Efficient Metaheuristic Approaches for Exploration of Online Social Networks

This study presents a novel approach in analyzing big data from social networks based on optimization techniques for efficient exploration of information flow within a network. Three mathematical models are proposed, which use similar assumptions on a social network and different objective functions reflecting different search goals. Since social networks usually involve a large number of users, solving the proposed models to optimality is out of reach for exact methods due to memory or time limits. Therefore, three metaheuristic methods are designed to solve problems of large-scaled dimensions: a robust Evolutionary Algorithm and two hybrid methods that represent a combination of Evolutionary Algorithm with Local Search and Tabu Search methods, respectively. The results of computational experiments indicate that the proposed metaheuristic methods are efficient in detecting trends and linking behavior within a social network, which is important for providing a support to decision-making activities in a limited amount of time.