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    Home»Artificial Intelligence»Graph Neural Networks Part 4: Teaching Models to Connect the Dots
    Artificial Intelligence

    Graph Neural Networks Part 4: Teaching Models to Connect the Dots

    Team_AIBS NewsBy Team_AIBS NewsApril 30, 2025No Comments13 Mins Read
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    ever questioned the way it’s attainable that Fb is aware of who you would possibly know? Or why it typically suggests a complete stranger? This drawback is known as hyperlink prediction. In a social community graph, individuals are nodes and friendships are edges, the purpose is to foretell if a connection ought to exist between two nodes.

    Hyperlink prediction is a extremely popular matter! It may be used to suggest mates in social networks, counsel merchandise on e-commerce websites or films on Netflix, or predict protein interactions in biology. On this put up, you’ll discover how hyperlink prediction works. First you’ll be taught easy heuristics, and we finish with highly effective GNN-based strategies like SEAL.

    The earlier posts defined GCNs, GATs, and GraphSage. They primarily coated predicting node properties, so you’ll be able to learn this text standalone, as a result of this time we shift focus to predicting edges. If you wish to dive a bit deeper into node representations, I like to recommend to revisit the earlier posts. The code setup will be discovered here.


    What’s Hyperlink Prediction?

    Hyperlink prediction is the duty of forecasting lacking or future connections (edges) between nodes in a graph. Given a graph G = (V, E), the purpose is to foretell whether or not an edge ought to exist between two nodes (u, v) ∉ E.

    To guage hyperlink prediction fashions, you’ll be able to create a check set by hiding a portion of the present edges and ask the mannequin to foretell them. After all, the check set ought to have constructive samples (actual edges), and unfavorable samples (random node pairs that aren’t linked). You possibly can prepare the mannequin on the remaining graph.

    The output of the mannequin is a hyperlink rating or chance for every node pair. You possibly can consider this with metrics like AUC or common precision.

    We are going to check out easy heuristic-based strategies, after which we transfer on to extra complicated strategies.

    Graph with nodes and edges. We are going to use this graph as instance for the heuristic-based strategies. Picture by writer.

    Heuristic-Primarily based Strategies

    We are able to divide these ‘straightforward’ strategies into two classes: native and world. Native heuristics are primarily based on native construction, whereas world heuristics use the entire graph. These approaches are rule-based and work effectively as baselines for hyperlink prediction duties.

    Native Heuristics

    Because the identify says, native heuristics depend on the speedy neighborhood of the 2 nodes you might be testing for a possible hyperlink. And really they are often surprisingly efficient. Advantages of native heuristics are that they’re quick and interpretable. However they solely have a look at the shut neighborhood, so capturing the complexity of relationships is restricted.

    Widespread Neighbors

    The concept is easy: if two nodes share many widespread neighbors, they’re extra more likely to be linked.

    For calculation you depend the variety of neighbors the nodes have in widespread. One difficulty right here is that it doesn’t consider the relative variety of widespread neighbors.

    Within the examples beneath, the variety of widespread neighbors between A and B is 3, and the variety of widespread neighbors between C and D is 1.

    Jaccard Coefficient

    The Jaccard Coefficient fixes the problem of widespread neighbors and computes the relative variety of neighbors in widespread.

    You are taking the widespread neighbors and divide this by the overall variety of distinctive neighbors of the 2 nodes.

    So now issues change a bit: the Jaccard coefficient of nodes A and B is 3/5 = 0.6 (they’ve 3 widespread neighbors and 5 complete distinctive neighbors), whereas the Jaccard coefficient of nodes C and D is 1/1 = 1 (they’ve 1 widespread neighbor and 1 distinctive neighbor). On this case the connection between C and D is extra doubtless, as a result of they solely have 1 neighbor, and it’s additionally a typical neighbor.

    Jaccard coefficient for two totally different edges. Picture by writer.

    Adamic-Adar Index

    The Adamic-Adar index goes one step additional than widespread neighbors: it makes use of the recognition of a typical neighbor and offers much less weight to extra well-liked neighbors (they’ve extra connections). The instinct behind that is that if a node is linked to everybody, it doesn’t inform us a lot a couple of particular connection.

    What does that seem like in a formulation?

    So for every widespread neighbor z, we add a rating of 1 divided by the log of the variety of neighbors from z. By doing this, the extra well-liked the widespread neighbor, the smaller its contribution.

