entropy_trivar: Trivariate Entropy

In netropy: Statistical Entropy Analysis of Network Data

Trivariate Entropy

Description

Computes trivariate entropies of all triples of discrete variables in a multivariate data set.

Usage

entropy_trivar(dat)

Arguments

dat	dataframe with rows as observations and columns as variables. Variables must all be observed or transformed categorical with finite range spaces.

Details

Trivariate entropies can be used to check for functional relationships and stochastic independence between triples of variables.

The trivariate entropy H(X,Y,Z) of three discrete random variables X, Y, and Z is bounded according to

H(X,Y) <= H(X,Y,Z) <= H(X,Z) + H(Y,Z) - H(Z).

The increment between the trivariate entropy and its lower bound is equal to the expected conditional entropy.

Value

Dataframe with the first three columns representing possible triples of variables (X, Y, Z) and the fourth column giving trivariate entropies H(X,Y,Z).

Author(s)

Termeh Shafie

References

Frank, O., & Shafie, T. (2016). Multivariate entropy analysis of network data. Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique, 129(1), 45-63.

See Also

entropy_bivar, prediction_power

Examples

# use internal data set
data(lawdata)
df_att <- lawdata[[4]]

# data editing:
# 1. categorize variables 'years' and 'age' into approximately
# equally sized groups
# 2. recode selected variables so categories start at 0
att_var <- data.frame(
  status    = df_att$status - 1,
  gender    = df_att$gender,
  office    = df_att$office - 1,
  years     = ifelse(df_att$years <= 3, 0,
                ifelse(df_att$years <= 13, 1, 2)),
  age       = ifelse(df_att$age <= 35, 0,
                ifelse(df_att$age <= 45, 1, 2)),
  practice  = df_att$practice,
  lawschool = df_att$lawschool - 1
)

# calculate trivariate entropies
h_trivar <- entropy_trivar(att_var)

netropy documentation built on April 24, 2026, 9:06 a.m.