Beyond pairwise network similarity: exploring mediation and suppression between networks

Abstract

Mediation analysis aims to clarify the nature of the relationship between two variables, by elucidating the role of a third variable, which can allow or suppress the relationship, or being simply not involved in the process. The authors introduce this framework in the analysis of three-layered multiplex networks, assessing whether a link between two nodes in one layer affects the probability of having a link between the two same nodes in the other two layers, and present some applications to social and biological networks.