A parameterised model for link prediction using node centrality and similarity measure based on graph embedding

Abstract

Link prediction is a crucial aspect of graph machine learning, with applications as diverse as disease prediction, social network recommendations, and drug discovery. It involves the prediction of potential new links between nodes within a network. Despite its importance, current models for link prediction exhibit notable limitations. Graph Convolutional Networks have shown high efficiency in link prediction across various datasets. However, they face significant challenges when applied to short-path networks and ego networks, resulting in poor performance. This issue represents a critical area of concern that our work seeks to address. This paper introduces the Node Centrality and Similarity Based Parameterised Model (NCSM), a novel method for link prediction tasks. NCSM uniquely integrates node centrality and similarity measures as edge features in a customised Graph Neural Network (GNN) layer, effectively leveraging the topological information of large networks. This model represents the first parameterised GNN-based link prediction model that considers topological information. The proposed model was evaluated on five benchmark graph datasets, each comprising thousands of nodes and edges. Experimental results highlight NCSM's superiority over existing state-of-the-art models like Graph Convolutional Networks and Variational Graph Autoencoder, as it outperforms them across various metrics and datasets. This exceptional performance can be attributed to NCSM's innovative integration of node centrality, similarity measures, and its efficient use of topological information.