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I am a political scientist interested in applying social network theory to the analysis of alliance formation in international relations. My familiarity to social network analysis is mostly limited to a textbook and some articles referenced in that. There are three issues in the computation of structural equivalence measures that I have not been able to find sufficient discussion on. I would appreciate any insights in these questions, including literature references. 1) What is the appropriate way of dealing with different participation rates? Have alternative solutions to standardizing/using correlations been proposed? For example, has anyone proposed measures that use information about the participation rate of actors to assess the reliability of correlation coefficients? 2) Are there discussions on alternative ways to include indirect links when relations are valued? 3) In the particular network that I am studying, not all potential relations have the same “relevance,” based on geographic and other reasons that have little to do with the policy choices, which are my primary theoretical interest. Thus the absence of an alliance may be the result of a contentious relationship or plain indifference. Have methods been proposed to take this into account, for example where relevance is a function of a set of covariates at the dyad level, and works as a "selection" mechanism? Thanks, Erik. -- Erik Voeten Post-Doctoral Fellow Center for International Security and Cooperation Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305 phone : 415-982 6230 (home) 650-724 6283 (office)