Exploring social networks through stochastic multilayer graph modeling

Abstract

Several graph models are available today to model online social networks. These graph models are used to analyze the structural properties of the online social network, such as detecting communities, finding the influential spreader and predicting the behavior of the network. However, these models are based on deterministic single-layer graphs that may not be appropriate when online users use multiple social networks at the same time and social networks provide specific services. Moreover, because of the unknown and dynamic nature related to the behaviors and activities of online users, as well as structural and behavioral parameters, which may vary over time, stochastic multi-layer models could be applied to better capture and represent this phenomenon, as well as the dynamic nature of social networks. For example, in recommender systems, users' interests are unknown parameters and vary over time. Therefore, stochastic multilayer graph modeling can be used to develop recommender systems by considering different layers for different types of interests or preferences. In this paper, we propose a stochastic multilayer graph in which the edges are associated with random variables as a potential graph model for the analysis of online social networks. Therefore, after redefine some network measures related to stochastic multilayer graphs, we propose a Cellular Goore Game (CGG) based algorithm to computes the redefine network measures. A CGG-based algorithm computes defined network measures by learning automata from the edges of stochastic multilayer graphs. The experimental results show that the new CGG-based algorithm requires fewer samples from the edges of stochastic multilayer graphs than the standard sampling method in network measures calculation. Furthermore, the obtained results demonstrate that, from an evaluation perspective, the CGG-based algorithm provides superior results in terms of Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS-test), Pearson Correlation Coefficient (PCC), Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) and Kullback–Leibler divergence (KL-test).