arXiv subjects

Jilong Shi

Publications and source records attributed to Jilong Shi.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Time-Critical Adversarial Influence Blocking Maximization

Adversarial Influence Blocking Maximization (AIBM) aims to select a set of positive seed nodes that propagate synchronously with the known negative seed nodes to counteract their negative influence. Time factor plays a particularly vital role for many AIBM application scenarios. However, the AIBM problem with time constraint remains unexplored. More importantly, existing AIBM studies have not thoroughly investigated the submodularity of the objective function, thereby failing to establish a theoretical approximation guarantee. To address these challenges, firstly, we establish the Time-Critical Adversarial Influence Blocking Maximization (TC-AIBM), which explicitly incorporates time constraint. Then, we provide a theoretical proof of the submodularity of the TC-AIBM objective function under three different tie-breaking rules. Finally, a Bidirectional Influence Sampling (BIS) algorithm is proposed to solve the TC-AIBM problem. Leveraging the monotonicity and submodularity of the objective function, BIS achieves an approximation guarantee of $(1-1/e-ε)(1-ψ)$. Comprehensive experiments on four real-world datasets demonstrate that the proposed BIS algorithm exhibits excellent robustness across various negative seeds, time constraint, and tie-breaking rules, outperforming state-of-the-art baselines. In addition, BIS is up to three orders of magnitude faster than the Greedy algorithm.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2026

Efficient Approximation Algorithms for Fair Influence Maximization under Maximin Constraint

Fair Influence Maximization (FIM) seeks to mitigate disparities in influence across different groups and has recently garnered increasing attention. A widely adopted notion of fairness in FIM is the maximin constraint, which directly requires maximizing the utility (influenced ratio within a group) of the worst-off group. Despite its intuitive formulation, designing efficient algorithms with strong theoretical guarantees remains challenging, as the maximin objective does not satisfy submodularity, a key property for designing approximate algorithms in traditional influence maximization settings. In this paper, we address this challenge by proposing a two-step optimization framework consisting of Inner-group Maximization (IGM) and Across-group Maximization (AGM). We first prove that the influence spread within any individual group remains submodular, enabling effective optimization within groups. Based on this, IGM applies a greedy approach to pick high-quality seeds for each group. In the second step, AGM coordinates seed selection across groups by introducing two strategies: Uniform Selection (US) and Greedy Selection (GS). We prove that AGM-GS holds a $(1-1/e-\varepsilon)$ approximation to the optimal solution when groups are completely disconnected, while AGM-US guarantees a roughly $\frac{1}{m}(1-1/e-\varepsilon)$ lower bound regardless of the group structure, with $m$ denoting the number of groups.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2026

Scalable Fair Influence Blocking Maximization via Approximately Monotonic Submodular Optimization

Influence Blocking Maximization (IBM) aims to select a positive seed set to suppress the spread of negative influence. However, existing IBM methods focus solely on maximizing blocking effectiveness, overlooking fairness across communities. To address this issue, we formalize fairness in IBM and justify Demographic Parity (DP) as a notion that is particularly well aligned with its semantics. Yet enforcing DP is computationally challenging: prior work typically formulates DP as a Linear Programming (LP) problem and relies on costly solvers, rendering them impractical for large-scale networks. In this paper, we propose a DP-aware objective while maintaining an approximately monotonic submodular structure, enabling efficient optimization with theoretical guarantees. We integrate this objective with blocking effectiveness through a tunable scalarization, yielding a principled fairness-effectiveness trade-offs. Building on this structure, we develop CELF-R, an accelerated seed selection algorithm that exploits approximate submodularity to eliminate redundant evaluations and naturally supports Pareto front construction. Extensive experiments demonstrate that CELF-R consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, achieving a $(1-1/e-ψ)$-approximate solution while maintaining high efficiency.

cs.DS↗