intuitive to
> represent the strength of a relationship by the thickness or color of
> the line rather than by the length of the line (or the distance between
> the nodes)? Does a long line between nodes intuitively suggest a
> strong
> association (the length of the line) or a weak association (the
> distance
> between nodes)?
>
> Bruce
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