Timezone: »

 
Poster
Network Diffusions via Neural Mean-Field Dynamics
Shushan He · Hongyuan Zha · Xiaojing Ye

Thu Dec 10 09:00 AM -- 11:00 AM (PST) @ Poster Session 5 #1583
in Poster Session 6 »

We propose a novel learning framework based on neural mean-field dynamics for inference and estimation problems of diffusion on networks. Our new framework is derived from the Mori-Zwanzig formalism to obtain an exact evolution of the node infection probabilities, which renders a delay differential equation with memory integral approximated by learnable time convolution operators, resulting in a highly structured and interpretable RNN. Directly using cascade data, our framework can jointly learn the structure of the diffusion network and the evolution of infection probabilities, which are cornerstone to important downstream applications such as influence maximization. Connections between parameter learning and optimal control are also established. Empirical study shows that our approach is versatile and robust to variations of the underlying diffusion network models, and significantly outperform existing approaches in accuracy and efficiency on both synthetic and real-world data.

Author Information

Shushan He (Georgia State University)
Hongyuan Zha (Georgia Tech)
Xiaojing Ye (Georgia State University)

More from the Same Authors