Network representation learning: models, methods and applications

With the rise of large-scale social networks, network mining has become an important sub-domain of data mining. Generating an efficient network representation is one important challenge in applying machine learning to network data. Recently, representation learning methods are widely used in various domains to generate low dimensional latent features from complex high dimensional data. A significant amount of research effort is made in the past few years to generate node representations from graph-structured data using representation learning methods. Here, we provide a detailed study of the latest advancements in the field of network representation learning (also called network embedding). We first discuss the basic concepts and models of network embedding. Further, we build a taxonomy of network embedding methods based on the type of networks and review the major research works that come under each category. We then cover the major datasets used in network embedding research and describe the major applications of network embedding with respect to various network mining tasks. Finally, we provide various directions for future work which enhance further research.