Social network data formal method

The basic idea of a social network is very simple. A social network is a set of actors (or points, or
nodes, or agents) that may have relationships (or edges, or ties) with one another.
Networks can have few or many actors, and one or more kinds of relations between pairs of
actors. To build a useful understanding of a social network, a complete and rigorous description of a
pattern of social relationships is a necessary starting point for analysis.

One reason for using mathematical and graphical techniques in social network analysis is to
represent the descriptions of networks compactly and systematically. This also enables us to use
computers to store and manipulate the information quickly and more accurately than we can by hand.
For small populations of actors (e.g. the people in a neighborhood, or the business firms in an
industry), we can describe the pattern of social relationships that connect the actors rather completely
and effectively using words.

A related reason for using (particularly mathematical) formal methods for representing social
networks is that mathematical representations allow us to apply computers to the analysis of
network data. Why this is important will become clearer as we learn more about how structural
analysis of social networks occurs. Suppose, for a simple example, we had information about trade-
flows of 50 different commodities (e.g. coffee, sugar, tea, copper, bauxite) among the 170 or so
nations of the world system in a given year. Here, the 170 nations can be thought of as actors or
nodes, and the amount of each commodity exported from each nation to each of the other 169 can be
thought of as the strength of a directed tie from the focal nation to the other.

for using formal methods (mathematics and graphs) for representing social network data is that the
techniques of graphing and the rules of mathematics themselves suggest things that we might look
for in our data — things that might not have occurred to us if we presented our data using
descriptions in words. Again, allow me a simple example.

Suppose we were describing the structure of close friendship in a group of four people: Bob, Carol,
Ted, and Alice. This is easy enough to do with words. Suppose that Bob likes Carol and Ted, but not
Alice; Carol likes Ted, but neither Bob nor Alice; Ted likes all three of the other members of the group;
and Alice likes only Ted (this description should probably strike you as being a description of a very
unusual social structure).

Diffusion in social networks

Diffusion in social networks is the process by which information, ideas, or behaviours spread through
a network of interconnected individuals. It is a complex phenomenon that is influenced by a variety of
factors, including the structure of the network, the characteristics of the individuals involved, and the
nature of the information or behaviour being diffused.
How does diffusion occur in social networks?
There are several different ways that diffusion can occur in social networks. Some of the most
common mechanisms include:

Homophily: People are more likely to adopt information or behaviours from people who are similar to
them. This is because people are more likely to trust and be influenced by people who they see as
being similar to them.
Social contagion: People are more likely to adopt information or behaviours if they see that others
are adopting them. This is because people tend to conform to the norms of the group they are a part
of.
Opinion leaders: Some individuals, known as opinion leaders, are more influential than others.
These individuals are more likely to be adopted by others, and they can play a key role in diffusing
information or behaviours.

Factors that influence diffusion in social networks

There are a number of factors that can influence the rate and extent of diffusion in social networks.
These factors include:

Network structure: The structure of the network can have a significant impact on the diffusion of
information. Networks with a high degree of clustering, meaning that individuals are connected to
people who are also connected to each other, tend to be more conducive to diffusion than networks
with a low degree of clustering.

Network density: The density of the network, which is the proportion of possible connections that are
actually present, can also influence diffusion. Networks with a high density tend to be more conducive
to diffusion than networks with a low density

Network heterogeneity: The heterogeneity of the network, which is the variation in the number of
connections that individuals have, can also influence diffusion. Networks with a high degree of
heterogeneity tend to be more conducive to diffusion than networks with a low degree of
heterogeneity.

Channel of communication: The channel of communication through which the information or

behaviour is diffused can also influence its rate of adoption. Information or behaviours that are
diffused through face-to-face communication tend to be adopted more quickly than those that are
diffused through mass media.
Applications of diffusion in social networks

Diffusion in social networks has a wide range of applications, including:

Marketing and advertising: Companies can use diffusion models to identify and target influential
individuals who can help them spread their products or messages to a wider audience.
Public health: Public health officials can use diffusion models to track the spread of diseases and to
develop effective interventions.
Social policy: Social policymakers can use diffusion models to understand how new ideas and
behaviours spread through society and to develop policies that promotes positive social change.
Product adoption: Companies can use diffusion models to understand how new products are
adopted by consumers and to develop strategies to accelerate adoption.
Idea diffusion: Organizations can use diffusion models to understand how new ideas spread within
their organizations and to develop strategies to promote the adoption of new ideas.
Political campaigns: Political campaigns can use diffusion models to understand how their
messages are spreading among voters and to develop strategies to reach more voters.

PAGE RANK CONCEPT IN SOCIAL NETWORK

ANALYSIS.
PageRank is a concept originally developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of
Google, in the late 1990s. It is an algorithm used by search engines to rank web pages in their search
results. The underlying idea is to assign a numerical value, called a PageRank score, to each web
page based on the number and quality of links pointing to it. Pages with higher PageRank scores are
considered more authoritative and are more likely to appear at the top of search results.

