1. A Basic Introduction to Messy Structures and Generative Models
- Author
-
Karl F. Vachuska and Stephen C Rodriguez-Elliott
- Subjects
bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology ,SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies ,SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Sociology|Mathematical Sociology ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences ,SocArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences - Abstract
While networks have been the standard mathematical representation for detailedarrangements of relations in society, the simplicity of the representation limits whatinformation can be preserved in the abstraction, and subsequently, what can bemathematically analyzed. In this paper, we introduce a more rigorous and flexibleabstraction for representing arrangements of relations in society, the Messy Structure.After introducing the representational form and theoretically justifying it, we introducesome basic generative procedures for creating Messy Structures with “hierarchical”properties.
- Published
- 2020