DepthRank: Exploiting Temporality to

Uncover Important Network Nodes Supported by EC funded

project TRILLION
N.Bastas, T.Semertzidis and P.Daras http://trillion-project.eng.it/

MOTIVATION RESULTS
The identification of important network nodes has been for long based on the analysis of static
representation of networks. CollegeMsg dataset
However, in the recent years, it has been recognized that the incorporation of the temporal
dimension could be more informative, as all the real-world phenomena evolve through time.
In order to account for this fact, we propose a novel method, called DepthRank, which
calculates the ability of each node to transmit information by sequentially processing raw data In (a), CI performs the best,
(u,v,t) in fixed time windows and incorporating an aging factor. however in (b), DR-F and DR-NF
The outcome of the proposed method is a ranking of the network nodes which indicates their are the best methods. A positive
correlation has been observed
strength in influencing other nodes within the evolving graph.
between our method and spreading
efficiency, as the value of
parameter β increases.
APPROACH
Figure 2. Imax for (a) β=0.02 and (b) β=0.05, γ is kept fixed.
The raw data are a sequence of interactions of the form (u,v,t). We map them onto a set of
directed unweighted graphs (layers) Gi (see Fig. 1, left panel), by aggregating the interactions
within fixed time windows.
We are interested in calculating the “influence score” S of all the existing nodes and rank them
with respect to it. DR-F and DR-NF exhibit a
robustness with respect to ordering
For each node s residing in the graph Gi at time ti, we first specify all the directed paths
preservation.
(including all types of links) up to each node w in layer Gi+d within [ti, ti+dt] (see Fig. 1, right
panel). Then, we calculate its “influence score” update ΔH(s,Gi) as:

Figure 3. τ-Kendall as a function of top nodes for (a) β=0.02

where d is the number of subsequent layers in [ti, ti+dt] and H is given by: and (b) β=0.05, γ is kept fixed.

Facebook dataset

Here, r is the number of incoming or outgoing links to node w.

Thus, the “influence score” S(s,Gi) up to ti , given its previous value S(s,Gj) at time tj s is: In (a), DR –NF is slightly better than
kS. In (b), all DR variants are
performing better than the
comparison methods, with DR-NF
The “influence score” S(s) for node s is: being the leading method, closely
followed by DR-F.

with T the maximum time of the aggregated dataset. In the previous relations, the exponential Figure 4. Imax for (a) γ=0.01 and (b) γ=0.001, β is kept fixed.
function stands for the influence decay as time passes.
Thus, DepthRank is a two level procedure, incorporating (a) the calculation of the “influence
score” update for each node in consecutive time steps and (b) the application of a DR-F and kS preserve the ranking
monotonically decreasing function to account for the influence decay as time passes. ordering for both cases.

Three variants of DepthRank:

(I) without forgetting mechanism (DR)
(ii) with forgetting mechanism (DR-F)
(iii) with forgetting mechanism with normalization
(DR-NF)
Figure 5. τ-Kendall as a function of top nodes for (a) γ=0.01
and (b) γ=0.001, β is kept fixed.

DM temporal citation network dataset

In (a), kS and DR variants are very

close to each other. However, in
(b), DR variants are the best
performing methods.
Figure 1. Path construction for the DepthRank method.

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Datasets:
● CollegeMsg Figure 6. Imax for (a) β=0.004 and (b) β=0.04, γ is kept fixed.
● Facebook
In (a), kS is the best method with
● Data Mining (DM) temporal citation network respect to ordering preservation. In
(b), kS and DR variants become
Comparison methods indistinguishable.
● k - shell: specifies the shell a network node belongs to by using an edge pruning
It should be noted that our method
process. Nodes belonging to the highest shell are the most important. is able to correctly uncover 50% of
● Collective Influence: applies optimal percolation to a graph and produces the the most important authors in a top-
ranking of nodes. 10 ground-truth list, being the best
Figure 7. τ-Kendall as a function of top nodes for (a) compared to the rest methods
Evaluation metrics β=0.004 and (b) β=0.04, γ is kept fixed. used.
● Temporal Gillespie Algorithm: starting from a set of nodes, apply temporal SIR. The
maximum value for I(t), Imax. where I(t) is the number of infectious nodes at time t, is
considered as the indicator of influence.
● τ-Kendall: it is evaluated between the ranking list produced by each method and the
CONCLUSIONS
ranking list acquired indirectly using the maximum values of the temporal SIR ● DR variants are efficient in terms of spreading and ranking ordering
process. It indicates the order preservation capability of the ranking methods.
preservation.
● DepthRank is capable of identifying nodes that are “influential” in reality.

CONTACT: Some guidelines

● dt should not exceed the dataset’s resolution more than a factor of 3

Dr. Petros Daras, ● the utilization of the absolute forgetting mechanism (DR-F) is the most robust.
Centre for Research and
Information Technologies Institute (CERTH-ITI)
Technology Hellas, E-mail: daras@iti.gr Future directions
Thessaloniki Greece Website: http://vcl.iti.gr/ Incorporate other types of information (eg text,sentiments)

9th International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2017)