Predicting the Evolution of Social Networks: Optimal Time Window Size for Increased Accuracy

This study investigates the data preparation process for predictive modelling of the evolution of complex networked systems, using an e-mail based social network as an example. In particular, we focus on the selection of optimal time window size for building a time series of network snapshots, which forms the input of chosen predictive models. We formulate this issue as a constrained multi-objective optimization problem, where the constraints are specific to a particular application and predictive algorithm used. The optimization process is guided by the proposed Windows Incoherence Measures, defined as averaged Jensen-Shannon divergences between distributions of a range of network characteristics for the individual time windows and the network covering the whole considered period of time. The experiments demonstrate that the informed choice of window size according to the proposed approach allows to boost the prediction accuracy of all examined prediction algorithms, and can also be used for optimally defining the prediction problems if some flexibility in their definition is allowed.