An Issue in the Martingale Analysis of the Influence Maximization Algorithm IMM

TL;DR

This paper identifies a subtle flaw in the martingale analysis of the IMM influence maximization algorithm and proposes minor fixes that slightly impact its runtime.

Contribution

It uncovers a subtle issue in IMM's analysis and offers practical workarounds requiring minimal algorithm modifications.

Findings

Identified a subtle flaw in IMM's martingale analysis.

Proposed two minor fixes to address the issue.

Fixes incur slight runtime penalties.

Abstract

This paper explains a subtle issue in the martingale analysis of the IMM algorithm, a state-of-the-art influence maximization algorithm. Two workarounds are proposed to fix the issue, both requiring minor changes on the algorithm and incurring a slight penalty on the running time of the algorithm.