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

Abstract: Link prediction is a key aspect of graph machine learning, with applications as diverse as disease prediction, social network recommendations, and drug discovery. It involves predicting new links that may form between network nodes. Despite the clear importance of link prediction, existing models have significant shortcomings. Graph Convolutional Networks, for instance, have been proven to be highly efficient for link prediction on a variety of datasets. However, they encounter severe limitations when applied to short-path networks and ego networks, resulting in poor performance. This presents a critical problem space that this work aims to address. In this paper, we present 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.