In the context of social networking analysis, the PageRank concept has been adapted to evaluate the
importance or influence of nodes (individuals or entities) within a social network. Instead of web
pages, nodes in a social network are assigned PageRank scores based on their connections and
interactions with other nodes.

How PageRank can be applied to social networking analysis:

● Nodes as Pages: In this context, nodes represent individuals, entities, or accounts within a
social network, such as users on a platform like Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

● Edges as Links: The connections or interactions between nodes, such as follows, friend
requests, mentions, or interactions, are treated as links. These interactions represent the
relationships between individuals in the social network.
 ● Calculating PageRank: The PageRank algorithm is used to calculate the influence of each
node in the network. It takes into account both the quantity and quality of connections. Nodes
with many connections from other influential nodes are considered more important.

● Iterative Process: Like in web page ranking, PageRank in social networks is often computed
through an iterative process. The PageRank scores are recalculated multiple times until they
converge to stable values.

● Damping Factor: A damping factor is introduced to account for the likelihood of a user
randomly jumping from one node to another, rather than following a link. This factor helps
prevent nodes with a large number of connections from dominating the rankings.

● Application in Social Influence Analysis: PageRank in social networks can be used to identify
influential nodes who have a significant impact on the overall network. This information can be
valuable for various purposes, such as targeted marketing, identifying opinion leaders, or
understanding information flow within the network.

● Community Detection: PageRank can also be used in combination with community detection
algorithms to identify clusters or groups of nodes that are tightly connected within the network.

COMMUNITY DETECTION AND MINING

Community detection and mining is a crucial aspect of social network analysis, focusing on identifying
cohesive groups or communities within a network. These communities represent groups of individuals
with strong interconnections and shared attributes, such as interests, values, or behaviours.
Understanding the structure and dynamics of these communities is essential for various applications,
including social science research, marketing, and network security.

Benefits of community detection:

1. Revealing Hidden Structures: It unveils the underlying organization of social networks, providing
insights into the social dynamics at play.
2. Understanding Group Behaviour: It enables the study of group-level phenomena, such as
information diffusion, opinion formation, and collective action.
3. Targeted Marketing and Recommendations: It facilitates identifying potential customer segments
and tailoring marketing strategies accordingly.
4. Anomaly Detection and Security: It helps identify suspicious or anomalous groups that may
indicate fraud, spam, or malicious activities.

Community Detection Methods

Numerous algorithms have been developed for community detection, each with its
strengths and limitations. Some common approaches include:
1. Modularity Optimization: Algorithms like Louvain and Leiden partition the network into
communities that maximize modularity, a measure of the quality of a community structure.
2. Spectral Clustering: Algorithms like Ratio Cut and Normalized Cut utilize spectral techniques to
identify communities based on the network's eigenvector structure.
3. Hierarchical Clustering: Algorithms like Girvan-Newman and Label Propagation iteratively merge
or split nodes based on their connectivity and similarity.
4. Density-Based Clustering: Algorithms like DBSCAN and OPTICS identify communities based on
the density of connections around nodes.
5. Overlapping Community Detection: Algorithms like Clique Percolation and Cluster- Affiliation
Graph Model allow nodes to belong to multiple communities.

Applications of Community Detection

1. Social Science Research: Identifying communities in social networks, such as friendship groups
or online communities, helps understand social dynamics and behaviour.
2. Marketing and Recommendation Systems: Identifying customer segments based on their social
connections and interests enables targeted marketing and personalized recommendations.
3. Fraud Detection: Detecting anomalous communities in financial networks or online platforms can
identify potential fraud or malicious activities.
4. Epidemiology: Identifying disease clusters in social networks can aid in disease control and
outbreak prediction.
5. Urban Planning and Community Development: Understanding community structures in urban
areas can inform urban planning and community development strategies. Challenges in Community
Detection.

Community detection faces several challenges:

1. Defining Communities: There is no universal definition of a community, making it challenging to

evaluate the quality of community detection algorithms.
2. Handling Large Networks: Traditional algorithms may become computationally expensive for
large-scale networks.
3. Overlapping Communities: Many algorithms assume disjoint communities, while real-world
networks often exhibit overlapping memberships.
4. Dynamic Networks: Networks often evolve over time, making it challenging to identify stable
communities.
5. Diversity of Networks: Different network types may require different community detection
approaches.

Online tracking
Online tracking is the collection and analysis of data about people’s online activity. This data can be
collected from a variety of sources, including websites, apps, social media accounts, and internet
service providers (ISPs).