    Let’s calculate the Adamic-Adar index for our examples.

    Adamic-Adar index. If a typical neighbor is well-liked, its contribution decreases. Picture by writer.

    Preferential Attachment

    A unique method is preferential attachment. The concept behind it’s that nodes with increased levels usually tend to type hyperlinks. Calculation is tremendous straightforward, you simply multiply the levels (variety of connections) of the 2 nodes.

    For A and B, the levels are respectively 5 and three, so the rating is 5*3 = 15. C and D have a rating of 1*1 = 1. On this case A and B usually tend to have a connection, as a result of they’ve extra neighbors basically.

    Preferential attachment rating for the examples. Picture by writer.

    World Heuristics

    World heuristics contemplate paths, walks, or your complete graph construction. They will seize richer patterns, however are extra computationally costly.

    Katz Index

    Probably the most well-known world heuristic for Link Prediction is the Katz Index. It takes all of the totally different paths between two nodes (often solely paths as much as three steps). Every path will get a weight that decays exponentially with its size. This is sensible intuitively, as a result of the shorter a path, the extra vital it’s (mates in widespread means quite a bit). Then again, oblique paths matter as effectively! They will trace at potential hyperlinks.

    The Katz Formulation:

    We take two nodes, C and E, and depend the paths between them. There are three paths with as much as three steps: one path with two steps (orange), and two paths with three steps (blue and inexperienced). Now we will calculate the Katz index, let’s select 0.1 for beta:

    Katz index calculation for nodes C and E. Shorter paths add extra weight. Picture by writer.

    Rooted PageRank

    This technique makes use of random walks to find out how doubtless it’s {that a} random stroll from the primary node, will find yourself within the second node. So that you begin within the first node, you then both stroll to a random neighbor, otherwise you soar again to the primary node. The chance that you find yourself on the second node tells how carefully the 2 nodes are. If the chance is excessive, there’s a good likelihood the nodes needs to be linked.

    ML-Primarily based Hyperlink Prediction

    Machine studying approaches take hyperlink prediction past heuristics by studying patterns instantly from the information. As an alternative of counting on predefined guidelines, ML fashions can be taught complicated options that sign whether or not a hyperlink ought to exist.

    A fundamental method is to deal with hyperlink prediction as a binary classification process: for every node pair (u, v), we create a characteristic vector and prepare a mannequin to foretell 1 (hyperlink exists) or 0 (hyperlink doesn’t exist). You possibly can add the heuristics we calculated earlier than as options. The heuristics didn’t agree on a regular basis on chance of edges, typically the sting between A and B was extra doubtless, whereas for others the sting between C and D was the higher selection. By together with a number of scores as options we don’t have to decide on one heuristic. After all relying on the issue some heuristics would possibly work higher than others.

    One other kind of options you’ll be able to add are aggregated options: for instance node diploma, node embeddings, attribute averages, and so on.

    Then use any classifier (e.g., logistic regression, random forest, XGBoost) to foretell hyperlinks. This already performs higher than heuristics alone, particularly when mixed.

    On this put up we’ll use the Cora dataset to check totally different approaches to hyperlink prediction. The Cora dataset accommodates scientific papers. The perimeters signify citations between papers. Let’s prepare a machine studying mannequin as baseline, the place we solely add the Jaccard coefficient:

    import os.path as osp
    
    from sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression
    from sklearn.metrics import roc_auc_score, average_precision_score
    from torch_geometric.datasets import Planetoid
    from torch_geometric.transforms import RandomLinkSplit
    from torch_geometric.utils import to_dense_adj
    
    # reproducibility
    from torch_geometric import seed_everything
    seed_everything(42)
    
    # load Cora dataset, create prepare/val/check splits
    path = osp.be a part of(osp.dirname(osp.realpath(__file__)), '..', 'information', 'Planetoid')
    dataset = Planetoid(path, identify='Cora')
    
    data_all = dataset[0]
    remodel = RandomLinkSplit(num_val=0.05, num_test=0.1, is_undirected=True, split_labels=True)
    train_data, val_data, test_data = remodel(data_all)
    
