Monday, 22 May 2023 @ 14:00 CEST
On-site:
University of Vienna
Seminarraum 5
Kolingasse 14–16
1090 Vienna
Online:
https://univienna.zoom.us/j/68108456728?pwd=SWhOczJxVG1qWlZQYXN6aC85TG81Zz09
Meeting ID: 681 0845 6728
Passcode: Ds&23
Social network analysis: from Clustering to Link Recommendation
Abstract:
In recent years, thanks to social networking platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, we have increased our connections with other people, and facilitated our access to information. Understanding the structure of these social networks, and the dynamics that regulate the user's behavior are two fundamental problems that have attracted the attention of researchers in many different fields, from marketing to epidemiology.
In this talk, Yllka Velaj will present methods for studying these two problems. First, she will present a clustering algorithm, SpectralMix, that allows us to obtain an understanding of the major patterns in attributed multi-relational networks and detect dependencies between the graph structure and attributes. Here, nodes are users characterized by attributes like gender, age, hometown, hobbies, etc., and edges describe the different types of links established by interaction on different social platforms. Then, she will focus on the study of dynamics in social networks introducing a link recommendation algorithm for maximizing the diffusion of information in the network. The algorithm suggests a limited number of new connections to the users of the network in order to increment the diffusion of their opinions.
Bio:
Yllka Velaj is an Assistant Professor in the research group Data Mining and Machine Learning, Faculty of Computer Science, University of Vienna. She has a doctoral degree in Computer Science from the international school for advanced studies Gran Sasso Science Institute in L'Aquila, Italy. Before joining the data mining team in Vienna in 2020, she worked as a researcher in different research institutes such as Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam and ISI Foundation in Turin Italy. Yllka Velaj's track record (2015 – now) includes more than 20 publications in peer-reviewed top conferences and journals of computer science. Since September 2022 she obtained a professorship position in the Computer Science Faculty of University of Vienna. Her research interests include network analysis, algorithm engineering, and data mining with a focus on clustering algorithms.
