Algorithms and applications of Link Mining: Making Sense of Network Data

链接挖掘的算法和应用：理解网络数据

• 批准号: RGPIN-2021-03380
• 负责人: Makrehchi, Masoud
• 金额: $ 1.75万
• 依托单位: University of Ontario Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=741819
• 关键词: Algorithms; applications; Link; Mining; Making

Link mining refers to a set of data mining algorithms and techniques by which we can learn non-trivial patterns from a network or linked data. Links can be represented by various dimensions. Links can be directional or bi-directional, signed or unsigned, weighted or unweighted. The link mining task is to use one or more link dimensions (link existence, direction, sign, weight, class and content) to predict another missing dimension. Another well-studied link mining task is related to the hyper-structure analysis of the networks such as community detection and clustering. Link mining includes several challenging tasks such as link prediction, sign and direction prediction, node ranking, and community detection. Other tasks include weak-tie analysis, detecting information brokers and node ranking. All the above-mentioned tasks are conducted using link dimensions using node characteristics and exchanging content. Among the link mining task, link prediction has drawn much attention. Link prediction is an algorithm that predicts the likelihood of new ties among existing or new nodes. Link prediction has many applications such as: analyzing network growth, expert identification in collaboration networks such as citation and co-authorship networks, finding perfect matches in online dating, and revealing missing links in social networks in which some of the links intentionally removed. Link prediction is implemented either in a cold start or warm start scenario. Cold start scenario refers to a problem in which we want to find the underlying network or social fabric (in the present time or future) among a set of non-connected nodes. On the other hand, a warm start is a problem of recommending links to new or existing users based on other available links (or network structure). Link mining has applications in social network analysis, epidemic analysis, recommender systems, sports analytics, and entity link extraction in natural language processing. The majority of natural and man-made networks have sparse architectures. The network sparsity increases the complexity of link mining algorithms especially when supervised learning techniques are employed. The other challenge in link mining tasks is the lack of training data. One alternative approach is to advance semi-supervised learning and distant supervision. The objectives of the proposed research are four-fold: 1) Introducing link mining and prediction tasks to new applications such as legal research, epidemiology and sports analytics. 2) Adopting language modelling techniques and powerful NLP and deep learning tools for learning about latent patterns in complex networks. 3) Developing a modern meta-learning algorithm to deal with training data complexities in link prediction tasks. 4) Leveraging line graphs to transform complex networks and to directly perform link embedding.

链接挖掘是指从网络或关联数据中学习非平凡模式的一套数据挖掘算法和技术。链接可以由各种维度表示。链接可以是定向的或双向的、有符号的或无符号的、加权的或未加权的。链接挖掘任务是使用一个或多个链接维度(链接存在、方向、符号、权重、类别和内容)来预测另一个缺失的维度。另一项研究较多的链接挖掘任务与网络的超结构分析有关，如社区检测和聚类。链接挖掘包括几个具有挑战性的任务，如链接预测、符号和方向预测、节点排名和社区发现。其他任务包括弱关系分析、检测信息经纪人和节点排名。所有上述任务都使用链路维度、使用节点特征和交换内容来执行。在链接挖掘任务中，链接预测备受关注。链接预测是一种预测现有或新节点之间新关系的可能性的算法。链接预测有许多应用，例如：分析网络增长，在合作网络(如引文和合著网络)中进行专家识别，在在线约会中找到完美的匹配，以及揭示社交网络中某些链接被故意删除的缺失链接。链接预测在冷启动或热启动场景中实施。冷启动场景是指我们希望在一组未连接的节点中找到底层网络或社交结构(在当前或未来)的问题。另一方面，热启动是一个基于其他可用链接(或网络结构)向新用户或现有用户推荐链接的问题。链接挖掘在社交网络分析、流行病分析、推荐系统、体育分析以及自然语言处理中的实体链接提取中都有应用。大多数自然和人造网络都具有稀疏的体系结构。网络的稀疏性增加了链接挖掘算法的复杂性，尤其是在使用有监督学习技术时。链接挖掘任务中的另一个挑战是缺乏训练数据。另一种方法是推进半监督学习和远程监督。拟议研究的目标有四个：1)将链接挖掘和预测任务引入新的应用，如法律研究、流行病学和体育分析。2)采用语言建模技术和强大的自然语言处理和深度学习工具来学习复杂网络中的潜在模式。3)开发了一种现代元学习算法来处理链接预测任务中训练数据的复杂性。4)利用折线图对复杂网络进行变换，直接进行链路嵌入。