    # add Jaccard and prepare with Logistic Regression
    adj = to_dense_adj(train_data.edge_index, max_num_nodes=data_all.num_nodes)[0]
    
    def jaccard(u, v, adj):
        u_neighbors = set(adj[u].nonzero().view(-1).tolist())
        v_neighbors = set(adj[v].nonzero().view(-1).tolist())
        inter = len(u_neighbors & v_neighbors)
        union = len(u_neighbors | v_neighbors)
        return inter / union if union > 0 else 0.0
    
    def extract_features(pairs, adj):
        return [[jaccard(u, v, adj)] for u, v in pairs]
    
    train_pairs = train_data.pos_edge_label_index.t().tolist() + train_data.neg_edge_label_index.t().tolist()
    train_labels = [1] * train_data.pos_edge_label_index.measurement(1) + [0] * train_data.neg_edge_label_index.measurement(1)
    
    test_pairs = test_data.pos_edge_label_index.t().tolist() + test_data.neg_edge_label_index.t().tolist()
    test_labels = [1] * test_data.pos_edge_label_index.measurement(1) + [0] * test_data.neg_edge_label_index.measurement(1)
    
    X_train = extract_features(train_pairs, adj)
    clf = LogisticRegression().match(X_train, train_labels)
    
    X_test = extract_features(test_pairs, adj)
    probs = clf.predict_proba(X_test)[:, 1]
    auc_ml = roc_auc_score(test_labels, probs)
    ap_ml = average_precision_score(test_labels, probs)
    print(f"[ML Heuristic] AUC: {auc_ml:.4f}, AP: {ap_ml:.4f}")
    

    We consider with AUC. That is the consequence:

    [ML Model] AUC: 0.6958, AP: 0.6890

    We are able to go a step additional and use neural networks that function instantly on the graph construction.

    VGAE: Encoding and Decoding

    A Variational Graph Auto-Encoder is sort of a neural community that learns to guess the hidden construction of the graph. It will probably then use that hidden data to foretell lacking hyperlinks.

    A VGAE is definitely a mixture of a GAE (Graph Auto-Encoder) and a VAE (Variational Auto-Encoder). I’ll get again to the distinction between a GAE and a VGAE in a while.

    The steps of a VGAE are as follows. First, the VGAE encodes nodes into latent vectors, after which it decodes node pairs to predict whether or not an edge exists between them.

    How does the encoding work? Every node is mapped to a latent variable, that could be a level in some hidden area. The encoder is a Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) that produces a imply and a variance vector for every node. It makes use of the node options and the adjacency matrix as enter. Utilizing the vectors, the VGAE samples a latent embedding from a traditional distribution. It’s vital to notice that every node isn’t simply mapped to a single level, however to a distribution! That is the distinction between a GAE and a VGAE, in a GAE every node is mapped to at least one single level.

    The following step is the decoding step. The VGAE will guess if there may be an edge between two nodes. It does this by calculating the inside product between the embeddings of the 2 nodes:

    The thought behind it’s: if the nodes are nearer collectively within the hidden area, it’s extra doubtless they’re linked.

    VGAE visualized:

    How does the mannequin be taught? It optimizes two issues:

    • Reconstruction Loss: Do the expected edges match the true ones?
    • KL Divergence Loss: Is the latent area good and common?

    Let’s check the VGAE on the Cora dataset:

    import os.path as osp
    
    import numpy as np
    import torch
    from sklearn.metrics import roc_auc_score, average_precision_score
    
    from torch_geometric.datasets import Planetoid
    from torch_geometric.nn import GCNConv, VGAE
    from torch_geometric.transforms import RandomLinkSplit
    
    # similar as earlier than
    from torch_geometric import seed_everything
    seed_everything(42)
    
    path = osp.be a part of(osp.dirname(osp.realpath(__file__)), '..', 'information', 'Planetoid')
    dataset = Planetoid(path, identify='Cora')
    
    data_all = dataset[0]
    remodel = RandomLinkSplit(num_val=0.05, num_test=0.1, is_undirected=True, split_labels=True)
    train_data, val_data, test_data = remodel(data_all)
    
