MEDIATED COMMUNICATION AND ELECTRONIC MARKETS by Ahmed Abbasi

347 Pages·2008·7.85 MB·English

CATEGORIZATION, ANALYSIS, AND VISUALIZATION OF COMPUTER-
MEDIATED COMMUNICATION AND ELECTRONIC MARKETS

by

Ahmed Abbasi

__________________________

A Dissertation Submitted to the Committee on

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
WITH A MAJOR IN MANAGEMENT

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2008
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THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
GRADUATE COLLEGE

As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation
prepared by Ahmed Abbasi entitled Categorization, Analysis, and Visualization of
Computer-Mediated Communication and Electronic Markets and recommend that it be
accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

_________________________________________________ Date: 04/17/2008
Hsinchun Chen

_________________________________________________ Date: 04/17/2008
Jay F. Nunamaker, Jr.

_________________________________________________ Date: 04/17/2008
Zhu Zhang

Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s
submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College.

I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and
recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement.

_________________________________________________ Date: 04/17/2008
Dissertation Director: Hsinchun Chen
3
STATEMENT BY AUTHOR

This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an
advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library
to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library.

Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided
that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended
quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by
the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her
judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other
instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author.

SIGNED: Ahmed Abbasi
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Hsinchun Chen, for his encouragement and
invaluable feedback every step of the way. There is no doubt that Dr. Chen’s guidance
played an integral role in my scholarly development. My four years as a doctoral student
have provided me with the enduring skills and fortitude which I believe will enable me to
succeed in future endeavors. I am grateful to my committee members, Dr. Jay F.
Nunamaker Jr. and Dr. Zhu Zhang for possessing countless wisdom, and the kindness to
bestow some upon me. I thank the department chair, Dr. J. Leon Zhao and the rest of the
MIS department faculty for their support.

My dissertation has been partially supported by the National Science Foundation grant:
“Multilingual Online Stylometric Authorship Identification: An Exploratory Study,”
(NSF #0646942, September 2006 – February 2008). I would like to thank my good
friends and colleagues in the Artificial Intelligence Lab: Siddharth Kaza, Tianjun Fu, Xin
Li, Daning Hu, Sven Thoms, Arab Salem, Hsin-min Lu, Chun-Ju Tseng, and David
Zimbra for their support. I am especially indebted to Cathy Larson for her kindness,
humor, and optimism.

