Towards Real-Time Counting Shortest Cycles on Dynamic Graphs: A Hub Labeling Approach

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hub labeling approach for real-time counting of shortest cycles in dynamic graphs, significantly improving query speed and update efficiency for large-scale graph analytics.

Contribution

It proposes a novel 2-hop labeling algorithm called CSC for efficient shortest cycle counting and dynamic index updates in evolving graphs.

Findings

CSC enables query evaluation in a few hundred microseconds.

It improves query efficiency by two orders of magnitude over baseline methods.

The update algorithm effectively handles edge insertions and deletions.

Abstract

With the ever-increasing prevalence of graph data in a wide spectrum of applications, it becomes essential to analyze structural trends in dynamic graphs on a continual basis. The shortest cycle is a fundamental pattern in graph analytics. In this paper, we investigate the problem of shortest cycle counting for a given vertex in dynamic graphs in light of its applicability to problems such as fraud detection. To address such queries efficiently, we propose a 2-hop labeling based algorithm called Counting Shortest Cycle (CSC for short). Additionally, techniques for dynamically updating the CSC index are explored. Comprehensive experiments are conducted to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our method. In particular, CSC enables query evaluation in a few hundreds of microseconds for graphs with millions of edges, and improves query efficiency by two orders of magnitude when compared to the baseline solutions. Also, the update algorithm could efficiently cope with edge insertions (deletions).