The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Department of Computer Science


PhD Thesis Defence


"Characterizing Web Linking and Usage with Hierarchical Models"

By

Mr. Wenwu Lou


Abstract

After a decade of rapid growth the World Wide Web, or the Web for short,
has become a centerpiece for information exchange for the mankind. The
rise of the Web has encouraged a surge of research activities that seek to
measure and understand the Web in terms of its structural properties,
evolutionary dynamics and navigational patterns.

The primary goal of this work is to advance the existing studies of the
Web using a graph model that incorporates the inherent hierarchical
organization of the Web, a characteristic which has been often overlooked
in previous studies. We start by proposing a colored graph model for the
Web, which captures both the explicit hyperlink structure and the latent
hierarchical organization of the Web at the same time. We then present
empirical findings that give evidence to the influence of the latent
structure on the formation of explicit hyperlink structure of the Web. We
further provide theoretical explanations to these findings, using a new
class of random graph models in which the evolution of the Web is related
to the latent structures intrinsic to the Web itself. Finally, in the
context of Web proxy mining, we show that the latent hierarchical
structure of the Web also imposes regularities in Web users' navigational
behavior, e.g., locality in Web reference, and creates new opportunities
for improving effectiveness and scalability of Web usage-mining algorithms
and applications.

The Web represents just one example of a wide variety of systems in the
real world that have latent classes or hierarchical structures embedded in
their web-like existence in nature. In this large context, this research
establishes a clean framework for incorporating latent structures in
measuring, understanding, and therefore simulating the structural
properties and evolutionary dynamics of these systems, such as the
Internet, citation networks and social networks.


Date:			Friday, 3 June 2005

Time:			2:30p.m.-4:30p.m.

Venue:			Room 2302
			Lifts 17-18

Chairman:		Prof. Xudong Xiao (PHYS)

Committee Members:	Prof. Qiang Yang (Supervisor)
                     	Prof. Dik-Lun Lee
                        Prof. Frederick Lochovsky
                        Prof. Hong Xue (BICH)
                        Prof. David Wai-Lok Cheung (Comp. Sci., HKU)
			Prof. Jeffrey Xu Yu (Sys. Engg. & Engg. Mgmt., CUHK)


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