This paper elaborates on two theories of social influence processes to multiplex network structures. First, cohesion influence is based on mutual communication made by different types of relations, and second comparison influence that is built on contrasting types of tie. While a system of bundles with a mutual character constitutes the setting for a multiplex network exposure measure within cohesion, comparison influence is defined algebraically through classes of actors in terms of a weakly balanced semiring structure that considers positive, negative, and also ambivalent types of tie. A case study with these approaches is made on an entrepreneurial community network with formal business relations, informal friendship ties, and perceived competition among the firms, and the methods are validated with the Sampson Monastery data set.

The max-plus algebra is well known and has useful applications in the investigation of discrete event systems and affine equations. Structural matrix rings have been considered by many authors too. This article introduces more general structural matrix semirings, which include all matrix semirings over the max-plus algebra. We investigate properties of ideals in this construction motivated by applications to the design of centroid-based classification systems, or classifiers, as well as multiple classifiers combining several initial classifiers. The first main theorem of this paper shows that structural matrix semirings possess convenient visible generating sets for ideals. Our second main theorem uses two special sets to determine the weights of all ideals and describe all matrix ideals with the largest possible weight, which are optimal for the design of classification systems.