Analyzing Rating Data and Modeling Dynamic Behaviors of Users Based on the Bayesian Network

With the rapid development of Web2.0 and the e-commerce applications, large-scale online rating data are generated, which makes it possible to analyze users behavior data and model user behaviors. Considering the dynamic property of rating data and user behaviors, in this paper we adopt the Bayesian network with a latent variable (abbreviated as latent variable model) as the framework for describing mutual dependencies and corresponding uncertainties, and then construct the model that can reflect not only the uncertainty of dependence relationships among attributes in rating data but also the dynamic property of user behaviors. We first adopt the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) as the coincidence measure between candidate model and rating data, and then propose the scoring-and-search based method to construct the latent variable model. Then, we give the method for filling latent variable values based on the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. Further, we propose the method for constructing the latent variable model between adjacent time slices based on conditional mutual information and irreversibility of time series. Finally, experimental results established on the MovieLens data set verify the efficiency and effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper.