A particle swarm optimization approach for handling network social balance problem

Social balance property is an eminent feature of social networks. Many creative efforts concerning social balance have been done. This paper presents an optimization idea to solve the social balance of complex social networks. A single objective optimization model integrating the network balance and the community properties is proposed towards the social balance problem. A discrete particle swarm optimization algorithm is introduced to solve the proposed optimization model. Extensive experiments on synthetic and real-world signed networks demonstrate that the proposed model does make sense and the introduced optimization algorithm is promissing for solving the social balance problem.