Lectures, CS 598-GA, Spring 2026

All lectures will be posted at least 24 hours in advance. You are expected to read these before coming to clas.

• Jan 20: Introduction to course (PPTX) (PDF)
• Jan 22: Examining the resolution limit (PPTX) (PDF)
• Jan 27: Optimizing under the Constant Potts Model (PPTX) (PDF)
• Jan 29: Post-processing to improve connectivity (PPTX) (PDF)
• Feb 3: Issues in evaluating community detection methods (PPTX) (PDF)
• Feb 5: EC-SBM (Invited speaker: The-Anh Vu-Le)
• Feb 10: Cluster ensembles (PPTX) (PDF)
• Feb 12: Community search and extraction (PPTX) (PDF)
• Feb 17: Overlapping communities (PPTX) (PDF)
• Feb 19: Applications of community detection (overview pptx) (overview PDF) (MAGUS pptx) (MAGUS pdf)
• Feb 24: 2 students present papers:
  • Haotian (Poulin, V. and Theberge, F., 2019. Ensemble clustering for graphs: comparisons and applications. Applied Network Science, 4(1), pp.1-13.) (link)
  • Minhyuk (Hussain et al., Parallel median consensus clustering in complex networks. Scientific Reports, 15(1):3788, 2025) (link)
• Feb 26: 2 students present papers:
  • Patrick: Lechekhab, M., Pasadakis, D. and Schenk, O., 2024, September. Multilevel Diffusion Based Spectral Graph Clustering. In 2024 IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing Conference (HPEC) (pp. 1-7). IEEE. (link)
  • Yuren: Deshpande, Y., Sen, S., Montanari, A. and Mossel, E., 2018. Contextual stochastic block models. Advances in neural information processing systems, 31. (link)
• March 3: 2 students present papers:
  • Yefei: Community Detection on Networks with Ricci Flow (link) (presentation video) (presentation PDF)
  • Om: Bayan Algorithm: Detecting Communities in Networks Through Exact and Approximate Optimization of Modularity (link)
• March 5: Preparation for midterm
• March 10: Midterm (in class)
• March 12: Review of midterm
• March 14-22: Spring break
• March 24 Hanghang Tong (UIUC): Graph neural networks and SLOG: An Inductive Spectral Graph Neural Network Beyond Polynomial Filter
• March 26: Theodore Faust: Inference of Hierarchical Core-Periphery Structure in Temporal Networks
• March 31: Farouk Harb (UIUC): Corporate needs you to find the difference: Revisiting submodular and supermodular ratio optimization problems
• April 2: C. Seshadhri (UCSC): Covering a graph with dense subgraph families, via triangle-rich sets.
• April 7: Dimosthenis Pasadakis (Switzerland): Multiway p-spectral graph cuts on Grassmann manifolds (talk presentation)
• April 9: Julian Shun (MIT) Parallel Batch-Dynamic Algorithms for k-Core Decomposition and Related Graph Problems (link) and Parallel k-Core Decomposition with Batched Updates and Asynchronous Reads (link).
• April 14: Jiaxuan You (UIUC) Neural Subgraph Matching (link) and Representation Learning for Frequent Subgraph Mining (link)
• April 16: Ariful Azad (Texas A&M) Parallel median consensus clustering in complex networks
• April 21: David Gleich (Purdue): "The confusing conundrum of communities and clustering in complex connection collections". He will talk about his SIAM Review paper, "Flow-based algorithms for improving clusters: a unifying framework, software, and performance, at (link), with a focus on Parts 1 and 3.
• April 23: Mahantesh Halappanavar (PNNL) (paper TBD)
• April 28: Student presentations of course projects: Haotian, Patrick, and Yefei
• April 30: Student presentations of course projects: Yuren, Minhyuk, and Om
• May 5: Last day of class