***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** Good Evening, My masters thesis (non published) was about the distributions of networks size 5 through 15 inclusive; I did a complete census and analysis of the census. Check it out at http://sarq6669.googlepages.com - it's free/available for download. Ben Elbirt -----Original Message----- From: Social Networks Discussion Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jana Diesner Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 8:25 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Power Laws and Other Degree Distributions ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** John Maybe you find this one helpful: Zipf, Power-laws, and Pareto - a ranking tutorial by Lada A. Adamic http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/papers/ranking/ranking.html jana -----Original Message----- From: Social Networks Discussion Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John McCreery Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 7:37 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Power Laws and Other Degree Distributions ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** As I prepare my presentation for Sunbelt, I am checking the networks my data reveal for the kinds of properties that I read about in sources that include Newman, Barabási, and Watts (2006), The Structure and Dynamics of Networks. 1. Giant components? Check 2. Giant bicomponents that approach the size of the giant components? Check? 3. Right-skewed degree distributions? Check But then I read, in the introduction to Chapter 3, a discussion of Amaral, et. al. (2000), a paper that examines five networks and discovers that none have power-law degree distributions. Instead, all of them are right-skewed but with non-power-law distributions: > the power grid and air traffic networks have exponential distributions, the > high school and Mormon networks have Gaussian distributions, and the movie > actor network has an exponentially truncated power-law distribution. Here my mathematical ignorance blocks further understanding. I want to know how to do the calculations to determine which kind of distributions best fit my data. My rapid survey of Wikipedia articles on power laws, O descriptions, that sort of thing, leaves me with the impression that this is a black art; but, I suspect, I am missing something. Can anyone here direct me to a curve-fitting for dummies primer that will shed some light on my problem or some smart person who already knows how to do this sort of thing? Your help will be greatly appreciated. John McCreery The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN Tel. +81-45-314-9324 [log in to unmask] http://www.wordworks.jp/ _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message. _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message. _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.