On Triangular versus Edge Representations --- Towards Scalable Modeling of Networks

In this paper, we argue for representing networks as a bag of {\it triangular motifs}, particularly for important network problems that current model-based approaches handle poorly due to computational bottlenecks incurred by using edge representations. Such approaches require both 1-edges and 0-edges (missing edges) to be provided as input, and as a consequence, approximate inference algorithms for these models usually require \Omega(N 2) time per iteration, precluding their application to larger real-world networks. In contrast, triangular modeling requires less computation, while providing equivalent or better inference quality. A triangular motif is a vertex triple containing 2 or 3 edges, and the number of such motifs is \Theta(\sum_{i}D_{i} {2}) (where D_i is the degree of vertex i), which is much smaller than N 2 for low-maximum-degree networks. Using this representation, we develop a novel mixed-membership network model and approximate inference algorithm suitable for large networks with low max-degree.