    # VGAE
    class VGAEEncoder(torch.nn.Module):
        def __init__(self, in_channels, out_channels):
            tremendous().__init__()
            self.conv1 = GCNConv(in_channels, 2 * out_channels)
            self.conv_mu = GCNConv(2 * out_channels, out_channels)
            self.conv_logstd = GCNConv(2 * out_channels, out_channels)
    
        def ahead(self, x, edge_index):
            x = self.conv1(x, edge_index).relu()
            return self.conv_mu(x, edge_index), self.conv_logstd(x, edge_index)
    
    vgae = VGAE(VGAEEncoder(dataset.num_features, 32))
    vgae_optimizer = torch.optim.Adam(vgae.parameters(), lr=0.01)
    
    x = data_all.x
    edge_index = train_data.edge_index
    
    # prepare VGAE mannequin
    for epoch in vary(1, 101):
        vgae.prepare()
        vgae_optimizer.zero_grad()
        z = vgae.encode(x, edge_index)
        # reconstruction loss
        loss = vgae.recon_loss(z, train_data.pos_edge_label_index)
        # KL divergence
        loss = loss + (1 / data_all.num_nodes) * vgae.kl_loss()
        loss.backward()
        vgae_optimizer.step()
    
    vgae.eval()
    z = vgae.encode(x, edge_index)
    
    @torch.no_grad()
    def score_edges(pairs):
        edge_tensor = torch.tensor(pairs).t().to(z.gadget)
        return vgae.decoder(z, edge_tensor).view(-1).cpu().numpy()
    
    vgae_scores = np.concatenate([score_edges(test_data.pos_edge_label_index.t().tolist()),
                                  score_edges(test_data.neg_edge_label_index.t().tolist())])
    vgae_labels = np.array([1] * test_data.pos_edge_label_index.measurement(1) +
                           [0] * test_data.neg_edge_label_index.measurement(1))
    
    auc_vgae = roc_auc_score(vgae_labels, vgae_scores)
    ap_vgae = average_precision_score(vgae_labels, vgae_scores)
    print(f"[VGAE] AUC: {auc_vgae:.4f}, AP: {ap_vgae:.4f}")

    And the consequence (ML mannequin added for comparability):

    [VGAE]     AUC: 0.9032, AP: 0.9179
    [ML Model] AUC: 0.6958, AP: 0.6890

    Wow! Huge enchancment in comparison with the ML mannequin!

    SEAL: Studying from Subgraphs

    Probably the most highly effective GNN-based approaches is SEAL (Subgraph Embedding-based Hyperlink prediction). The concept is easy and stylish: as an alternative of world node embeddings, SEAL appears to be like on the native subgraph round every node pair.

    Right here’s a step-by-step rationalization:

    1. For every node pair (u, v), extract a small enclosing subgraph. E.g., neighbors solely (1-hop neighborhood) or neighbors and neighbors from neighbors (2-hop neighborhood).
    2. Label the nodes on this subgraph to replicate their position: which of them are u, v, and which of them are neighbors.
    3. Use a GNN (like DGCNN or GCN) to be taught from the subgraph and predict if a hyperlink ought to exist.

    Visualization of the steps:

    Three steps of SEAL. Picture by writer.

    SEAL may be very highly effective as a result of it learns structural patterns instantly from examples, as an alternative of counting on handcrafted guidelines. It additionally works effectively with sparse graphs and generalizes throughout various kinds of networks.

    Let’s see if SEAL can enhance the outcomes of the VGAE on the Cora dataset. For the SEAL code, I took the sample code from PyTorch geometric (test it out by following the hyperlink), since SEAL requires fairly some processing. You possibly can acknowledge the totally different steps within the code (making ready the information, extracting the subgraphs, labeling the nodes). Coaching for 50 epochs offers the next consequence:

    [SEAL]     AUC: 0.9038, AP: 0.9176
    [VGAE]     AUC: 0.9032, AP: 0.9179
    [ML Model] AUC: 0.6958, AP: 0.6890

    Nearly precisely the identical consequence because the VGAE. So for this drawback, VGAE could be your best option (VGAE is considerably sooner than SEAL). After all this could range, relying in your drawback.


    Conclusion

    On this put up, we dived into the subject of hyperlink prediction, from heuristics to SEAL. Heuristic strategies are quick and interpretable and might function good baselines, however ML and GNN-based strategies like VGAE and SEAL can be taught richer representations and supply higher efficiency. Relying in your dataset measurement and process complexity, it’s value exploring each!

    Thanks for studying, till subsequent time!

    Associated

    Graph Neural Networks Part 1. Graph Convolutional Networks Explained

    Graph Neural Networks Part 2. Graph Attention Networks vs. GCNs

    Graph Neural Networks Part 3: How GraphSAGE Handles Changing Graph Structure



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