Generating social network features for link-based classification

Abstract

There have been numerous attempts at the aggregation of attributes for relational data mining. Recently, an increasing number of studies have been undertaken to process social network data, partly because of the fact that so much social network data has become available. Among the various tasks in link mining, a popular task is link-based classification, by which samples are classified using the relations or links that are present among them. On the other hand, we sometimes employ traditional analytical methods in the field of social network analysis using e.g., centrality measures, structural holes, and network clustering. Through this study, we seek to bridge the gap between the aggregated features from the network data and traditional indices used in social network analysis. The notable feature of our algorithm is the ability to invent several indices that are well studied in sociology. We first define general operators that are applicable to an adjacent network. Then the combinations of the operators generate new features, some of which correspond to traditional indices, and others which are considered to be new. We apply our method for classification to two different datasets, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.