A Generic Model for Multidimensional Temporal Social Network

Abstract—A comprehensive generic model for multidi-mensional, temporal social network is proposed in the paper. It covers three main dimensions: layers, time windows and social groups. All the dimensions share the same set of nodes corresponding to social entities, usually individuals. Layers correspond to different types of relationships between hu-mans, e.g. social and semantic, that can be derived from different human activities in IT systems; time windows re-flect temporal profile of the social network, whereas groups (social communities) are sets of similar humans. The inter-section of all dimensions is called a view; it represents the statement of a single social cluster (group) with connections of only one type (from a single layer) and with the snapshot for a given period. Views can be aggregated by one, two or even all three dimensions simultaneously using filtering of dimension instances. Apart from description of the multidi-mensional model, also its applicability is considered in the paper.. Index Terms—social network, multidimensional social network, multi-layered social network, temporal social net-work, network model, social groups modelling 1