Alternating nonnegative least squares-incorporated regularized symmetric latent factor analysis for undirected weighted networks

Abstract

An Undirected Weighted Network (UWN) can be precisely quantified as an adjacency matrix whose inherent characteristics are fully considered in a Symmetric Nonnegative Latent Factor (SNLF) model for its good representation accuracy. However, an SNLF model uses a sole latent factor matrix to precisely describe the topological characteristic of a UWN, i.e., symmetry, thereby impairing its representation learning ability. Aiming at addressing this issue, this paper proposes an Alternating nonnegative least squares-incorporated Regularized Symmetric Latent factor analysis (ARSL) model. First of all, equation constraints composed of multiple matrices are built in its learning objective for well describing the symmetry of a UWN. Note that it adopts an L₂-norm-based regularization scheme to relax such constraints for making such a symmetry-aware learning objective solvable. Then, it designs an alternating nonnegative least squares-incorporated algorithm for optimizing its parameters efficiently. Empirical studies on four UWNs demonstrate that an ARSL model outperforms the state-of-the-art models in terms of representation accuracy, as well as achieves promising computational efficiency.