SNOC: Streaming Network Node Classification

Many real-world networks are featured with dynamic changes, such as new nodes and edges, and modification of the node content. Because changes are continuously introduced to the network in a streaming fashion, we refer to such dynamic networks as streaming networks. In this paper, we propose a new classification method for streaming networks, namely streaming network node classification (SNOC). For streaming networks, the essential challenge is to properly capture the dynamic changes of the node content and node interactions to support node classification. While streaming networks are dynamically evolving, for a short temporal period, a subset of salient features are essentially tied to the network content and structures, and therefore can be used to characterize the network for classification. To achieve this goal, we propose to carry out streaming network feature selection (SNF) from the network, and use selected features as gauge to classify unlabeled nodes. A Laplacian based quality criterion is proposed to guide the node classification, where the Laplacian matrix is generated based on node labels and structures. Node classification is achieved by finding the class that results in the minimal gauging value with respect to the selected features. By frequently updating the features selected from the network, node classification can quickly adapt to the changes in the network for maximal performance gain. Experiments demonstrate that SNOC is able to capture changes in network structures and node content, and outperforms baseline approaches with significant performance gain.