Direct and indirect approaches to blockmodeling of valued networks in terms of regular equivalence

Abstract

The aim of this article is to compare methods for detecting and/or measuring regular equivalence in valued networks. The methods compared can be divided into direct and indirect methods. The indirect methods considered here are all variants of the REGE algorithm (White, 2005). All direct methods have roots in Batagelj, Doreian, and Ferligoj (1992); however they have been adapted for valued networks (Ziberna, 2006b). All approaches are compared on an empirical valued social network. Variants of the REGE algorithm are also compared on a few artificial valued networks in order to clarify their functionality. This is not necessary for direct approaches, which have clearly defined ideal blocks. In discussion, advantages and disadvantages of both indirect and direct approaches are discussed.