Most of all, I am grateful for the constant love and support of my family, without whom
this would not have been possible. To my wife Saba, who stood by me through thick and
thin. My parents, who always led by example and taught me the meaning of hard work.
And my brother and sister, who have always been wonderful role models.
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DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, for their unconditional love and support.
Their commendable work ethic and unwavering principles have been an inspiration.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.............................................................................................11
LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………………….13
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………….15
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................17
1.1 Motivation.............................................................................................................17
1.2 Overview...............................................................................................................19
1.3 Analysis of Textual Information Types.................................................................21
1.4 Analysis of Ideational Information Types.............................................................23
1.5 Analysis of Textual, Ideational, and Inter-personal Information..........................24
CHAPTER 2: A STYLOMETRIC APPROACH TO IDENTITY- LEVEL
IDENTIFICATION AND SIMILARITY DETECTION IN CYBERSPACE..................25
2.1 Introduction...........................................................................................................25
2.2 Related Work.........................................................................................................27
2.2.1 Stylometry....................................................................................................27
2.2.2 Online Stylometric Analysis........................................................................31
2.2.3 Feature Set Types for Online Stylometry.....................................................36
2.3 Research Gaps and Questions...............................................................................38
2.3.1 Similarity Detection.....................................................................................38
2.3.2 Richer Feature Sets......................................................................................38
2.3.3 Individual Author Level Features................................................................39
2.3.4 Scalability across Domains..........................................................................39
2.3.5 Research Questions......................................................................................39
2.4 Research Design: An Overview............................................................................40
2.4.1 Techniques...................................................................................................40
2.4.2 Feature Sets and Types.................................................................................42
2.5 System Design......................................................................................................43
2.5.1 Feature Extraction........................................................................................44
2.5.2 Classifier Construction.................................................................................47
2.6 Evaluation.............................................................................................................54
2.6.1 Test Bed54
2.6.2 Experiment 1: Identification Task................................................................55
2.6.3 Experiment 2: Similarity Detection Task.....................................................62
2.7 Conclusions...........................................................................................................67
CHAPTER 3: STYLOMETRIC IDENTIFICATION IN ELECTRONIC MARKETS:
SCALABILITY AND ROBUSTNESS............................................................................69
3.1 Introduction...........................................................................................................69
3.2 Related Work.........................................................................................................71
3.2.1 Reputation Systems/Online Feedback Mechanisms....................................71
3.2.2 Stylometric Analysis....................................................................................75
3.3 Research Gaps, Questions, and Design.................................................................82
3.3.1 Research Gaps..............................................................................................82
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3.3.2 Research Questions......................................................................................83
3.3.3 Research Design...........................................................................................84
3.4 System Design......................................................................................................85
3.4.1 Feature Extraction........................................................................................85
3.4.2 Classifier Construction: Writeprints............................................................87
3.5 Evaluation.............................................................................................................92
3.5.1 Test Bed92
3.5.2 Experimental Setup......................................................................................93
3.5.3 Experiment 1: Scalability.............................................................................95
3.5.4 Experiment 2: Robustness............................................................................99
3.6 Conclusions.........................................................................................................106
CHAPTER 4: WEBSITE SIGNATURES: AN EXPERIMENT ON FAKE ESCROW
AND SPOOF WEBSITES..............................................................................................108
4.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................108
4.2 Related Work........................................................................................................110
4.2.1 Fake Website Types.....................................................................................112
4.2.2 Fake Website Features ................................................................................115
4.2.3 Fake Website Categorization Techniques...................................................118
4.3 Research Design..................................................................................................121
4.3.1 Research Gaps and Questions....................................................................121
4.3.2 Research Framework.................................................................................122
4.4 Evaluation...........................................................................................................126
4.4.1 Experimental Setup....................................................................................127
4.4.2 Experiment 1: Fake Escrow Websites........................................................129
4.4.3 Experiment 2: Spoof Sites.........................................................................131
4.4.4 Hypotheses Testing....................................................................................133
4.5 Conclusions.........................................................................................................142
CHAPTER 5: A COMPARISON OF TOOLS FOR DETECTING FAKE WEBSITES 144
5.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................144
5.2 Fake Website Detection Tools.............................................................................146
5.2.1 Lookup Systems.........................................................................................146
5.2.2 Classifier Systems......................................................................................147
5.2.3 Hybrid Systems and Dynamic Classifiers..................................................149
5.2.4 Summary of Existing Tools........................................................................149
5.3 Proposed Approach.............................................................................................151
5.4 Experiments and Results.....................................................................................153
5.4.1 Overall Results...........................................................................................155
5.4.2 Impact of Time of Day and Interval...........................................................155
5.4.3 Hybrid Systems: Combining Classifier and Lookup Methods..................157
5.5 Conclusions.........................................................................................................160
CHAPTER 6: FEATURE SELECTION FOR OPINION CLASSIFICATION IN
ONLINE FORUMS AND REVIEWS............................................................................161
6.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................161
6.2 Related Work.......................................................................................................162
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6.2.1 Tasks….163
