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Publications

Publications by Mariana Curado Malta

2026

$PathSAGE$: Identifying Influential Spreaders in Temporal Networks With $GraphSAGE$

Authors
Sadhu, S; Mallick, D; Namtirtha, A; Malta, MC; Dutta, A;

Publication
IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computational Intelligence

Abstract

2025

LP-GRU Model: A Graph Analytics Approach to Detect Misinformation Infiltrators in Online Communities

Authors
Karmakar, D; Malta, MC; Maji, G; Dutta, A;

Publication
International Conference on Communication Systems and Networks, COMSNETS

Abstract
Fighting the propagation of misinformation within a social media group or community by focusing on identifying dishonest members who deliberately try to quash any constructive social movement is very challenging because such people use advanced tactics to create division and doubt by manipulating information. The present research aims to develop a hybrid heuristic model to identify those who intentionally spread misleading information on social media to jeopardize a social movement. We frame this issue under the heading of Graph Semi-supervised Learning (GSSL), and we propose a hybrid model that falls under the heuristic approach, called Label Propagation-Gated Recurrent Unit (LP-GRU). LP-GRU can effectively identify perpetrators of disinformation within social communities by fusing community structure from the Label Propagation algorithm with behavioral patterns identified by GRU. Compared to previous heuristic approaches, we achieve up to 76% accuracy when using the LP-GRU model on augmented semi-synthetic social network data. © 2025 IEEE.

2015

A DCAP for the social and solidarity economy

Authors
Malta, Mariana Curado; Baptista, Ana Alice; Parente, Cristina;

Publication

Abstract
This article presents a work-in-progress version of a Dublin Core Application Profile (DCAP) developed to serve the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE). Studies revealed that this community is interested in implementing both internal interoperability between their Web platforms to build a global SSE e-marketplace, and external interoperability among their Web platforms and external ones. The Dublin Core Application Profile for Social and Solidarity Economy (DCAP-SSE) serves this purpose. SSE organisations are submerged in the market economy but they have specificities not taken into account in this economy. The DCAP-SSE integrates terms from well-known metadata schemas, Resource Description Framework (RDF) vocabularies or ontologies, in order to enhance interoperability and take advantage of the benefits of the Linked Open Data ecosystem. It also integrates terms from the new essglobal RDF vocabulary which was created with the goal to respond to the SSE-specific needs. The DCAP-SSE also integrates five new Vocabulary Encoding Schemes to be used with DCAP-SSE properties. The DCAP development was based on a method for the development of application profiles (Me4MAP). We believe that this article has an educational value since it presents the idea that it is important to base DCAP developments on a method. This article shows the main results of applying such a method.

2025

Aligning Frameworks: Identifying Compatible Pairs of Digital Transformation and Maturity Models

Authors
Couto, F; Curado Malta, M;

Publication
SN Computer Science

Abstract
Digital Transformation Models (DTM) and Digital Maturity Models (DMM) are two artefacts that guide the planning and implementation of Digital Transformation (DT) initiatives. When used in a combined approach, a DTM-DMM pairing could support DT managers and practitioners, as DTs are holistic and complex initiatives with high failure rates. However, no study has yet systematically addressed the compatibility amongst artefacts. This paper, therefore, aims to analyse the compatibility between academic DTMs and DMMs. Based on architectural compatibility and conceptual similarity, we provide a structured and replicable mixed methods approach to assessing artefact compatibility. To achieve this, we start with a systematic literature review to identify existing academic DTMs and DMMs, analyse the models and group them according to their scope. After, we employ quantitative similarity analysis techniques (Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers combined with Cosine Similarity) and perform a qualitative compatibility analysis to establish ground truth. Based on this analysis, we apply the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve technique to define threshold values for compatibility assessment. The threshold values were used to suggest compatible DTM-DMM pairings, resulting in nine DTM-DMM binomials for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. The findings support managers and practitioners in selecting DTM-DMM pairs to guide DT initiatives while offering academics a mixed-methods approach based on the similarity analysis field to evaluate artefact compatibility systematically. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.

2013

Me4DCAP V0.1: A method for the development of Dublin Core Application Profiles

Authors
Curado Malta, M; Baptista, AA;

Publication
Information Services and Use

Abstract
Recent studies show that there is no method to develop a Dublin Core Application Profile (DCAP). A DCAP is a very important construct to implement interoperability, therefore it is essential to have a method to be able to develop such a construct, in order to give DCAP developers a common ground of work. This paper presents the first version of a method to develop Dublin Core Application Profiles (Me4DACP V0.1) that has been developed in a PhD project with a Design Science Research (DSR) approach. Me4DCAP was built having as starting point the Singapore Framework for DCAP and shows the way through the DCAP development. It encompasses a group of pre-defined interconnected activities, explicitly states when they should take place, what techniques could be used to execute them and what artifacts should result from their execution. © 2013 - IOS Press and the authors.

2025

Community-based voting approach to enhance the spreading dynamics by identifying a group of influential spreaders in complex networks

Authors
Nandi, S; Malta, MC; Maji, G; Dutta, A;

Publication
JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE

Abstract
Exploring a group of influential spreaders to acquire maximum influence has become an emerging area of research in complex network analysis. The main challenge of this research is to identify the group of important nodes that are scattered broadly, such that the propagation ability of information is maximum to a network. Researchers proposed many centrality-based approaches with certain limitations to identify the influential nodes (spreaders) considering different properties of the networks. To find a group of spreaders, the VoteRank (a voting mechanism) based method produces effective results with low time complexity, wherein each iteration, the node votes for its neighbors by its voting capability, and the node obtaining the maximum vote score is identified as an influential spreader. The major loophole of existing VoteRank methods is measuring the voting capability based on the degree, k-shell index, or contribution of neighbors methods, which does not efficiently identify the spreaders from the diverse regions based on their spreading ability. In this paper, we propose a novel Community-based VoteRank method (CVoteRank) to identify a group of influential spreaders from diverse network regions by which the diffusion process is enhanced. Firstly, we measure every node's spreading ability based on intra- and inter-connectivity structure in a community, which signifies the local and global importance of the node. To identify the seed nodes, we assign the spreading ability to that node's voting capability and iteratively calculate the voting score of anode based on its neighboring voting capability and its spreading ability. Then, the node acquiring the maximum voting score is identified as the influential spreader in each iteration. Finally, to solve the problem of influence overlapping, CVoteRank reduces the voting capability of the neighboring nodes of the identified spreader. The efficiency of CVoteRank is evaluated and compared with the different state-of-the-art methods on twelve real networks. Utilizing the stochastic susceptible-infected-recovered epidemic method, we calculate the infected scale, final infected scale, and the average shortest path length among the identified spreaders. The experimental results show that CVoteRank identifies the most efficient spreaders with the highest spreading ability within a short period and the maximum reachability, and the identified spreaders are situated at diverse portions of the networks.

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