Entropy based evaluation of net structures – deployed in Social Network Analysis

•Sometimes graphs are an insufficient medium to represent social structures.•If a relation between two actors is valid this is formulated as a conditional.•The principle of Maximum-Entropy is as new instrument to analyze social fabric.•MaxEnt makes such conditionals form the knowledge base about the network’s structure.•This knowledge-base can be implemented in the expert system shell SPIRIT.

The analysis of Social Networks widely is based on their respective graphical structures. Centrality measures of actors usually consider their position in a graph. Sometimes graphs are an insufficient medium to represent social structures. In this paper the authors propose a new framework with the purpose to analyze social fabric correctly: information theory. A set of conditionals forms the knowledge base about the network’s structure. Once the knowledge base is adapted under maximum entropy or minimum cross-entropy a new form of analysis is available. The construction of knowledge bases and their analyses are realized in the expert system shell SPIRIT.