6.2.2 Features 165
6.2.3 Classification Techniques..........................................................................168
6.2.4 Sentiment Analysis Domains.....................................................................170
6.3 Research Gaps and Questions.............................................................................171
6.3.1 Web Forums in Multiple Languages..........................................................171
6.3.2 Stylistic Features........................................................................................171
6.3.3 Feature Reduction for Sentiment Classification........................................172
6.3.4 Research Questions....................................................................................173
6.4 Research Design..................................................................................................173
6.5 System Design....................................................................................................175
6.5.1 Feature Extraction......................................................................................175
6.5.2 Determining Size of Initial Feature Set.....................................................177
6.5.3 Feature Selection: Entropy Weighted Genetic Algorithm (EWGA)..........179
6.5.4 Classification..............................................................................................184
6.6 Evaluation...........................................................................................................185
6.6.1 Experiment 1: Movie Review Test Bed.....................................................185
6.6.2 Experiment 2: Online Discussion Forum...................................................191
6.6.3 Results Discussion.....................................................................................195
6.7 Conclusions and Future Directions.....................................................................197
CHAPTER 7: MINING ONLINE REVIEW SENTIMENTS USING FEATURE
RELATION NETWORKS..............................................................................................199
7.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................199
7.2 Related Work.......................................................................................................201
7.2.1 Classification Methods for Sentiment Analysis.........................................202
7.2.2 N-Gram Features for Sentiment Analysis..................................................202
7.2.3 Feature Selection for Sentiment Analysis..................................................207
7.3 Research Gaps and Questions.............................................................................210
7.3.1 Research Gaps.............................................................................................211
7.3.2 Research Questions.....................................................................................211
7.4 Research Design..................................................................................................212
7.4.1 Extended N-Gram Feature Set...................................................................213
7.4.2 Feature Relation Network..........................................................................214
7.5 Experiments........................................................................................................223
7.5.1 Experiment 1a: Comparison of Feature Sets using Cross Validation........224
7.5.2 Experiment 1b: Comparison of Features on 10,000 Review Test Beds.....227
7.5.3 Experiment 2a: Comparison of Feature Selection Methods......................228
7.5.4 Experiment 2b: Comparison of Selection Methods...................................230
7.5.5 Results Discussion.....................................................................................231
7.6 Conclusions.........................................................................................................232
CHAPTER 8: AFFECT ANALYSIS OF WEB FORUMS AND BLOGS USING
CORRELATION ENSEMBLES....................................................................................234
8.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................234
8.2 Related Work.......................................................................................................235
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8.2.1 Features for Affect Analysis.......................................................................238
8.2.2 Techniques for Assigning Affect Intensities..............................................242
8.3 Research Design..................................................................................................243
8.3.1 Gaps and Questions....................................................................................243
8.3.2 Research Framework.................................................................................244
8.3.3 Research Hypotheses.................................................................................252
8.4 Evaluation...........................................................................................................253
8.4.1 Test Bed253
8.4.2 Experimental Design..................................................................................254
8.4.3 Experiment 1: Comparison of Feature Sets...............................................255
8.4.4 Experiment 2: Comparison of Techniques.................................................258
8.4.5 Experiment 3: Ablation Testing.................................................................261
8.4.6 Hypotheses Results....................................................................................262
8.5 Case Study..........................................................................................................264
8.6 Conclusions.........................................................................................................267
CHAPTER 9: CYBERGATE: A SYSTEM AND DESIGN FRAMEWORK FOR TEXT
ANALYSIS OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION...............................269
9.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................269
9.2 Background.........................................................................................................272
9.2.1 CMC Text...................................................................................................273
9.2.2 CMC Text Analysis Features.....................................................................273
9.2.3 CMC Text Analysis Systems......................................................................275
9.3 A Design Framework for CMC Text Analysis....................................................278
9.3.1 Proposed CMC Text Analysis Framework.................................................279
9.4 Kernel Theory.....................................................................................................281
9.5 Meta-Requirements.............................................................................................283
9.6 Meta-Design........................................................................................................285
9.6.1 Features for CMC Text Analysis................................................................286
9.6.2 Feature Selection Techniques for CMC Text Analysis..............................288
9.6.3 Visualization Techniques for CMC Text Analysis.....................................290
9.7 Testable Hypotheses............................................................................................292
9.8 System Design: The CyberGate System.............................................................293
9.8.1 Information Types and Features.................................................................294
9.8.2 Feature Selection........................................................................................295
9.8.3 Visualization...............................................................................................295
9.8.4 Writeprints and Ink Blots...........................................................................299
9.9 A CMC Text Analysis Example Using CyberGate: The Enron Case.................303
9.10 Experimental Evaluation: Text Categorization using CyberGate.....................307
9.10.1 Research Hypotheses...............................................................................309
9.10.2 Information Types Representing the Ideational Meta-function...............310
9.10.3 Information Types Representing the Textual Meta-function...................313
9.10.4 Information Types Representing the Interpersonal Meta-function..........316
9.10.5 Results Discussion...................................................................................317
9.11 Conclusions.......................................................................................................318
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CHAPTER 10: CONCLUSION.....................................................................................320
10.1 Contributions.....................................................................................................320
10.2 Relevance to MIS..............................................................................................323
10.3 Future Directions..............................................................................................325
REFERENCES ….………………..……………………………………………. 326