Types of Online Tracking: -There are several different types of online tracking, including:
 ● Cookies: Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored on your computer by websites that
you visit. They can be used to track your activity on a website, or across multiple websites.
● Web beacons: Web beacons are small images that are embedded on websites. They can be
used to track when you visit a website, and to collect other information, such as your IP address.
● Tracking pixels: Tracking pixels are similar to web beacons, but they are typically used
in emails. They can be used to track when you open an email, and to collect other information, such
as your IP address.
● Device fingerprinting: Device fingerprinting is a technique that is used to identify unique devices
based on their characteristics. This information can be used to track users across different
websites and apps.
● Social media tracking: Social media platforms collect a lot of data about their users,
including their demographic information, interests, and activities. This data can be used for
advertising and personalization.

Computer Network Elements:

The Elements basically used in a computer network are known as Computer Network Elements
(CNEs). There are basically 4 computer networking elements:

1. Computers
2. Transmission medium (wired or wireless)
3. Protocols
4. Network software

Computers:
A computer is a digital device that is able to accept data as input, a process that data using
predefined algorithms and data structures, and perform tasks as output – that includes the
transformation of raw data into information, then knowledge, and finally insight about the data’s
domain.

Transmission medium:
The means through which we send our data from one place to another is known as the Transmission
medium.
Signals are used to represent data by computers and other telecommunication devices. The signals
(i.e., data or information) are transmitted in the form of electromagnetic energy from one device to
another.
Protocols:
There are some defined rules and conventions for communication between network devices.
These are called Protocols. Network protocols include mechanisms for devices to identify and make
connections with each other, as well as formatting rules that specify how data is packaged into sent
and received messages.
Protocols may be of 3 types:

1. Internet Protocols
 2. Wireless Network Protocols
3. Network Routing Protocols

Network Software:
Network software is a foundational element for any network. This type of software helps
administrators deploy, manage and monitor a network. The traditional networks are made up of
specialized hardware, such as routers and switches, that bundle the networking software into the
solution.

Link Analysis in Modern Web Search:

Link analysis in modern web search, when viewed through the lens of social network analysis,
involves examining the relationships and connections between web pages as if they were nodes in a
social network. Link analysis is a critical component of modern web search and plays a crucial role in
various contexts, including social network analysis. In the context of web search and social network
analysis, link analysis primarily refers to the examination of links between web pages, documents, or
entities to understand their relationships, relevance, and authority. This article will explain link
analysis in the context of social network analysis, with a focus on its application in web search.

Link analysis is widely used in modern web search and has various applications, including:
Search Engine Ranking: Search engines use link analysis, like PageRank, to rank web pages for
search results, ensuring that more relevant and authoritative pages appear at the top.
Recommendation Systems: Social networks and content platforms use link analysis to recommend
friends, posts, or content to users based on their connections and interests.
Fraud Detection: Link analysis is used to detect fraudulent activities in financial transactions or
online platforms by identifying suspicious link patterns.
Network Analysis: In social sciences, link analysis helps understand the relationships between
individuals or groups within a network and how information or influence flows.
Content Curation: Content aggregators use link analysis to curate and organize content by
analyzing links and references between articles, blog posts, or news items.

Network structure in network analysis

In network analysis, the network structure refers to the arrangement of and relations between the
nodes and edges in a network. It is a key aspect of network analysis as it can provide insights into the
overall behavior of the network and its individual components. Here are some key elements of
network structure:
● Nodes: These are the individual entities in the network. They can represent anything from
people in a social network, to computers in a network infrastructure, to neurons in a neural
network.
● Edges: These represent the relationships or connections between the nodes. They can be
directed (one-way relationship) or undirected (two-way relationship). The number of edges
connected to the node is connected the degree of the node.
 ● Network Topology: This refers to the overall shape or structure of the network. Network
topology can be regular (every node has the same number of connections), random (edges
between nodes are formed randomly), scale-free (some nodes have many more
connections than others), among others.

● Clusters or Communities: These groups of nodes are more densely connected with each
other any other node in the network. Identifying these can be important for understanding
the structure and behavior of the network.

● Centrality Measures: These are metrics used to identify the most important nodes in the
network. They can be based on the degree of the node, its closeness to other nodes, or its
role in connecting different parts of the network.

● Network Dynamics: This refers to how the network changes over time. It can involve
studying how nodes and edges are added or removed, how clusters form and dissolve, or
how the centrality of nodes changes over time.

Applications of network analysis

The following are different applications:

● Sociology: Network analysis can be used to understand social structures and relationships.
For example, it can be used to study social networks to understand how information or
behaviors spread through a population, or to identify key individuals or groups within a
community.

● Biology: In biology, network analysis can be used to understand the interactions between
different biological entities. For example, it can be used to study protein-protein interaction
networks, gene regulatory networks, or ecological networks of species interactions.

● Computer Science: In computer science, network analysis can be used to understand the
structure of the internet and social media networks. For example, it can be used to study the
structure of the web, the spread of information or misinformation on social media, or the
structure and growth of online communities.

● Business: In business, network analysis can be used to understand relationships between

different business entities. For example, it can be used to study supply chain networks,
organizational networks, or market networks to identify key players, understand the flow of
goods or information, or identify vulnerabilities or opportunities.