Events Calendar

AI Seminar-Centralities, Communities and Dynamics: The Generalized Laplacian Framework

Speaker: Xiaoran Yan , USC/ISI

Talk Title: Centralities, Communities and Dynamics: The Generalized Laplacian Framework

Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar

Abstract: The interplay between a dynamic process and topology of a network on which it unfolds affects observed network structure. In this talk, we examine the impact of this the interaction on the identification of central nodes and communities in networks. We introduce the generalized Laplacian framework which extends the traditional Laplacian beyond simple diffusion. By mathematically relating dynamic processes to random walks on a transformed network, the generalized Laplacian formulation unifies different measures of centrality and community quality. Thus, a node's centrality describes its participation in the dynamics taking place on the network, and communities are groups of nodes that interact more frequently with each other according to the rules of the dynamic process. We prove that the classic Cheeger's inequality, which relates the spectrum of the Laplacian matrix to the conductance of the best cluster in the network, can be extended to this generalized setting, providing a method for fast graph partitioning under any dynamics. We demonstrate empirically that different dynamic processes lead to divergent views of structure of synthetic and real-world networks.






Biography: Xiaoran Yan is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Kristina Lerman's group at ISI-USC. His work focuses on modelling and analyzing dynamics on networks as well as the underlying topological structures. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science at University of New Mexico.

Host: Kristina Lerman

Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=9e22bdf6c8be40a3a5f7abdb6c3fef251d

Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr. Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey

WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=9e22bdf6c8be40a3a5f7abdb6c3fef251d

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Peter Zamar