Variational Inference for Stochastic Block Models From Sampled Data
研究了网络抽样中未观测到的节点对如何影响随机块模型的推断，提出了处理随机缺失和非随机缺失的变分EM算法，并提供了R包。
This article deals with nonobserved dyads during the sampling of a network and consecutive issues in the inference of the stochastic block model (SBM). We review sampling designs and recover missing at random (MAR) and not missing at random (NMAR) conditions for the SBM. We introduce variants of the variational EM algorithm for inferring the SBM under various sampling designs (MAR and NMAR) all available as an R package. Model selection criteria based on integrated classification likelihood are derived for selecting both the number of blocks and the sampling design. We investigate the accuracy and the range of applicability of these algorithms with simulations. We explore two real-world networks from ethnology (seed circulation network) and biology (protein–protein interaction network), where the interpretations considerably depend on the sampling designs considered. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.