A multilayer network-based framework for handling and comparing user histories in X

Abstract

In this article, we propose a framework that uses a multimodal multilayer network to build, manage and compare User Histories in X. A User History not only considers the contents of interest to the user, as is generally the case with a User Profile. In fact, it also records the set of interactions she has made with contents, the timestamps when they happened, and, ultimately, the history of her actions and behaviour. This provides a more comprehensive view of the user, her preferences and needs and paves the way to a number of additional applications. Most of them need to compare two User Histories to calculate their similarity degree. Our framework proposes two approaches, one naive and one refined, to perform this task. We also mention an application that, along with others already proposed in the literature, can greatly benefit from User Histories with the aim of fostering people inclusiveness. Finally, we describe a set of experiments we conducted to evaluate the goodness of the proposed framework.