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Graph Theory and Social Networks: Alexandru Costan

The document discusses graphs and social networks. It defines what graphs are through vertices and edges, and covers different types of graphs. It also discusses representing graphs through adjacency matrices and lists. Additionally, it explores social networks as graphs and how analyzing network structure can provide insights, such as the strength of weak ties and triadic closure, where two connected individuals are more likely to form a connection. The document also examines tie strength on networks like Facebook and Twitter.

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Saif Ali Khan
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86 views28 pages

Graph Theory and Social Networks: Alexandru Costan

The document discusses graphs and social networks. It defines what graphs are through vertices and edges, and covers different types of graphs. It also discusses representing graphs through adjacency matrices and lists. Additionally, it explores social networks as graphs and how analyzing network structure can provide insights, such as the strength of weak ties and triadic closure, where two connected individuals are more likely to form a connection. The document also examines tie strength on networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Uploaded by

Saif Ali Khan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1

Graph Theory and


Social Networks
Alexandru Costan
2
Outline

•  Graphs problems and


representations
•  Structure of social
networks
•  Applications of
structural analysis
3

Source: Wikipedia (Königsberg)


What is a graph? 4

•  G = (V,E)
•  V represents the set of vertices (nodes)
•  E represents the set of edges (links)
•  Both vertices and edges may contain additional information

•  Different types of graphs:


•  Directed vs. undirected edges
•  Presence or absence of cycles

•  Graphs are everywhere:


•  Hyperlink structure of the Web
•  Highway system
•  Social networks
Some graph problems 5

•  Finding shortest paths


•  Routing Internet traffic and UPS trucks
•  Finding minimum spanning trees
•  Telco laying down fiber
•  Finding Max Flow
•  Airline scheduling
•  Identify “special” nodes and
communities
•  Breaking up terrorist cells, spread of
avian flu
•  Bipartite matching
•  Tinder
•  PageRank
6
Graphs are hard!
•  Poor locality of memory access
•  Very little work per vertex
•  Changing degree of parallelism
•  Running over many machines makes the
problem worse
•  Graph storage:
•  Flat Files: no query support
•  RDBMS: can store the graph with limited
support for graph query
•  State of the art today:
•  Write your own infrastructure
•  MapReduce – tends to be inefficient
7
Distributed Graph Processing

•  Google’s Pregel
•  Large-scale graph processing
•  Vertex centered computation
•  Apache Giraph
•  Open source
•  Iterative graph processing
•  Used at Facebook
•  Twitter’s Cassovary
•  In-memory computation
•  Used for: “Who to Follow” and “Similar to”
•  Very simple to use (no need for persistence, databases or partitions)
•  Neo4j Graph Database
•  Flexible schema
•  Powerful query language, ACID
Representing graphs 8

Two common representations:

•  Adjacency matrix

•  Adjacency list
Adjacency matrices 9

Represent a graph as an n x n square matrix M


•  n = |V|
•  Mij = 1 means a link from node i to j

2
1 2 3 4
1 0 1 0 1 1

3
2 1 0 1 1
3 1 0 0 0
4 1 0 1 0 4
Adjacency matrices: critique 10

Advantages:
•  Easy mathematical manipulation
•  Iteration over rows and columns corresponds
to computations on outlinks and inlinks

Disadvantages:
•  Lots of zeros for sparse matrices
•  Lots of wasted space
Adjacency lists 11

Take adjacency matrices… and throw away all the


zeros

1 2 3 4
1 0 1 0 1 1: 2, 4
2 1 0 1 1 2: 1, 3, 4
3 1 0 0 0 3: 1
4: 1, 3
4 1 0 1 0
Adjacency lists: critique 12

Advantages:
•  Much more compact representation
•  Easy to compute over outlinks

Disadvantages:
•  Much more difficult to compute over inlinks
Social graphs 13
14
Social graphs

•  Asymmetric follow
relationship: very
skewed graphs

•  Very valuable “interest


graphs”

•  Huge graphs:
15
What can networks tell us?

•  The strength of weak ties [Granovetter ’73]

•  Motivating question: How do people find


new jobs?
•  Through acquaintances rather than close friends
•  Surprising fact: discovery is enabled by weak ties

•  Understanding structure affords deep insights

•  Interplay between sociology and graph theory


16
Triadic Closure

Question: What are the mechanisms by which node arrive and depart
and by which edges form and vanish?

BC closes
the triangle

If two people in a social network have a friend in common, then there is


an increased likelihood that they will become friends themselves at some
point in the future
17
Triadic Closure

Over time…

… new edges are forming.

But not all due to triadic closure (e.g. DG)


18
Clustering Coefficient

•  The probability that two randomly selected friends


of A are friends with each other.
•  The fraction of pairs of A’s friends that are
connected to each other by edges.
•  For node A:
•  at a) 1/6
•  at b) 1/2
•  The more strongly triadic closure is operating in
the neighborhood of the node, the higher the
clustering coefficient will tend to be.
Reasons for Triadic Clousure 19

•  Opportunity

•  Trust

•  Incentive
20
Strength of weak ties

•  Definition: a bridge in a graph is an edge whose


removal disconnects the endpoints.

Bridges are presumably extremely rare in real


social networks!
21
Strength of weak ties

•  Definition: a local bridge in a graph is an edge


whose endpoints have no common neighbor.
22
Types of edges

•  Structural approach:
•  Local bridges or not

Challenge: how to link them ?

•  Interpersonal approach:
•  Weak or strong
23
Strong Triadic Closure

•  Strong Triadic Closure Property: if the node


has strong ties to two neighbors, then these
neighbors must have at least a weak tie between
them.
Local bridges and weak ties 24

•  Claim: If a node A in a network satisfies the


Strong Triadic Closure Property and is
involved in at least two strong ties, then
any local bridge it is involved in must be a
weak tie.

•  Consequence: all local bridges are


weak ties!
Strength of weak ties 25
26
Strength of Weak Ties

•  Discovery is enabled by weak ties


•  Surprising strength of weak ties!

•  Simple structural model explains this


cleanly

•  Applies to Twitter/Facebook
Tie strength on Facebook 27
Tie strength on Twitter 28

•  Stronger…
•  Directed tweets: @someone
•  … and weaker ties
•  Followers

•  The number of strong ties remains


relatively modest
•  Bellow 50 even for users with over 1000
followers.

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