不确定环境下的社会网络影响扩散序贯决策优化研究

项目名称： 不确定环境下的社会网络影响扩散序贯决策优化研究

项目编号： No.71471038

项目类型： 面上项目

立项/批准年度： 2015

项目学科： 管理科学

项目作者： 倪耀东

作者单位： 对外经济贸易大学

项目金额： 60万元

中文摘要： 在社会网络中存在着各种形式的影响的扩散现象，如新产品的口碑扩散等。社会网络影响扩散优化问题是指在社会网络中如何投放影响以使得影响的扩散效果最优，该问题在市场营销等多个领域有着重要的应用。在对社会网络中的影响扩散进行优化时，决策者经常遇到需要制定序贯决策的情况，而同时又需要面对各种普遍存在的不确定性，如影响投放不确定性和状态观测不确定性等。因此，不确定环境下的社会网络影响扩散序贯决策优化问题是一个值得研究的课题。本项目基于马尔可夫决策过程理论，建立一系列不确定环境下社会网络影响扩散序贯决策优化模型，并分析所建立优化模型的若干性质。进一步，为快速有效地求解所建立的优化模型，设计嵌入随机模拟、遗传算法等技术的一系列在线算法。在应用方面，将所建立的模型与方法应用于解决病毒式营销领域的实际问题。本项目力求建立一套不确定环境下的社会网络影响扩散序贯决策优化理论和方法，兼具学术理论价值和实用价值。

中文关键词： 马尔科夫决策过程；社会网络；影响扩散；在线算法；病毒式营销

英文摘要： The diffusion of various types of influence exists in social networks, e.g., the word-of-mouth diffusion of new products. The problem of optimizing the influence diffusion in a social network asks how to trigger a process of influence diffusion in a social network such that the result of the diffusion is optimized, which has found important applications in a wide variety of disciplines, e.g., marketing. When optimizing the influence diffusion in a social network, the decision maker usually needs to make sequential decisions, and at the mean while, needs to deal with the ubiquitous uncertainties such as the uncertainty in the trigger of the influence and the uncertainty in the observation of the state of the network. Therefore, it is worth studying the problem of sequential decision optimization for influence diffusion in a social network under uncertain environments. Based on the theory of Markov decision processes, this research will formulate a series of sequential decision optimization models for optimizing the influence diffusion in a social network under uncertain environments, and analyze a number of properties of the models we present. Further, in order to solve the proposed models effectively and efficiently, we will design a series of online algorithms, in which techniques such as stochastic simulation and genetic algorithm are embedded. We will finally apply the proposed models and algorithms to the real problems in the area of viral marketing. This research aims at developing a theory and methodology for sequential decision optimization for influence diffusion in a social network under uncertain environments, which is of great theoretical significance and practical value.

英文关键词： Markov decision process;social network;influence diffusion;online algorithm;viral marketing